HDR video graded with FCPX and YouTube

[Oliver Peters]

This may be helpful.

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7126552?hl=en

Oliver

Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com

[James Duke]

I have done ALL they request in this and other recommendations – It does not work at all.
Do you know anyone who has actually done it?
Thanks.

[Oliver Peters]

I have not actually done this either, but are you viewing YouTube through a TV set that is HDR-enabled?

From one of the HDR sample pages on YouTube: “To view this video in real HDR you need a 4K HDR TV and a device with YouTube HDR such as Chromecast Ultra.”

Currently, to see HDR on a mobile Apple device, you need an iPhone 8, 8 Plus, X, or 2nd gen iPad Pro. Not possible to see (you won’t even get the settings options) on a desktop display.

The bottom line is that you may be doing everything right, but you won’t see the results to really know.

– Oliver

Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com

[James Duke]

Oliver,

I have been working with HDR for quite awhile. Of course you need HDR TV. I have many videos (here are the Spain travel HDR videos https://www.lifestorypictures.com/spain-travel/) mastered in FCPX/Compressor w H.265 and hosted on Vimeo, which, you are right, can only be viewed with combination of Apple TV box and HDR TV. YouTube, on the other hand, requires a combination of Google Chromecast Ultra and HDR TV. However because of the, how should I say, competitiveness of Apple and Google, Google does not allow HDR metadata from FCPX to “trigger” HDR content on YouTube. They recommend a kluge software called “Matroska Colour Metadata Ingestion Utility” to “dress” video with an “appropriate” metadata. I tried to use it – it does not work on Mac. I did not try to try it yet on Windows.

James

[Oliver Peters]

[James Duke] “I have been working with HDR for quite awhile.”

Good to know. It’s always hard to tell what level of knowledge people have on these forums. HDR is still the wild west. Sounds like you need to file support feedback to Apple.

– Oliver

Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com

[James Duke]

I did. In support, they have no idea. Their engineers, I am sure, do, but I cannot get to them.
On the surface, it appears that FCPX w HDR is cut off from YouTube.

[Oliver Peters]

This is all I see from Apple.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208283

Seems that you need to upload a ProRes file with the metadata. Maybe that’s the issue, if you are uploading an H.265 file.

– Oliver

Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com

[James Duke]

Tried that too – it did not work. But, in general, it is impractical even for a short film – too big.

[Devin Crane]

I’ve been testing here recently. So far I’ve had better success with uploading a HLG ProRes file that was mastered in FCPX with HLG color profile embedded in it. I’ve been testing on my iPhone X and looks pretty, the SDR version on my Apple Monitor looks good too. I tried uploading a PQ version but the SDR conversion turned out to be very low levels and dull.

[James Duke]

Davin,
I have not tried HLG. Did you compress video before uploading? I use LG HDR TV (has 1000 nits max) as my FCPX external monitor and as a TV test for uploaded video. Was your HDR PQ version proper on your iPhone X? Again, did you compress PQ version before uploading? If you compressed before uploading, what was the codec?