somewhat confused about the 8 bit full range option in a new project

Mindmatter wrote on 11/29/2021, 2:20 PM

Hi all,

so I thought I had understood that new option and worked with it without any further issue - until I ran into this situation:
In Vegas, importing an interview recorded with a Sony FS7, in 4k 10 bit 4.2.2. ( high gamma 8 mode, I assume full range ), the values seem to be reexpanded beyond full range. In my admittedly limited understanding, I suspect there is a missing flag in the codec, making Vegas think it needs to reconvert again to full range. I thought the full range option would directly display full range footage correctly, but strangely, the image here only looks correct when displayed in the 8bit legacy mode.

pic 1: full range mode

pic 2: legacy mode

Can someone help me understand what's going on here?

Thanks!

Comments

RogerS wrote on 11/29/2021, 6:21 PM

Try MediaInfo to see what the footage is flagged as. If it's 16-255 you might need to wrangle levels manually.

This thread shows how to find what your camera shoots and has tests of many cameras and settings: https://www.vegascreativesoftware.info/us/forum/survey-what-min-max-levels-does-your-cam-shoot--84677/

RogerS wrote on 11/29/2021, 6:27 PM

You can also right-click on media, go to properties and change the range to full if it's wrong for some reason.

Mindmatter wrote on 12/1/2021, 6:52 AM

Thanks RogerS
From the manual:

Note: If the color range is “limited” or “Undefined” in Y’CbCr format, 16-236 and 16-255 color ranges will be converted to 0-255 RGB (full range). If the color range is full, no level conversion is performed when decoding Y’CbCr format into RGB color space.
The media properties are greyed out and read " undefined": So that's the problem. Vegas actually reexpands full range footage from both the FS7 and the A7s, as they seem to be missing the flag.
Thanks for helping me figure this one out.

RogerS wrote on 12/1/2021, 7:50 AM

I see a good bit of Sony 16-255 footage flagged as video levels (Cine 1/Hypergamma 1 for example) that has to be set to full range and then adjusted to bring down the blacks. It's pretty annoying and requires special care in Resolve, too. Glad you figured it out.

Yelandkeil wrote on 12/1/2021, 9:38 AM

The very lately introduced 8bit-fullRange-modus is a "Bärendienst", if not a disaster.
Its detecting limitation (especially clips from early camcorders) makes many source material losing their highlight details.
If you're familiar with the Levels-filter for output range, use the legacy modus.