How to edit iPhone 13 video (HEVC 10 bit 4:2:0)?

[Paul244826774phd]

Hi, I've been struggling for a while to do some simple editing of files imported from an iPhone 13. In the properties on the imported files, I see:

Type: MPEG Movie

Color Space: REC. 2100 HLG

Video Codec: HEVC 10 bit 4:2:0

I'm using Windows 10, and have updated to the latest Premiere Pro. The source videos look great in Windows Media Player. When I work on them in Premiere Pro, the colors are a little duller, and I'm not sure which one is "truth". But I'd hope that I could simply export to the same format and see the same colors in Media Player. I believe I understand the basics of 10-bit/HDR, and would prefer not to lose that information, given that Media Player does fine when playing back the source file, and future hardware that I own might show the full HDR data.

I've tried a *lot* of permutations in the Export dialog, as using "Match Source" seems to yield incorrect results. The closest I've come to truly matching the source is to use QuickTime, the "Apple ProRes 422 HQ" Codec, change the color source settingto "Rec. 2100 HLG" (it defaults to "Rec. 709"). This seems to capture the colors better than anything else, but the output file won't play on Media Player (VLC can play it), and the output file is enormous - input files totalling about 1.2GB are yielding a file that is 27.1GB. I can't do a true color comparison, since when I play the input files in VLC, the colors are simply terrible. So, I just know that Media-Player-playing-input is fairly close (but not exact) to VLC-playing-output.

I did try abandoning the HDR by applying the "SDR Conform" effect, but I can't get the colors close to what I see when I play the input files on Media Player. When playing the output file, all the people in the video look like they're ill, the skin tone is so wrong. Is there a particular LUT I should apply, or will that lower the quality further, i.e. is it applied post-SDR-conversion?

Any tips would be appreciated! This seems far more difficult than it should be.

[Ann Bens]

FAQ : Making your iPhone 12 and 13 footage look normal

[Paul244826774phd]

Thanks! I'd actually gone through that page a few times, but thanks to you, I went through it one more time, realized I'd never specifically tried "Encoding Preset (HLG)", and this time got a better result.

The outcome is still a little weird. First, my 1.2GB of raw footage still yields a 3.0GB file. Second, when I play back the input and output files on Media Player, the colors are noticably different (but the output doesn't look as bad as my other experiments). *However*, on VLC they look the same. Specifically, on VLC on Windows the colors are equally awful for both, but when using the VLC app on my iPhone, the colors look terrific.

I realize that my PC doesn't have an HDR monitor, but it's interesting how Media Player makes the video look basically the same as on my iPhone (not quite as good, but very close)... but only for the input file, even though according to the Properties dialog everything is the same for the input and output files.

[R Neil Haugen]

For now, the easiest path is simply set your iPhone to shoot in SDR/Rec.709, not HLG. Very few screens actually handle HLG or other HDR forms well at this time, and it's far easier to handle image values in SDR.

For clips you've already got, just select one or more in the bin, right-click/Modify/Interpret Footage, set the Override to Rec.709. Then both timeline work and exports will work as you're used to doing.

Neil

[allenwp]

With Premiere Pro 2024 I've had success by creating my project by selecting an HDR video from my iPhone 13 Pro to import when I first create the project. This sets up the project and sequence to match my original iPhone video format.

Then when exporting, I choose the "HEVC - Match Source - HLG" preset. This seems to give me a very good looking HDR video, just like my source, that looks great on my iphone.