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Color Correcting Uncompressed HD – 8 Bit vs. Float
1) Can someone explain why going to Color or Shake for grading in 32-bit float is better than 8-bit?
2) What’s if it’s just for a DVD. Does 32 make that much of a difference for a SD DVD?
3) If you were submitting a indy narrative drama film to major film festivals, what route would you go? 32-bit or just FCP 8-bit filter? Thanks.
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2 Replies
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Just to clarify, we’re talking about Uncompressed HD (originated as HDV, but converted to HD 10 bit uncompressed).
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[Script-to-film] “Can someone explain why going to Color or Shake for grading in 32-bit float is better than 8-bit?”
8bit is 256 levels of gray per color channel
for your purposes all in-camera recording is at 8bit10bit is 1024 levels of gray per channel
12bit is 4096 levels of gray per channel
14 bit is 16384 levels of gray per channel
16 bit is 65536 levels of gray per channel (about the total# of colors in CMYK per channel)“What’s if it’s just for a DVD. Does 32 make that much of a difference for a SD DVD?”
More colors = better color, smoother gradients and composites but harder to compress.
10bit is more than enough depth for your HD or SD content.
your HDV starts as 8bit 4.2.0 color on the tape
IMHO it is not uncompressed after an HDV capture, it is DE-compressed.
gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows
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