We’re noticing crushed blacks when creating H.264s, but only at OS level viewing, and it seems to be carrying across when we post to Frame.io/online viewing.
I did some digging and what I believe might be happening is that the Color Range flag is being set to Limited, clipping the blacks. But again, only at OS level viewing, since I can bring the H.264 back into Cortex and see the full range. And so I believe that the flag is being used for online viewing as well.
I was using MediaInfo to get the color range data.
I may be able to get you something to try over the next few days. There are a few different variations we may need to try so we will handle this through email.
Looking at this some more, I think what we’re needing to do is put a Full to Legal 1D on the output. Talking to other post houses this seems to be a change from the previous workflow, where we left Full range media at Full for screens/monitors. I was most likely seeing “full” range on the PC because the GUI monitor was brighter. The Mac (where we’re seeing most of the crushed-ness) have a different color profile where it’s limiting view.
Does that sound in line with the way things work on your end? Would changing the flag to Full even make a difference?
Sorry for the delay. I don’t think changing the flag in the file would make much of a difference. A Full to Legal LUT sounds more in line with what we recommend for other color changes. The flags that you can set in the file don’t force Cortex to encode the video any differently.