Understand encoding quality (bad)

Hello everyone,

I have a hard time understanding why davinci has such a bad output with youtube/vimeo settings encoding. (mov/h.264 when it doesn't fail to encode!)

No matter how much I crank up the target bitrate, the final video is horrible with many blocky/splotchy artifacts, and unacceptable pixelization.
I always end export tiff sequence, which is extremely heavy in size, and then export the audio. Very cumbersome and it makes me think of switching to another editing software.

- mp4 doesn't work (failed to encode, or exporting render raising up to ridiculous times like 20 hours and growing, stopping gets impossible and program freezes).

Does anyone know why davinci can't export better quality, or how to make mp4 work?

Thank you.

Which version of Resolve? What OS? What hardware (CPU, GPU, RAM, I/O)? What type of camera source files?

Thank you for your answer.

14.2
windows 7
dual xeon 5650, 48gb of ram
gtx780 6gb, gtx970
Sony A6500 xavc

Youtube mp4 encoding is working very fine and high quality in hitfilm for instance.

Any chance you can put up a few short test videos on youtube/vimeo for us to look at? I have been outputting to youtube (4k) and it is very watchable as far as I can tell. The only problem with uploading to youtube is that they re-encode it for their different resolution support.. not sure if that adds more compression to my already compressed file.. or if they use the file I upload at the resolution it is at as it is, and transcode to different resolutions... e.g. I upload a 4K youtube file. Not sure if that is the one they show at 4k, or if they in fact re-encode my file to their own 4k version as well as other resolutions.

I prefer to upload lightweight flavors of ProRes/DNxHD to YouTube. It will transcode them, of course, but I think the result is better than uploading H.264 directly.

Thank you for the tip.
Can you elaborate on what is "lightweight" for you?

There is nothing wrong with h264- just use higher bitrate not what Resolve does or youtube suggests.
Use x264 with CRF at around 13-15 and files will look as ProRes LT, but still will be smaller.

I prefer to upload lightweight flavors of ProRes/DNxHD to YouTube. It will transcode them, of course, but I think the result is better than uploading H.264 directly.

I think this is a wise idea.

Thank you both for these very useful infos

That is an interesting idea uploading the DNxHR files directly.. but at 300GB for a bit over an hour or so, that is a massive long upload. Most peoples home internet has data caps. I am fortunate I do not, but I would still be pushing a few TBs worth of videos a month, not sure even with my unlimited data that my ISP would like that very much.

The use of h.264 with higher quality codec is good too. What I typically do is select the YouTube preset, then adjust the resolution to 4k. What format and codec within that format do you select?

I select *.mov/h.264, or *.mp4/h.264

However, as I said before, I don't understand why quality is so poor (typical low bitrate artifacts), and cranking up the bitrate doesn't change anything at all.

And as an example, I do the same within free hitfilm, I mean I select youtube preset and boom! Awesome and clean output as expected.

Because Resolve uses poor h264 encoder.
Stop using it. Export some intermediate file and use x264 based encoder, Handbrake etc.

Now, that's an explanation!
Too bad, because resolve is a highend editing program, and because exporting intermediate formats (not mentioning audio!), is really cumbersome.

Anyway, at least I can rest a little regarding this problem.

Thank you again all

"No matter how much I crank up the target bitrate, the final video is horrible with many blocky/splotchy artifacts, and unacceptable pixelization."


Is it possible to see an example of what you are talking about - show us a video clip!

The project I'm working on is private, so I can't share, but what I can say is that it is typical squared artifacts of compression that we all know, and it has hard time getting a clean output in dark areas for instance, overall it's not really predictable.

The strange thing is that it should go away when raising up the bitrate, but it doesn't.

Resolve doesn't officially support Win7, and the main area where that's felt is h.264 handling. 4K h.264 export won't work at all, and HD (as I recall) will only work using the bit-rate option. Whether all this accounts for what you're seeing, can't say.

But, in any event, Resolve is a not good choice for h.264 export under the best of circumstances. And there are more pressing matters to attend to, if you ask me.

The project I'm working on is private, so I can't share, but what I can say is that it is typical squared artifacts of compression that we all know, and it has hard time getting a clean output in dark areas for instance, overall it's not really predictable.

The strange thing is that it should go away when raising up the bitrate, but it doesn't.

Please share media info of your recordings - camera - recording codec etc.

Best,
Ole

Now, that's an explanation!
Too bad, because resolve is a highend editing program, and because exporting intermediate formats (not mentioning audio!), is really cumbersome.

Editing is the key word. It's an editor not an encoder.

I do the exact same thing Andrew does, I just use a different encoder.

Thank you all for input.

Good to know win7 is a cause.
I shot with sony A6500 in HD xavc-100mb at 120fps.

The project I'm working on is private, so I can't share, but what I can say is that it is typical squared artifacts of compression that we all know, and it has hard time getting a clean output in dark areas for instance, overall it's not really predictable.

The strange thing is that it should go away when raising up the bitrate, but it doesn't.

Bad shadow encoding can happen when the bitrate is low or when there are raised blacks without any detail.

With how many bits per pixel do you encode?

The project I'm working on is private, so I can't share, but what I can say is that it is typical squared artifacts of compression that we all know, and it has hard time getting a clean output in dark areas for instance, overall it's not really predictable.

The strange thing is that it should go away when raising up the bitrate, but it doesn't.

Hi,
Do you have the studio version?

I have the free version

I have the free version

Hi,

Win 7 + free version : may be it's your issue?. Sorry

Now I understand that win7 isn't well supported for h.264, but would the free version have limitations in this regard?

Now I understand that win7 isn't well supported for h.264, but would the free version have limitations in this regard?

Studio version adds some hardware acceleration features for H.264, but I can't say whether or not it would help you here.

ok

h264 hardware encoders are not that great either (but maybe at least they allow for better bitrate control in Resolve).

I'm on win7 with Resolve studio and h264 is the same as OP is describing. What I do is export in quicktime dnxr and then make a nice h264 file with Encoder. Maybe I'll try directly uploading the .mov file as someone mentioned.

You can export lower variant of DNxHR and upload directly if you have fast internet- this is fine.
You can also transcode this into "good" h264.

I've not had problems with the QUALITY of the MP4s that I've exported from Resolve, but it's not all that fast an encoder... plus since most of my source material is Redcode, it's already dealing with a huge amount of data, and I don't have a rig like Marc's or even close (yet), so the extra overhead of h.264 compression really tanks my render speeds.

I'm getting the best encoding speed with Cineform rather than DNx, though I've uploaded ProRes (rendered with Scratch) 422 to YouTube. When size is an issue, I also render to an intermediate codec and then compress it with something that handles H.264 better than Resolve does, like LightWorks if I need to add audio, or Handbrake if it's just a compression operation.

Didnt know that about h.264 and resolve either. I thought my youtube videos from DNxHR looked a bit pixelated/crappy, but always assumed it was the extra encoding youtube does on my already encoded h.264.

I was also wondering about cineform.. does it save space compared to DNxHR SQ/LQ/HQ? Would it be better to use than DNxHR for archiving/editing with?

I'm finding that Cineform works well as a mezzanine codec, at least within a small group. I don't think that it has all that wide acceptance yet though.

I suspect that part of the YouTube pixellation is due to the platform's processing. It's generating various quality tiers from whatever you upload, and the client decides which quality tier to use based on the QOS it's seeing from your network connection.

I have the same issues as Steve.
Davinci doesn't stick to the set bitrate when I encode to h264.

E.g. I have a 4K (or even HD) timeline I want to encode for youtube. My (4k) source files are usually 100Mbits (Sony a7r III XAVCS). In the deliver settings I choose the 4k Youtube preset and then it doesn't matter whether I choose "Automatic: Best" or "Restrict to: 100000 Kb/s", Davinci will almost allways compress the final video way too hard. The resulting file then has something between 10-20kbps, which for 4k is too low.

My workaround is to use DNxHR and re-encode the file with some other program... but that of course means twice the render time.

If I can provide any more detail to this, let me know. This is a real pain in an otherwise fantastic program.

I am using Davinci Resolve 14.3 but I have this issue since I use Resolve (1.5 years)

Win 10 | 16 GB RAM | Geforce 1080 GTX | Core i7 6700k @ 4GHz

There is no need to select any presets which, in my opinion, are in dire need of some updating.

To encode for YouTube:

Format = MP4
Codec = H.264

Enable Network Optimization

Select 'Restrict to' and select the bit rate in Kilo bits per second.
So for instance 10Mbps should be entered as 10000 Kbps.

My problem was solved after I manually set Encoding Profile to "high" instead of "auto" in the deliver mode. Resolve stopped encoding wildy different every time you render and started to be on the target bitrate I specified. I hope that helps.

You will get some blocking in dark areas if there is a lack of detail and also some noise. When uploading to Youtube I use mp4 1080 50p and restrict the bitrate to 40000kbps. This helps to negate problems added by YTs re-encoding.

I haven't read the thread in the entirety yet, so bear with me if I rehash stuff that has already been asked/answered.

Taking footage from:
1) GoPro6 (jpg nightlapse mode) AND
2) raw(converted to jpg) files (Canon 6D).....the 6D images render HORRIBLY.

PIXEL BANDING to the extreme on the 6D images while the GP jpgs look 'fine'. seems to defy logic!
must be a bitrate issue.

------------------------------------
UD: Using AVI/gopro cine/yuv 10 bit/ 4k/best/
seems to have negated all of the banding.,...now will YT transcoding reintroduce it!

Since my last post over two years ago I have changed what I upload to YT. I now put my 1080p video in a UHD Timeline and render in UHD at 80Mbps. This negates a lot of the artifacts in YTs re-encode. I never use the presets in Resolve because the bitrate is far too low.
A good rule of thumb is never to render at a lower bitrate than that of your source material.