FS7: Client viewable files

A

antcaladine

New member
Im wondering what file types most people are giving clients at the end of a job? (to play on their website, presentations etc)
Reason being, now im shooting more and more 10bit 422 lovely footage, it seems silly to give the client an mp4 which is only 8bit 420 that adobe media encoder etc produces.
Sometime i've noticed banding on files which look fine in the edit suite as viewing 10bit.
So what do some of you provide?
 
My last job involved mixing with XDCam footage and handing the raw footage to the client. So we shot in MPEG2 HD and REC709 color. Tested MXF and his NLE wouldn't accept it.

Other clients need DVDs, so MPEG2 ends up being the delivery. Funny how most delivery is still a 15 year old format.
 
I always shoot in 10bit XAVC-I (be it 1080 or 4K) and then provide clients with either the XAVC-I rushes (if they are doing the edit) or 1080p H.264 (8bit/4:2:0).
I always record in the best possible format, after all, it's better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it.
 
at the end of the job the most important file I hand over is tataaaa.... the invoice.

Video file format depends on their needs and requests. For online distribution I mostly
supply a 25kbs MPEG-4 H264 mp4 None of my clients views on 10bit monitor. So better
take care that it looks good in 8bit also
 
Even delivery for broadcast will never be better than 8bit and most stations in the NE at least these days want mp4's. Some will accept ProRes but all are just FTP or similar uploads.

For WEB delivery almost nobody will see anything better than 8bit most will be much worse. And we almost stopped BluRay delivery and lets not even discuss DVD.

So none of my clients can see anything better than 8bit most will not even see that, consumer TVs really are bad.

I always use a 10bit evaluation monitor when editing, but I also output to a consumer TV, just to see how that looks as well. And I also watch on my Mac screen to see how computers may look.

The only delivery I can really tune is when I do a VISITORS CENTER kiosk, I have done a lot of these and Trade Show kiosks as well. Then I actually set the screen up and tell the client not to change settings and do my final CC to those 6 or 7 bit screens, some as big as 72". And it can really look good tweaked to a specific display.

I am not saying there is no distribution for 10bit, there is but it is very rare. Maybe in the future with Rec2020 etc becoming a standard.
 
Thanks everyone for your replies. Its kinda what I suspected.
In terms of getting round any banding issues, does anyone have any tips?
 
Unfortunately any gradual gradient is going to be banding. Just look at Netflix or broadcast TV even the Big Hollywood Studio movies band like crazy.

The problem is compression and bad TVs.

Short of "never shoot a gradual gradient" not much can be done. Sometimes adding some noise will help, but by the time it is broadcast or whatever it may still band. At least we are better off than the days of 240 line VHS.
 
To avoid banding when downcompressing to 8bit formats, I almost always use some sort of LUT or picture profile.
SLog3 is just not good for 8bit formats.
 
My experience with shooting low ISO settings on the FS7 is that the gradients are prone to banding when rendered out to h.264 distribution files. Throwing a little noise in to dither it seems to help. The relative lack of noise spells trouble with subtle grads.

One of the more challenging things I've shot was a red Lava lamp. The dynamic range from the bottom illumination to the upper parts being in shade, coupled with the pure redness of the wax blobs really doesn't go well with 8-bit distro formats. Another thing I found out is that S-Log 2 is the better option compared to S-Log 3, as it is less prone to clipping the red channel in this kind of subject. I'm going to go out on a limb is state that I think this will also apply to shooting fireworks displays.

Keeping the saturation without color shift to magenta is important. S-Log 3 tends to render the bright underside of the Lava blobs magenta. Lowering overall exposure to fix that introduces too much darkening of the shadows. It's a good thing the FS7 has all of these shooting options. There is no one size fits all. Sometimes you need a chameleon camera to handle vastly different shooting situations.
 
reviving an old thread; what would be the best file delivery for customers who want to watch on their "smart" TV but don't have a separate stand alone media player? (so, no media player, no wi-fi streaming)

tia
 
doubledark said:
reviving an old thread; what would be the best file delivery for customers who want to watch on their "smart" TV but don't have a separate stand alone media player? (so, no media player, no wi-fi streaming)
Click to expand...

Define 'smart' tv -- ???

My definition is that it can access the internet via WiFi. So I'd just recommend Vimeo.

Or if it's a not-so-smart tv that will play media files, give them a thumb drive with .mp4 files.
 
On-Set; thanks for replying.

I believe the TV (Panasonic Viera) can accept SD card, USB thumb drive and has wi-fi capability.

I've tried a USB thumb drive(tried Ex-Fat and MS-Dos) with various file formats (including .mp4) but the TV doesn't recognise the files.
 
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Seeing this thread 'revived' it is full of BS

You should not 'have' to get banding when delivering an 8bit file for display on an 8bit display.

An 8bt file should be able to be as good as an 8bit monitor can show.

Banding is caused by grading 8bit files being broken in the grade or over compressed (actually not banding)
?

here we can see compression not bit depth kill a file :)

 
Sorry, I thought it was a more general question about 'smart' tv's

If it's for a specific unit, you should do some research on that specific model number. I actually have an ancient Panasonic Viera plasma set in my rec room (still makes a great image) - but mine has no smart capabilities at all. Over the years they added different connection capabilities - so you really need to check the specific model number. I believe YouTube was one of the possible options for some units.
When you say it can accept sd or usb, does it display the contents of either/both and then not play the files, or does it not see the cards at all? (If it doesn't see the card, try a smaller card, such as 4, 8 or 16 GB)

But the best thing would be to find the exact product number and the search for that product's specs (or look at the user guide if they still have it.) I have a feeling that the name 'Viera' is about as specific as 'Trinitron' or 'Handycam'
 
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