Capture formats, compression, 10-bit vs. 8-bit in Premiere CS5.5?

Cingular · #1 06-07-2016, 08:53 PM

I understand why people choose a capture that is less than 8 bit or 10 bit. Visually, it is hard to distinguish from a good compression format like DVCPRO50. Also, popular frame synchronizers like the Data-video TBC-1000 only process at 8-bit. Also, some capture methods do not offer uncompressed.

My argument for 8-bit or 10 bit capture has to do with the complexities of compression. If you capture at 10 bit and then compress to a H.264 youtube SD file a lot is lost. What are some good compression standards to choose when exporting a file from Adobe Premiere?

The thread below mentions, Huffyuv AVI, which is an old standard, which means that it might need to be re-encoded to a different standard sooner than a more recent compression standard. HuvvyHV also requires more technical knowledge of compression as it is not listed anywhere in Adobe Premiere exporting options and all the online references point to the fact that is quite old. H.264 varies in quality according to which on you pick. An example is “Youtube SD h.264” which is obviously not the best choice even though it is H.264.

http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...re-format.html

My argument is to capture in 8 bit or 10 bit and then compress if and when you need a smaller file size or for redundant copies to back up your 8/10bit originals. You can get about 8 hours of 10 bit on a 1TB hard drive which is $50.00 and if you purchase a larger drive less. This comes down to about $12.50 per two hours, which is less than one of those nicer DVCPRO tapes and closer to the cost of a “premium” VHS tape. If you capture to DVCPRO50 for example, that is a great compression standard, but if you later need to change standards a few times over the years I think you loose something every time you re-encode the video?

Does anyone have any idea which types of compression to export with Premiere CS5.5 that would be acceptable to the average consumer? These days people are generally content with garbage, they get garbage images from their cell phones, we get garbage voice quality, slow and inefficient internet, and who knows what other troubles from do-everything cell phones. This means that the average person just wants to see an image. How do you get to that standard with Premiere CS5.5? I see the MPEG-2 option, but which H.264? Are there any others that are acceptable?

Also, I thought that it is better to capture in 8 bit or 10 bit and then use compression than to capture straight to a compression method. Perhaps this is in part because it is better to edit in 8 or 10 bit than a lesser format but with VHS signal quality maybe that does not matter?

Here are other references from this site that talk about capture formats:

http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...t-quality.html

http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...hs-umatic.html

http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...l-dynamic.html

http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...al-format.html

http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...ed-bit-vs.html

bilbofett · #2 06-07-2016, 11:15 PM

HuffYUV and Lagarith and UTVideo are all lossless codecs. This means you will lose absolutely nothing when its compressed during capture.
IMO you cannot purchase a capture card that does "less" than 8-bit. Are there 6-bit or 4-bit capture cards?

So, capture 8 or 10-bit *lossless* using one of those 3 codecs to lossless AVI, and then edit/process in either 8-bit or 10-bit, depending on the program. Worry about the bit-depth of your target format *AFTER* capture, not before.
DVD and blurays are 8-bit color. Only 4k formats are saved in 10-bit color.
I think youtube uses 8-bit.
If you're not going to do any editing or post-capture processing, then perhaps you could get an MPEG2 lossy capture card, and captured directly to a DVD or HD (bluray) compatible format.

lordsmurf · #3 06-08-2016, 01:49 AM

Bits are about color data. 8-bit is millions of colors, and 10-bit is billions of colors.

10-bit vs. 8-bit is a moot argument in many cases because the source material doesn't even have 8 bits of data. None of the consumer formats do. And then your monitors/TVs can't see them anyway, as they're all sRGB type 8-bit displays. Same for almost all compression schemes.

In most cases, 10-bit vs. 8-bit is just marketing gimmicks.

Huffyuv is not old.

Premiere is just (A) a typical proprietary NLE, and (B) pushing you to use their own Adobe Media Encoder (which is using the MainConcept SDK). But Huffyuv is there is the codec is installed, as you can tell AME to encode to pretty much anything.

Huffyuv is an intermediary codec used for capture, pre-final encodes (ie, restoration passes, etc), and sometimes archiving. It's lossless. MPEG and H.264 are compressed formats used for final delivery/output.

Note that sometimes MPEG at high bitrates suffices for certain types of archives and captures. The workflow depends upon several variables. For example, I'd capture personal home movies to 15mbps MPEG, TV to MPEG with DVD bitrates, and restoration projects to Huffyuv.

Cingular · #4 06-08-2016, 09:51 AM

I am not arguing that VHS sources need 8 bit or 10 bit, but it avoids the complexities of dealing with Huffyuv. Type in Adobe Premiere and Huffyuv and problem threads emerge:

https://forums.adobe.com/thread/657987

http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/video-editing/3694-adobe-premiere-huffyuv.html

http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=587538

I have a lot of time devoted to computers, hardware and software and after doing a brief bit of research, changing the capture format to Huffyuv codec will take some detailed knowledge and thought.

If you have eight hours of a 10 bit capture, on a terabyte hard disk then you have a lot more data to work with. If a more portable or adaptable lossless codec than Huffyuv emerges, I think you will be stuck with Huffyuv? If you are not stuck with Huffyuv then you have to research a method of conversion. If you have eight or ten bit masters then you can pick any lossless codec, or compression format; more data gives more options for transfer with minimal to no loss of quality.

I would like to know exactly which export options in Adobe Premiere are best for final product compression for H.264 and MPEG-2?

If 8 or 10 bit capture is irrelevant then why do the last generation Frame Synchronizers have 10 bit and 12 bit processing? Perhaps these were intended for more professional applications like Digital-S or Betacam? Earlier frame synchronizers appear to be only 8 bit.