How can I export to 10-bit in Studio? (Sony A7S III)

Get answers to your questions about color grading, editing and finishing with DaVinci Resolve.
  • Author
  • Message
Offline
User avatar

Bo_Hazem

  • Posts: 12
  • Joined: Wed Jul 28, 2021 12:13 am
  • Location: Salalah, Oman
  • Real Name: Muhammad Al Shanfari

How can I export to 10-bit in Studio? (Sony A7S III)

PostWed Jul 28, 2021 12:18 am

UPDATE: MainConcept.com plugin provides software solution. Tried the free trial version and it's working good, but you pay $99 for this.

--------------------
Keeping it short, the footage appears as 8-bit after exporting it when choosing H.265. Tried H.264 and it's the same, 8-bit.

Any idea about the best possible export method? I'm rookie. :geek:

Note: I have DaVinci Resolve Studio (17), not the free version.
Last edited by Bo_Hazem on Fri Jul 30, 2021 3:25 am, edited 2 times in total.
Camera: Sony A7S III.
PC: Asus Crosshair Hero VII (PCIe 3.0), AMD Ryzen 2700x, AMD Radeon VII 16GB HBM2, 32GB RAM, 1TB 3.5GB/s Samsung 970 Pro, 2TB SATA3 SSD, Windows 10 Pro.
Editor: DaVinci Resolve Studio 17.
Offline

Mads Johansen

  • Posts: 864
  • Joined: Mon Dec 19, 2016 10:51 am

Re: How can export to 10-bit in Studio? (Sony A7S III)

PostWed Jul 28, 2021 4:53 am

H.264: no 10 bit delivery profile
H.265: With nVidia hardware encoder: Select the Main 10 (or Main 10 4:4:4) to get 10 bit delivery.
(4:4:4 being the technical better quality)

Dunno about the AMD options.
Davinci Resolve Studio 18.6.5 Build 7, Windows 11, Nvidia 3060 TI, 551.23 Studio
Offline
User avatar

Uli Plank

  • Posts: 21107
  • Joined: Fri Feb 08, 2013 2:48 am
  • Location: Germany and Indonesia

Re: How can export to 10-bit in Studio? (Sony A7S III)

PostWed Jul 28, 2021 7:30 am

If your hardware doesn't support it, 10 bit H.265 will be incredibly slow.
Do you want to export HDR? For SDR, 8 bit is good enough for delivery. If you want to keep a high-quality master, I would use a format like Cineform or DNxHR anyway (or ProRes on a Mac).
Maybe AI can help you. Or make you obsolete.

Studio 18.6.5, MacOS 13.6.5
MacBook M1 Pro, 16 GPU cores, 32 GB RAM and iPhone 15 Pro
Speed Editor, UltraStudio Monitor 3G, iMac 2017, eGPU
Offline
User avatar

Bo_Hazem

  • Posts: 12
  • Joined: Wed Jul 28, 2021 12:13 am
  • Location: Salalah, Oman
  • Real Name: Muhammad Al Shanfari

Re: How can export to 10-bit in Studio? (Sony A7S III)

PostWed Jul 28, 2021 2:31 pm

Mads Johansen wrote:H.264: no 10 bit delivery profile
H.265: With nVidia hardware encoder: Select the Main 10 (or Main 10 4:4:4) to get 10 bit delivery.
(4:4:4 being the technical better quality)

Dunno about the AMD options.


That's a bummer. My PC: AMD Ryzen 7 2700x, AMD Radeon VII, 32GB RAM, 1TB 3.5GB/s Samsung 970 Pro + 2TB SATA3 SSD.

So now I have to buy an nVidia card just to have 10-bit? No need for H.265 or H.264 if there is a better solution that preserves the quality and 10-bit. Youtube would destroy the quality anyway but better keep it as high as possible before sending it there.

Uli Plank wrote:If your hardware doesn't support it, 10 bit H.265 will be incredibly slow.
Do you want to export HDR? For SDR, 8 bit is good enough for delivery. If you want to keep a high-quality master, I would use a format like Cineform or DNxHR anyway (or ProRes on a Mac).


Yes gave it a try and 8-bit will do in the meanwhile. Need to learn a lot on how to color grade and master for 1000-nits HDR then might post something in the future. Tried the Cineform and DNxHR, the make the fine from around 1.43GB to around 67GB! Maybe I've doing something wrong. :cry:
Last edited by Bo_Hazem on Thu Jul 29, 2021 2:29 am, edited 1 time in total.
Camera: Sony A7S III.
PC: Asus Crosshair Hero VII (PCIe 3.0), AMD Ryzen 2700x, AMD Radeon VII 16GB HBM2, 32GB RAM, 1TB 3.5GB/s Samsung 970 Pro, 2TB SATA3 SSD, Windows 10 Pro.
Editor: DaVinci Resolve Studio 17.
Offline

Peter Chamberlain

Blackmagic Design

  • Posts: 13852
  • Joined: Wed Aug 22, 2012 7:08 am

Re: How can I export to 10-bit in Studio? (Sony A7S III)

PostThu Jul 29, 2021 1:30 am

YouTube accepts a range of formats, plenty are 10 bit and many have much lower compression that 264/265 so your rendered file will be bigger but the youtube transcode will likely also be better.

https://support.google.com/youtube/trou ... 8402?hl=en
DaVinci Resolve Product Manager
Offline
User avatar

Bo_Hazem

  • Posts: 12
  • Joined: Wed Jul 28, 2021 12:13 am
  • Location: Salalah, Oman
  • Real Name: Muhammad Al Shanfari

Re: How can I export to 10-bit in Studio? (Sony A7S III)

PostThu Jul 29, 2021 2:17 am

Peter Chamberlain wrote:YouTube accepts a range of formats, plenty are 10 bit and many have much lower compression that 264/265 so your rendered file will be bigger but the youtube transcode will likely also be better.

https://support.google.com/youtube/trou ... 8402?hl=en


Thank you very much for the link, I've bookmarked it for reference. I've upload an H.265 8-bit 4:2:0 and looks pretty decent on youtube after being processed. In the meantime I'll just use that export or play around until I get the best possible export setup.

Also I'm very beginner despite having nearly a decade of "surface" experience with Sony Vegas (Vegas only now), Premiere, and but usually doing the basic stuff and my knowledge isn't as deep as most people around here. So I've seen a thread linking to this:

https://www.mainconcept.com/blackmagic-plugins#try-free

If I buy this I think it'll help exporting H.265 in 10-bit 4:2:2 just like the source but on a software level, not hardware accelerated (HW-acceleration only with 11th gen Intel/nVidia)? Slower rendering performance isn't really a problem to me, although hardware acceleration would've been great.

Thanks in advance.
Camera: Sony A7S III.
PC: Asus Crosshair Hero VII (PCIe 3.0), AMD Ryzen 2700x, AMD Radeon VII 16GB HBM2, 32GB RAM, 1TB 3.5GB/s Samsung 970 Pro, 2TB SATA3 SSD, Windows 10 Pro.
Editor: DaVinci Resolve Studio 17.
Offline

John Paines

  • Posts: 5777
  • Joined: Tue Jul 28, 2015 4:04 pm

Re: How can I export to 10-bit in Studio? (Sony A7S III)

PostThu Jul 29, 2021 2:39 am

You might want to question the usefulness of 10 bit 4:2:2 on youtube (how likely is it anyone will see the difference versus 8 bit?) but that aside, you could export an intermediate 10 bit 4:2:2 format from Resolve, and do a 10 bit 4:2:2 h.264/5 encode with (for example) Shutter Encoder. You'd need to select a 10 bit color space and force a main 4:2:2 profile.

This procedure might also provide somewhat better h.265 results, and with lower data rates, than you'd get with Resolve.
Offline
User avatar

Bo_Hazem

  • Posts: 12
  • Joined: Wed Jul 28, 2021 12:13 am
  • Location: Salalah, Oman
  • Real Name: Muhammad Al Shanfari

Re: How can I export to 10-bit in Studio? (Sony A7S III)

PostThu Jul 29, 2021 3:04 am

John Paines wrote:You might want to question the usefulness of 10 bit 4:2:2 on youtube (how likely is it anyone will see the difference versus 8 bit?) but that aside, you could export an intermediate 10 bit 4:2:2 format from Resolve, and do a 10 bit 4:2:2 h.264/5 encode with (for example) Shutter Encoder. You'd need to select a 10 bit color space and force a main 4:2:2 profile.

This procedure might also provide somewhat better h.265 results, and with lower data rates, than you'd get with Resolve.


It's mostly future proofing as 10-bit panels are the standard now and we're on the fence of 12-bit panels soon. Files are kinda enormous when I try to make 10-bit exportation, around 60GB/min which isn't funny. I'm sure I'm doing something wrong so would love if I someone point me into a video/thread/website with such details. :geek:

Thank you for your response. I've downloaded that encoder and I'll play around with it now and see how it turns out.
Camera: Sony A7S III.
PC: Asus Crosshair Hero VII (PCIe 3.0), AMD Ryzen 2700x, AMD Radeon VII 16GB HBM2, 32GB RAM, 1TB 3.5GB/s Samsung 970 Pro, 2TB SATA3 SSD, Windows 10 Pro.
Editor: DaVinci Resolve Studio 17.
Offline
User avatar

Uli Plank

  • Posts: 21107
  • Joined: Fri Feb 08, 2013 2:48 am
  • Location: Germany and Indonesia

Re: How can I export to 10-bit in Studio? (Sony A7S III)

PostThu Jul 29, 2021 7:19 am

You are doing nothing wrong. The so-called intermediate or 'mezzanine' codecs I listed are much better, but also larger than GOP codecs. They are good for storing a master version which can later be encoded into new formats coming up or used for re-mastering your film. I can only highly recommend them, since storage is cheap these days. We once made a test with multiple generations of ProRes 422 and H.264 (8 bit 4:2:0), where the 10th generation of ProRes was still close to the original, while the 10th one of H.264 looked like a crazy Manga.

From one such those files you can generate a H.265 version in 10 bit with free tools like Handbrake or Shutter Encoder, which will run on nearly any hardware (albeit slow too without hardware support).

While the plug-in by MainConcept is great for exporting some tricky broadcast formats fully adhering to specs, its H.265 export will not bring you much of an advantage. If you need fast H.265 10 bit export, get a Mac mini M1 and run DR Studio on it.
Maybe AI can help you. Or make you obsolete.

Studio 18.6.5, MacOS 13.6.5
MacBook M1 Pro, 16 GPU cores, 32 GB RAM and iPhone 15 Pro
Speed Editor, UltraStudio Monitor 3G, iMac 2017, eGPU
Offline

peterjackson

  • Posts: 1144
  • Joined: Sat Aug 18, 2018 7:12 pm
  • Real Name: Peter Jackson

Re: How can I export to 10-bit in Studio? (Sony A7S III)

PostThu Jul 29, 2021 10:45 am

10bit H264 422 also exist and might be reasonable quick to encode using preset medium on you system. Use -pixfmt yuv422p10le in FFMPEG.
5950x, 3090, 128GB.
Offline

John Paines

  • Posts: 5777
  • Joined: Tue Jul 28, 2015 4:04 pm

Re: How can I export to 10-bit in Studio? (Sony A7S III)

PostThu Jul 29, 2021 12:11 pm

Bo_Hazem wrote:It's mostly future proofing as 10-bit panels are the standard now and we're on the fence of 12-bit panels soon.


I've never understood the notion of "future proofing" -- folks will either want to watch your stuff in 2050 or they won't, format concerns really don't enter into it -- but your Sony A7S III camera footage is going to look the same whether the panel is 8 bit, 10 bit or 12 bit.

Production values, on the other hand, could make a real difference, even with an 8-bit camera.
Offline
User avatar

Uli Plank

  • Posts: 21107
  • Joined: Fri Feb 08, 2013 2:48 am
  • Location: Germany and Indonesia

Re: How can I export to 10-bit in Studio? (Sony A7S III)

PostThu Jul 29, 2021 12:53 pm

While I fully understand your skepticism, there is a certain level of future-proofing in keeping a mezzanine master. It'll allow changes to your film without severe loss in quality and encoding into more compact codecs possibly establishing themselves in the next few years.
Maybe AI can help you. Or make you obsolete.

Studio 18.6.5, MacOS 13.6.5
MacBook M1 Pro, 16 GPU cores, 32 GB RAM and iPhone 15 Pro
Speed Editor, UltraStudio Monitor 3G, iMac 2017, eGPU
Offline

Jim Simon

  • Posts: 29672
  • Joined: Fri Dec 23, 2016 1:47 am

Re: How can I export to 10-bit in Studio? (Sony A7S III)

PostThu Jul 29, 2021 1:30 pm

John Paines wrote:You might want to question the usefulness of 10 bit 4:2:2 on youtube (how likely is it anyone will see the difference versus 8 bit?
I find I do get better end results on YouTube when uploading a Cineform file. As I have sufficient bandwidth, this is my preferred method.
My Biases:

You NEED training.
You NEED a desktop.
You NEED a calibrated (non-computer) display.
Offline
User avatar

Bo_Hazem

  • Posts: 12
  • Joined: Wed Jul 28, 2021 12:13 am
  • Location: Salalah, Oman
  • Real Name: Muhammad Al Shanfari

Re: How can I export to 10-bit in Studio? (Sony A7S III)

PostThu Jul 29, 2021 10:59 pm

Uli Plank wrote:You are doing nothing wrong. The so-called intermediate or 'mezzanine' codecs I listed are much better, but also larger than GOP codecs. They are good for storing a master version which can later be encoded into new formats coming up or used for re-mastering your film. I can only highly recommend them, since storage is cheap these days. We once made a test with multiple generations of ProRes 422 and H.264 (8 bit 4:2:0), where the 10th generation of ProRes was still close to the original, while the 10th one of H.264 looked like a crazy Manga.

From one such those files you can generate a H.265 version in 10 bit with free tools like Handbrake or Shutter Encoder, which will run on nearly any hardware (albeit slow too without hardware support).

While the plug-in by MainConcept is great for exporting some tricky broadcast formats fully adhering to specs, its H.265 export will not bring you much of an advantage. If you need fast H.265 10 bit export, get a Mac mini M1 and run DR Studio on it.


Thank you for your valuable input. To me it would make since if I was shooting in RAW/ProRes but I'm using XAVC-HS which is H.265.
Camera: Sony A7S III.
PC: Asus Crosshair Hero VII (PCIe 3.0), AMD Ryzen 2700x, AMD Radeon VII 16GB HBM2, 32GB RAM, 1TB 3.5GB/s Samsung 970 Pro, 2TB SATA3 SSD, Windows 10 Pro.
Editor: DaVinci Resolve Studio 17.
Offline
User avatar

Bo_Hazem

  • Posts: 12
  • Joined: Wed Jul 28, 2021 12:13 am
  • Location: Salalah, Oman
  • Real Name: Muhammad Al Shanfari

Re: How can I export to 10-bit in Studio? (Sony A7S III)

PostThu Jul 29, 2021 11:07 pm

Jim Simon wrote:
John Paines wrote:You might want to question the usefulness of 10 bit 4:2:2 on youtube (how likely is it anyone will see the difference versus 8 bit?
I find I do get better end results on YouTube when uploading a Cineform file. As I have sufficient bandwidth, this is my preferred method.


You sum it up. I need the best possible video before uploading it to youtube. But I only have 50Mbps upload which isn't fast enough with 200Mbps download.

In the meantime I might buy the plugin from mainconcept if it allows H.265 10-bit 4:2:2 on a software level.
Camera: Sony A7S III.
PC: Asus Crosshair Hero VII (PCIe 3.0), AMD Ryzen 2700x, AMD Radeon VII 16GB HBM2, 32GB RAM, 1TB 3.5GB/s Samsung 970 Pro, 2TB SATA3 SSD, Windows 10 Pro.
Editor: DaVinci Resolve Studio 17.
Offline
User avatar

Bo_Hazem

  • Posts: 12
  • Joined: Wed Jul 28, 2021 12:13 am
  • Location: Salalah, Oman
  • Real Name: Muhammad Al Shanfari

Re: How can I export to 10-bit in Studio? (Sony A7S III)

PostFri Jul 30, 2021 3:25 am

UPDATE: MainConcept.com plugin provides software solution. Tried the free trial version and it's working good, but you pay $99 for this.
Camera: Sony A7S III.
PC: Asus Crosshair Hero VII (PCIe 3.0), AMD Ryzen 2700x, AMD Radeon VII 16GB HBM2, 32GB RAM, 1TB 3.5GB/s Samsung 970 Pro, 2TB SATA3 SSD, Windows 10 Pro.
Editor: DaVinci Resolve Studio 17.
Offline

peterjackson

  • Posts: 1144
  • Joined: Sat Aug 18, 2018 7:12 pm
  • Real Name: Peter Jackson

Re: How can I export to 10-bit in Studio? (Sony A7S III)

PostFri Jul 30, 2021 4:23 am

There are also low end Nvidia cards with the latest NVENC engine such as the GTX 1650 I believe. You might consider getting one just for that purpose.

At least in my area they can be found for 200 EUR on ebay. Twice the money, but probably 10 times the speed.
5950x, 3090, 128GB.
Offline
User avatar

Bo_Hazem

  • Posts: 12
  • Joined: Wed Jul 28, 2021 12:13 am
  • Location: Salalah, Oman
  • Real Name: Muhammad Al Shanfari

Re: How can I export to 10-bit in Studio? (Sony A7S III)

PostFri Jul 30, 2021 4:48 am

peterjackson wrote:There are also low end Nvidia cards with the latest NVENC engine such as the GTX 1650 I believe. You might consider getting one just for that purpose.

At least in my area they can be found for 200 EUR on ebay. Twice the money, but probably 10 times the speed.


This software solution from MainConcept seems to be enough so far, but would rather go for 3090 instead. I'll search more, thanks for your input.
Camera: Sony A7S III.
PC: Asus Crosshair Hero VII (PCIe 3.0), AMD Ryzen 2700x, AMD Radeon VII 16GB HBM2, 32GB RAM, 1TB 3.5GB/s Samsung 970 Pro, 2TB SATA3 SSD, Windows 10 Pro.
Editor: DaVinci Resolve Studio 17.

Return to DaVinci Resolve

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Bing [Bot], Dave Shortman, Leonardo Levy, Sam Steti and 111 guests