Banding on Quicktime Prores 422 10 bit videos in Premiere not elsewhere

[jamesdrakefilms]

I have a strange issue where when bringing in 10 bit prores 422 footage into PPro 22.4.0 on a M1 Max MacBook Pro, the files show significant ugly banding with a lut applied. Footage is from a Blackmagic cinema camera 6k pro and 6k (two camera setup) shot in their "film" log mode. When playing the files back in Quicktime or in Davinci Resolve 18, no banding issues. Strangely, if I export an h264 version from quicktime and bring that re-encoded h264 into premiere... no banding. 

When exporting, the banding still exists, despite checking "maximum render quality/bit depth" and trying a host of different export codecs. It seems to me the banding is happening either on import, maybe premiere is using the wrong version of quicktime or similar? I haven't seen the banding with other codecs. In fact, on the same project I shot some blackmagic raw files in the same setup same lighitng, and no banding in premiere (of course 12 bit, but the prores should be fine).

Take a look at the the two attachments. Both are exported frames from Ppro, both with the same lut, the prores file is straight from camera, the h264 version is exported in Quicktime and brought back in and lut applied. 

Any thoughts on how to get around this banding problem?

Thanks!

[Sumeet Kumar Choubey]

Hi jamesdrakefilms,

We're sorry about the poor experience. Does it export properly from Premiere Pro if ProRes hardware accelerated encoding is disabled under Preferences > Media? Would you mind sharing a download link for the sample media with which you are experiencing this issue? It will help to diagnose the issue properly at our end.

Thanks,

Sumeet

[eleazarw33251381]

I had this same problem, and it was fixed by turning of ProRes hardware accelerated encoding. I don't know why itcauses banding, but that fixed it.

[jamesdrakefilms]

Ah very interesting, how do you turn off the prores hardware encoding? Does it show banding in your program window before exporting? I have it during preview and during export 

[R Neil Haugen]

What eleazer is referencing are the twin option in the user Preferences ... for hardware encoding and decoding ... for H.264/5 media. Not any "ProRes" encoding option, as there isn't one.

Those options shouldn't be affecting anything other than long-GOP H.264/5 media, but apparently, on some systems, there are problems.

Neil

[eleazarw33251381 · Accepted solution]

Yes, I had banding in my program monitor as well. The setting can be found in Premiere Pro > Preferences > Media, it is a checkbox about Hardware Acceleration, and requires a computer restart. The setting should theoretically have no effect on ProRes footage but for some reason it does. I found this solution by reading the comment on this post, made by @Sumeet Kumar Choubey 

[jamesdrakefilms]

Round and round I went, yes it's been a long time since you posted this, but ultimately after many trials, this is absolutely the right answer for my situation every time. To recap, should anyone need this answer in the future, I am using a 2021 Macbook Pro with M1 Max and was getting terrible banding on otherwise beautiful 10bit Prores footage. My guess, based on your answer Eleazar, is that because Apple includes prores encoders/decoders on these machines that somehow the communication between PPro and these encoders is stuck somewhere with 8 bit. In Davinci Resolve, shoot even in Quicktime the 10bit files look great, but as soon as Premiere Pro brings them in, from timeline to export, I have crazy banding problems, UNTIL, turning off both Hardware encoding and Prores Encoding in the Preferences > Media settings as you brilliantly pointed out. Thank you THANK YOU for this answer, I can now rest easy knowing this one tedious issue is definitively put to bed. 

[Saimurai]

Where is the "ProRes hardware accelerated encoding" check box?

[R Neil Haugen]

Jarle Leirpoll did some amazing in-depth sleuthing on this issue.

Jarle’s Page on Max Depth/RQ

Read that, it's not long and very useful. Essentially, on the Sequence settings, also set Max Bit Depth (even though that just says it's for previews) and on export, maker sure the 16bpc option is used.

And let's hope there's not an M1 coding issue within Premiere on top of this stuff.

Neil

[morphinapg]

this solved it for me!

this should really be enabled by default for HDR sequences

[Saimurai]

Sorry if this is hijacking a post, it is on topic i promise, but you guys seem to know what youre talking about and so I wanted to ask you guys specifically rather than starting a new post and people who havent been working on this issue throwing in their 10cents. I've been experiencing the same issues as the OP but these work arounds and other posts' work arounds arent fixing everything. It seems to have improved the banding in the footage which is great but I can still see the banding in the likes of a lower third graphic (gradient from black to grey - see screenshot). It's visible in the program monitor and in the export. Now when I tick Maximum Bit Depth or Max Render Quality I get this warning come up about changing the Optimize Render pref to 'memory' and it IS set to 'memory' already. Is there a way that they are possbily 8bit graphics or something?

I realised that I had no option for 16-bpc because I have been exporting to H264 due to my client's needs (they couldnt open .mov files and the file sizes were too large for them to deal with) so when I change the export to Qt; the option for 16-bpc appears. But can I check settings with you all please? I clearly need to build a new preset for sequences. My sequence settings for the past decade or so have been using the DSLR preset. See screenshot. Should I be using a different one? I shoot mainly on a GH5 recording to a NinjaV in ProRes LT 4K/1080p. My output is often just for playback at events, etc not broadcast. Or perhaps its how I import? I usually drag and drop into a bin but I was reading that using the import method might be better? 

With the export settings, firstly I noticed that SDR Conform is ticked but I think thats the first time that's ever happened because in this project I was shooting HDR with some of the shots on an iPhone in ProRes and Apple Log. I tried unticking that also to see if the banding on the graphics was removed but to no avail. You can see my usual settings with the H264 screenshots (which is a prefered method of export for my clients) and then the new QT export settings.

So I guess what im asking is what sequence settings/preset do you use when starting off and what export settings would you use?