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M
ML72
Participant
October 5, 2017
Question

Banding with h264 and tried everything to remove it

  • October 5, 2017
  • 1 reply
  • 4927 views

Hi all

I am trying to get a film ready for festival presentation where the accepted format is a h264/MP4 file @25mb/s. The problem is my very first opening shot has a slow cross dissolve/fade in. For some reason I am getting terrible banding which spreads out to the corners like ripples in a pond and looks like utter crap.

Example:

I have absolutely no idea why it's doing this. This is on ungraded footage which was recorded in Proress 444 recorded at 12bits.

I've tried everything from turning off GPU, maximum render quality, maxium bit depth, adding noise you name it, but nothing works.

Is this a limitation of h264? If so what can I do to avoid this (except from a hard cut in)?

Thanks!

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    1 reply

    chrisw44157881
    chrisw44157881
    Inspiring
    October 5, 2017

    first render out as a qucktime png(8 bit forced dither), import that one back in and use neatvideo to remove banding, then finally export as h.264. its a limitation of 8 bit, so you have to smart luma/chroma dither with neatvideo after first dithering from 10 bit to 8 bit. tricky, huh?

    M
    ML72Author
    Participant
    October 5, 2017

    Thanks. Not tricky at all, but I tried that but do not see a forced dither option for Quicktime PNG. So I just chose standard 8bit output and re-imported into my project. I added Neat Video but it just made it worse. The more NR I added the bigger the ripples got. I added grain on top to be sure but it makes zero difference.

    Tell a lie, it made the bands larger.

    Cheers.

    chrisw44157881
    chrisw44157881
    Inspiring
    October 5, 2017

    do the bands get worse after 8 bit export or just after neatvideo? also, are you rendering max quality in ame? are you customizing neatvideo or just applying it as default? btw, neatvideo does not make banding worse, so you must be doing something it doesn't like. and increase your h.264 bitrate.

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