8 Bit YUV versus 10 Bit YUV

M

Matt Hoss.

Active member
Hey guys,

In my sequence settings, I've always left the video processing at the default "Render in 8 Bit YUV". But today I read an article on geniusdv about maximizing quality by setting it to "Render all YUV material in high precision".

I use the DVCPro HD codec, which is 8 bit. Would the higher setting supposedly make a difference? Which setting do you guys use?
 
It's not really going to add any detail or info into a clip already lossy- compressed to 8bit. The only exception might be; but I can't say for sure and I might be wrong, is if you run your footage though Color and do some effects or grading to it.

Others probably know this answer for certain, but I think the only *lossless* compression codec is REDCODE. I am fairly certain that DVCPro HD is indeed a lossy codec.
 
The high precision option does all the rendering calculations in 32-bit before down-sampling to 8 or 10 bit (depending on your footage) and if you have lots of effects going on it should help reduce rounding errors which will help things look clean.

From the FCP manual:
"This is the highest-quality option for processing video in Final Cut Pro. This option
processes all 8- and 10-bit video at 32-bit floating point. In certain situations, such as
when applying multiple filters to a single clip or compositing several clips together, a
higher bit depth will improve the quality of the final render file even though the
original clip has only 8 bits of color information. The tradeoff is that 32-bit rendering is
slower than 8-bit rendering, so you’re essentially trading speed for quality."


-A
 
The unfortunate part of that is that after trying the higher settings, FCS does take longer to render. And it doesn't even scratch the surface of available horsepower in a Mac Pro. At least 7 cores go unused. Shame. This was a timeline with Motion files dropped in.

That better change when FCS is FINALLY 64bit Cocoa coding.
 
Ryan, that's a pretty funny signature.

Seven cores go unused?!? That can't be. I have an 8 core myself and I'd hate to think that I wasted all that money.
 
OK.. ok.. I do see it go to about 500-600% tops( 5-6 cores worth ) depending on the task & the codec. But yes, check your activity monitor.

Or better yet, get menu meters off of VersionTracker.com for free. It's a sort of system dashboard that sits in the taskbar by the clock. And watch just how much CPU is used for each task you ask of FCS. It's disappointing for sure. But that's not to say that a Mac Pro isn't faster then an iMac. It clearly is. My point is that FCS up to version 2009 is still 32bit. and isn't multi-core optimal. Yet.

I would expect this to change when QT X is finally fully written with pro features & FCS is able to move on to 64bit Cocoa code. I hoped and expected this to happen with Snow Leopard and the next release of FCS. But either Apple missed their project deadline, or... well who knows except Apple. Rumors now state NAB 2010 as a possible next release version. I wonder if that's too soon to be true.

Until then, the only current FCS app i can get to full CPU usage is Compressor. And that's with the help of virtual cores/instances. Or a codec like x264Encoder which you can configure for multiple cores in it's preferences. Again, You can find that codec on VersionTracker.com
 
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