I’ve written about this before, but it’s worth bringing up again as I keep coming across people that are convinced there is a banding issue with their camera or their footage. Most commonly they have shot a clear blue sky or a plain wall and when they start to edit or grade their content they see banding in the footage.
Most of the cameras on the market today have good quality 10 bit codecs and there is no reason why you should ever see banding in a 10 bit recording, it’s actually fairly uncommon in 8 bit recordings unless they are very compressed or a lot of noise reduction has been used.
So – why are these people seeing banding in their footage?
99% of the time it is because of their monitoring.
Don’t be at all surprised if you see banding in footage if you view the content on a computer monitor or other monitor connected via a computers own HDMI port or a graphics card HDMI port. When monitoring this way it is very, very common to see banding that isn’t really there. If this is what you are using there will be no way to be sure whether any banding you see is real or not (about the only exception to this is the screen of the new M1 laptops). There are so many level translations between the colourspace and bit depth of the source video files, the computer desktop, the HDMI output and the monitors setup that banding is often introduced somewhere in the chain. Very often the source clips will be 10 bit YCbCr, the computer might be using a 16 bit or 24 bit colour mode and then the HDMI might only be 8 bit RGB. Plus the gamma of the monitor may be badly matched and the monitor itself of unknown quality.
For a true assessment of whether footage has banding or not you want a proper, good quality video monitor connected via a proper video card such as a Blackmagic Decklink card or a device such as a BlackMagic UltraStudio product. When using a proper video card (not a graphics card) you bypass all the computer processing and go straight from the source content to the correct output. This way you will go from the 10 bit YCbCr direct to a 10 bit YCbCr output so there won’t be extra conversion and translation stages adding phantom artefacts to your footage.
If you are seeing banding, to try to understand whether the banding you are seeing is in the original footage or not try this: Take the footage into your grading software, using a paused (still) frame enlarge the clip so that the area with banding fills the monitor and note exactly where the edges of the bands are. Then slowly change the contrast of the clip. If the position of the edges of the bands moves, they are not in the original footage and something else is causing them. If they do not move, then they are baked in to the original material.
You mentioned M1 laptop, does it have the banding problem or not?
Also can the MacBook Pro screen be calibrated to use as a grading monitor in the field? Sometimes that is all that I have available when traveling.
Thanks.
No, on my M1 mac, on the built in display I have never seen banding where there is none. However if I did see banding I would still want to confirm with a proper pipeline to a proper monitor before assuming the banding is real.
Hi Alister. I’m contemplating implementing an HDR workflow. As of now I only have a Dell monitor with “Smart HDR” connected to my MacBook Pro M3. I have the option of HDMI and DisplayPort. As I move forward in setting up an HDR workflow which would include a true HDR monitor should I consider incorporating a Blackmagic Ultrastudio Monitor? Will that support 4K and HDR? I believe you’re a proponent of the Decklink? Can that be housed in an external case? FWIW, I only shoot ProRes RAW with an Atomos Inferno connected to a Sony FS5M2. Also, FWIW, my primary business is commercial still photography but my biggest client is asking for more and more video — I like the client’s team a ton and want to output the best video I can for them. BTW, much of their product is made of stainless steel which is highly reflective and shows the slightest shift in color which is why I want’ the most flexible/accurate workflow possible. Thank you Alister! ALL of your content is so educational.
The reason for using a proper monitor card or adapter along with a proper video monitor (not a computer monitor) are many fold. The main is the bypassing of the internal colourspace conversions that occur within the computer, plus you will get the correct metadata embedded in the output to switch the monitor to the correct mode. The newer Blackmagic Ultra Studio products will all do this, for 4K you need the 4K mini. The older MiniMonitor was unable to add the correct metadata. For my own applications I have a Thunderbolt extension chassis and run a Decklink card in this along with a raid controller.
I can’t thank you enough for your reply, Alister. I wonder how many people understand there’s a difference between a video monitor and a computer monitor. I wish you all the best, Alister.
Sincerely,
Mitch