Here's a demonstration of the issue from community member & pro editor Phil Strahl
Problem Summary
In the video linked above, the user is testing the ProRes encoder’s different bit depth options. As you can see in their results the output doesn’t match their expectations; while the exports using the 8-bpc option looks as they would expect, the exports with the 16-bpc do not.
I'd really recommend watching Phil's video, linked above, for a visual explanation of the problem!
What’s Going On?
In this instance, the user has encountered a bug in our export settings dialog. Their expectations for what to expect – using the 16-bpc option should give a cleaner output than the 8-bpc option – are correct.
Unfortunately, that isn’t the case and they are seeing clear evidence that the image was instead rendered at 8-bpc. We are aware of this issue and will address it in a future release.
The good news here is that there is a very simple workaround: for any output where you desire the highest quality possible, simply enable the Render at Max Depth checkbox.
In the case of ProRes, this setting actually makes the 8-bpc and 16-bpc options redundant – if you have Render at Max Depth unchecked, we render the output at 8-bpc. If you have Render at Max Depth checked we render the output at (you guessed it) the maximum depth available to the renderer. You’ll note this is already the case for every other format as the 8-bpc and 16-bpc options are specific only to ProRes, which is also why this user did not see any issue when working with the Avid DNx format.
Hope this helps clarify any issues! Feel free to ask follow-up questions in the thread.
Caroline
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