For those playing at home GoPro’s Senior Director of Software Engineering ex-CineForm CTO, David Newman is in the know when it comes to colour space…
So when he drops some wisdom you better pick it up.
David explains the reasons when using CineForm via QuickTime the best setting for the most favourable outcomes is to use Force 16-bit encoding.
For those using 16-bit (deep color) applications, always use the Force 16-bit encoding option, it is the highest quality and surprisingly, it is often the lowest data rate.
Now for the weird reason.
QuickTime loves 8-bit, it prefers it greatly, and support for deep color is difficult at best. Over the years we tried to make the 16-bit the preferred mode for our codec within QuickTime, yet there are many video tools that broke when we did this.
The compromise was to add the Force 16-bit into the QuickTime compression option, to allow user to control the codecs pixel type preference – applications that can handle 16-bit will benefit, and applications that don’t, still work.
Well that’s our community service done for today….
You should head on over to David’s Blog CineForm Insider for the full and complete detailed write up on why using Force 16-bit encoding is the smart move… Go on then.