h.264 Export Desaturated/Washed Out

	h.264 Export Desaturated/Washed Out by Shawn Romano on Aug 23, 2008 at 6:16:06 pm Hi. I am using Quicktime Pro v.7.5 to export h.264 video. The compression itself is beautiful, but I have consistently had problems with the h.264 footage getting desaturated and slightly washed out. I have attempted to compensate for this by adding a filter in the QT export, which does help but takes much longer to render. Has anyone else had this problem? How can I address this issue so that what I'm exporting better matches my source footage? Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index

	Re: h.264 Export Desaturated/Washed Out by Shawn Romano on Aug 23, 2008 at 8:42:15 pm I did find a fix that worked. I just adjusted some settings in the exported QT. Thanks! Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index

	Re: h.264 Export Desaturated/Washed Out by Daniel Low on Aug 25, 2008 at 11:58:33 am Would you care to share with us what you did? __________________________________________________________________ Please post back saying what solved your problem. It could help others, and saying 'thanks' is free! Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index

	Re: h.264 Export Desaturated/Washed Out by Shawn Romano on Aug 25, 2008 at 12:45:09 pm Sure. I found a post about this issue on Andrew Kramer'sVideo Copilot blog. Here's what it said to do, and it worked: After rendering into a QuickTime/h.264 file, open it up in QuickTime and select “Show Movie Properties.” Highlight the video track then click on the “Visual Settings” tab. Towards the bottom left you should see “Transparency” with a drop-down box next to it. Select “Blend” from the menu then move the “Transparency Level” slider to 100%. Choose “Straight Alpha” from the same drop-down and close the properties window and finally “Save.” Pretty sweet. Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index

	Re: h.264 Export Desaturated/Washed Out by Daniel Low on Aug 25, 2008 at 8:10:28 pm Yup, that's a good fix, however Apple needs to get on top of these faults, as well as building a class leading H.264 codec before too long, Quickime H.264 is the bottom of the pile for quality and profile/level support. Workarounds like this should not be needed at this level. QuickTime is the best format out there and Apple needs to pull their finger out. Quickly. __________________________________________________________________ Please post back saying what solved your problem. It could help others, and saying 'thanks' is free! Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index

	Re: h.264 Export Desaturated/Washed Out by Shawn Romano on Aug 25, 2008 at 8:28:14 pm If I might inquire, what do you mean by "Quickime H.264 is the bottom of the pile for quality"? I assumed that it was one of the better compression codecs, seeing that it is a Blu-Ray format and all. Is there a superior compression technology out there? Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index

	Re: h.264 Export Desaturated/Washed Out by Daniel Low on Aug 25, 2008 at 9:32:07 pm Sure, H.264 is a standard, just like MPEG-2. There are a bunch of implementations from various groups and commercial organisations that produce H.264 codecs. A list is available here Apple is to be praised for bringing H.264 to the masses long before Blu-Ray or HD-DVD, but they have been lacking in features and quality support, much in the same way that iTunes MP3 encoding quality is easily beat by encoders like LAME. __________________________________________________________________ Please post back saying what solved your problem. It could help others, and saying 'thanks' is free! Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index

	Re: h.264 Export Desaturated/Washed Out by Craig Seeman on Aug 25, 2008 at 9:32:12 pm MainConcept H264 Dicas H264 are both better H.264 encoding. On the Mac side MainConcept is used in Squeeze Dicas is used in Episode Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index

	Re: h.264 Export Desaturated/Washed Out by Daniel Low on Aug 25, 2008 at 9:39:47 pm X264 is the best, according to expert tests. (and it's free) __________________________________________________________________ Please post back saying what solved your problem. It could help others, and saying 'thanks' is free! Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index