GH4 GH5: Working with 10-bit footage (monitor requirements)

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filmguy123

Veteran
What benefits does a true 10-bit monitor and a 10-bit capable GPU provide when working with 10-bit color?

My understanding is that for most of working with 8-bit monitors, we aren't seeing the true beauty of 10-bit, and the advantage for us comes from being able to push and pull things more in post?

What does a 10-bit GPU/Monitor allow you to see and do in a practical and beneficial way that I am not today on my GTX 970 and 2010 Apple Cinema Display?
 
filmguy123 said:
What benefits does a true 10-bit monitor and a 10-bit capable GPU provide when working with 10-bit color?

My understanding is that for most of working with 8-bit monitors, we aren't seeing the true beauty of 10-bit, and the advantage for us comes from being able to push and pull things more in post?

What does a 10-bit GPU/Monitor allow you to see and do in a practical and beneficial way that I am not today on my GTX 970 and 2010 Apple Cinema Display?
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Well you do see more colors and are better able to see what 10bit material really looks like but outside of that there is really nothing really bad about viewing 10bit on a 8bit monitor. In the end most people are going to view what you shoot as 8bit anyway so it can be a good idea to make sure what you grade actually works well in a rec709 8bit Color space. Grading by only viewing on a 10bit high dynamic range display could mean illegal colors or unexpected results to most of your viewers.

Where 10bit monitors are really worth it is when you know your delivery will be high Color like a theatrical release. Then you can grade in a space that better represents what the viewers will see. If your end goal is YouTube or optical then 10bit monitoring doesn't matter all that much.
 
Thomas Smet said:
Well you do see more colors and are better able to see what 10bit material really looks like but outside of that there is really nothing really bad about viewing 10bit on a 8bit monitor. In the end most people are going to view what you shoot as 8bit anyway so it can be a good idea to make sure what you grade actually works well in a rec709 8bit Color space. Grading by only viewing on a 10bit high dynamic range display could mean illegal colors or unexpected results to most of your viewers.
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Bit depth and gamut are really two different things, Rec709 8 bit or Rec709 10bit are exactly the same gamut wise and also the transfer functions are identical except that for 10 bit they are 4 times as large.
 
Thomas Smet said:
If your end goal is YouTube or optical then 10bit monitoring doesn't matter all that much.
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It is possible to upload 10-bit (HDR) videos to YouTube in the Rec. 2020 color space:
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7126552?hl=en

Although you'll need either a Chromecast Ultra or a 2016 (or later) Samsung HDR-capable TV to be able to play them in their 10-bit glory. Still, that may be the easiest way of actually delivering HDR content to people for the time being (short of a distribution deal with Netflix or Amazon). And I'm sure the range of supported playback devices will improve in the future.

But probably the vast majority of people shooting 10-bit content are delivering in SDR. And I would guess this will remain true for the next couple of years or so. Because even though sales of 4K TVs are picking up steam (4K sets accounted for about 25% of all TVs sold in 2016, and are expected to hit 40% in 2017), less than 10% of these 4K panels were 10-bit HDR capable.
 
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Cary Knoop said:
Bit depth and gamut are really two different things, Rec709 8 bit or Rec709 10bit are exactly the same gamut wise and also the transfer functions are identical except that for 10 bit they are 4 times as large.
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Yes but what I said still stands true. Of course rec709 can be 10bit, I was shooting and editing 10bit for decades for broadcast projects. My point is that the vast majority of people can only view 8bit so it is important to keep that in mind. At the end of the day viewing 10bit on a good 8bit monitor is not losing much. Some extra potential for banding colors but thats about it. Same as people for years viewing 8bit computers on 6bit LCD panels. Outside of a bit of banding the overall look doesn't really change. Its like having a car that can go 100mph and wanting one that can go 105mph. Not much in real world use of those cars is really going to change. The same is true of color sub sampling really. We all have this myth that 4:2:0 is horrible but when dealing with 4k there is such a minor visual difference between 4:2:0 and 4:2:2. In terms of numbers all these things seem like they are huge but in practice they have a much more subtle impact on what we do. We are talking splitting hairs in most cases.

without a doubt having a 10bit monitor can be nice but is it worth it to the end product is what is debatable. If you work in a full 10bit environment then yes it is important. If you work in broadcast or theatrical release then yes you should keep everything in a 10bit chain. For everything else it just becomes a neat toy that looks really good in your own studio. If one is an absolute freak about viewing every pixel exactly the way they shot it then yes get a 10bit monitor. If one is ok viewing in their likely 8bit video world they will live in then a good quality true 8bit monitor will be just as productive.

It is important to keep in mind that a good broadcast monitor (Not some random computer LCD) will typically be 10bit. I tend to not use computer displays connected directly to a computer but video monitors hooked up to Blackmagic video output cards. This is the best way to have a true broadcast video output. I'm not a fan of the computer monitor 10bit route as it still isn't a true broadcast display. Going the 10bit computer display route is really about the editors own personal satisfaction than anything else.
 
davedv said:
It is possible to upload 10-bit (HDR) videos to YouTube in the Rec. 2020 color space:
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7126552?hl=en

Although you'll need either a Chromecast Ultra or a 2016 (or later) Samsung HDR-capable TV to be able to play them in their 10-bit glory. Still, that may be the easiest way of actually delivering HDR content to people for the time being (short of a distribution deal with Netflix or Amazon). And I'm sure the range of supported playback devices will improve in the future.

But probably the vast majority of people shooting 10-bit (HDR) content are delivering in SDR. And I would guess this will remain true for the next couple of years or so. Because even though sales of 4K TVs are picking up steam (4K sets accounted for about 25% of all TVs sold in 2016, and are expected to hit 40% in 2017), less than 10% of these 4K panels were 10-bit HDR capable.
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It is going to be a very long time before rec2020 is the normal standard. Picking up steam is one thing but as long as a good chunk of the user base will not have rec2020 videos will have to be produced to still look good at rec709 8bit. No typical viewer is going to have a rec709 10bit monitor. It will never happen.

I am excited by the prospect of leaving the dinosaur known as rec709 in the history books but its adoption is not the same as the adoption to HD which was forced. Rec202 will trickle in very slowly and we will likely be faced with a situation like DVD and Bu-ray where both will be in production together for a very long time. This is where shooting log and raw will become more important since they can be easily converted to either color space with little to no damage. I don't support rec2020 yet but I'm gearing up for having to eventually deliver both from a single project.
 
Thomas Smet said:
I am excited by the prospect of leaving the dinosaur known as rec709 in the history books but its adoption is not the same as the adoption to HD which was forced. Rec202 will trickle in very slowly and we will likely be faced with a situation like DVD and Bu-ray where both will be in production together for a very long time. This is where shooting log and raw will become more important since they can be easily converted to either color space with little to no damage. I don't support rec2020 yet but I'm gearing up for having to eventually deliver both from a single project.
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Makes sense!

Content providers have to look into the future because presumably their content is not only made for today's displays but also for tomorrow's displays!
That makes ACES attractive as a workflow.
 
10bit acquisition is not really appropriate for 10bit delivery I would suggest.

I would consider 10bit an acquisition format for 8bit delivery.

I would therefore stick with the 8bit monitor ?

When you grade you will enjoy your 10bit footage as it will fall apart less quickly than your 8bit footage (if you have any)
 
Ok, so when purchasing a new monitor, 10-bit shouldn't be a priority consideration at this time? (By the time I am capturing 12-bit to deliver in 10-bit, I'll be looking for a new monitor anyway!)
 
If it were me, I might look at getting one of the new low cost 10-bit monitors from OSEE. They are releasing a few different models at NAB like a 7", 17", 23", and they really do fit a number of useful features into their lower cost monitors. I have a pair of their LCM156-E portable monitors and have been pleased as punch with what they offer for such an affordable price.


Dave
 
David W. Jones said:
If it were me, I might look at getting one of the new low cost 10-bit monitors from OSEE. They are releasing a few different models at NAB like a 7", 17", 23", and they really do fit a number of useful features into their lower cost monitors. I have a pair of their LCM156-E portable monitors and have been pleased as punch with what they offer for such an affordable price.
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Interesting, gotta look into this. Plus they are practically down the street from me.
 
filmguy123 said:
Ok, so when purchasing a new monitor, 10-bit shouldn't be a priority consideration at this time? (By the time I am capturing 12-bit to deliver in 10-bit, I'll be looking for a new monitor anyway!)
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It is more important to look for an accurate monitor vs one that is 10bit. 10bit doesn't mean it is a great grading monitor. Just means it can display 4x the colors. What you want is an accurate monitor and one that works well for grading. I would take a well calibrated 100% perfect 8bit grading monitor over an average quality 10bit monitor any day of the week.

I also find the way you use that monitor to be just as important. For example use a true video output if you are grading for a rec709 world nothing beats actually using a rec709 monitor and a true rec709 video output. This also means making sure you stick to a 16-235 luminance range and keep everything as pure as possible. 0-255 may cram a bit more out of the 8bit space but for devices tend to live in a 16-235 world and its best to keep video that way until we move to rec2020.

If you are working on a DCI P3 cinema distribution things change but how many of us can really say we are doing that. Again this is why log and raw are such important formats going forward. We tend to hear about how we should shoot log to get a bit more dynamic range out of a camera but there is so much more to log and raw than just that. That is just a benefit of the format. Really log is about eliminating as much processing in camera as possible and having a starting color space that supports moving to any other color space. From log and raw you can deliver P3, rec2020, rec709 or whatever other odd format you can think of.
 
If you can't see banding on your 8-bit monitor, then there's little reason to upgrade to 10 bits just for the sake of having 10 bits.

There are some other reasons, however, to choose a monitor with 10 bits.

If your monitor has a color space emulation mode (e.g., a wide gamut monitor with an sRGB emulation mode), the image will be rendered without additional color precision errors if the panel is 10 bits and the monitor does its internal color space transformation in high precision. Most high-end wide gamut displays fall in this category. You can feed the monitor an 8-bit signal and still realize this benefit. There's very good reason to choose a monitor of this type: they tend to have much better color accuracy, and you get that benefit without having to use any calibration or color management in your PC. I recommend this type of monitor for everyone who's serious about video production.

When loading 1D calibration curves into your video card, if the connection to the monitor is only 8 bits, it will introduce color precision errors that effectively reduce the color precision to worse than 8 bits. This doesn't happen with a 10-bit monitor. Most people wouldn't be using calibration curves. If you calibrate your monitor with a color calibration device and have your operating system load the resulting ICC profile with embedded calibration curves, then the calibration curves are loaded into the video card. f.lux is an example of an application that directly loads calibration curves, without using calibration or ICCs. It adjusts the white point of the monitor's image when the sun goes down.

If you want to actually render and see images in 10-bit precision, it requires every part of your image chain to support 10-bit precision: the panel, the monitor, the video card, the link between them, the operating system, and the application. Very few applications support 10-bit display.
 
Thomas Smet said:
It is going to be a very long time before rec2020 is the normal standard. Picking up steam is one thing but as long as a good chunk of the user base will not have rec2020 videos will have to be produced to still look good at rec709 8bit. No typical viewer is going to have a rec709 10bit monitor. It will never happen.
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Yeah, it'll be a while before Rec. 2020 support is ubiquitous. Keep in mind that none of the currently available 4K TVs are capable of reproducing the full Rec. 2020 color space. Most of the 10-bit HDR-capable displays are only capable of reproducing the DCI-P3 color space (if that):
http://www.rtings.com/tv/tests/picture-quality/wide-color-gamut-rec-709-dci-p3-rec-2020

And even Sony's high end $30k OLED reference monitors like the BVM-X300 only cover 80% of Rec. 2020:
https://pro.sony.com/bbsc/ssr/cat-hdr/cat-hdr1/product-BVMX300/2

Recent estimates are that by the year 2020 about 30% of the 4K TVs sold will have 10-bit HDR-capable panels. But they also think that the majority of 4K TVs sold in the future will be capable of handling HDR video formats (like HDR10 or Dolby Vision), even though most of the panels themselves will only be 8-bit:
https://technology.ihs.com/584538/h...t-more-than-four-times-larger-ihs-markit-says
 
My Sony 850C can view Rec.2020 HDR footage as well. You ain't watched TV until you've watched Rec.2020 done right!!!
 
BT.2020 is irrelevant as a television standard. While BT.2020 specifies a larger gamut and it can support a large dynamic range, it was never fully specified as an HDR display standard. Only a handful of displays have any kind of BT.2020 support, and few new displays are likely to. So let's stop talking about BT.2020. There's no such thing as BT.2020 HDR.

The one important element of BT.2020 its primary chromaticities and white point, which have been adopted for Dolby Vision, HDR10, and Hybrid Log Gamma. The primaries and white part are merely one part of a specification of how colors are represented in the video signals. It's not an indication of the gamut of the display.
 
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