@Yelandkeil @Illusion @Musicvid now i have a better view of the problem, I produce audio and I am always dealing with sample rates, bit resolutions, dithering and stuff like that..

@john_dennis understood, the files come from the Sony DSC-QX30 (16:9 option active)

Thank you all

"I haven't stopped looking."

I looked at a sample of the files from all my digital cameras and they all record JPG stills at 4:2:2 in spite of what I output from Photoshop. These days I shoot RAW stills.

Tourist Information

Here is what Vegas Pro 19-643 outputs when one Save(s) Snapshot to File...

All else being equal, 8 bit 4:4:4 RGB will show less "apparent" banding than 4:2:0.

10 bit 4:2:0 will show about the same amount of apparent banding as 8 bit 4:4:4, making it a suitable intermediate format, again all else being equal. These are the somewhat subjective conclusions we came to from collaborative testing with Laurence fully a decade ago.

If I stop the video I see these strange "waves" in the sky during the fade out, and I see these "things"also during playback

With the other image the problem is minimized because the fade in is pretty fast, but with slow fades (to/from black) I can see the artifacts.

It probably also depends on the type of video player, but I have tried different video players and the result is the same

@john.b & everyone else, The waves/banding after the transition apparently isn't the problem, neither is the pixelation of the sky, so where are these 'artifacts', this is doing my head in, can someone post a screenshot with a big red arrow pls 🧐🤔🥴😂👍

For smooth gradients try to get the sensor more light (wider aperture, drag the shutter a bit, fake it with a stills timelapse) as there just isn't much data to work with in the darkest stops of an 8-bit video. Further editing just makes this more apparent.

@Former user😁😁, your eyes may not see artifact/banding/wave, but monitoringTools see it deep into bones.

1, VEGAS color gradient pic.

2, make a drama out of the pic.

3, fade means the signal parameter been changed (gradually from a to b etc.) e.g. gamma, shadow, highlight...