H.264

[YoyoBoy]

I have long been frustrated by H.264. It always displays in Quicktime with reduced contrast. No real blacks. However, for the first time ever, I just now copied a frame of an H.264 movie from Quicktime (using Edit -> Copy) and pasted it in Photoshop and the pasted image looks great. Not so with a screenshot of it. So it's something about Quicktime itself that is doing it. This doesn't happen when I play a movie in Quicktime with most other codecs. Does anyone know what's going on here or how to fix it? I've been staying away from H.264 because of this problem, but maybe I shouldn't. Maybe it's just me and the computers I've been using. :/

I have attached an image showing what I'm talking about.

[YoyoBoy]

It looks like I'm not the only one having this problem, and someone found a fix for it:
http://www.vfxtalk.com/forum/you-fix...e-t13215.html?

[MoonDoggie]

Been having this problem for years. Can't stand it. Also don't have QT Pro, so can't fix it at the moment. Thanks for sharing.

[kiteman]

You've tried the codecs sorenson?
I had to use this because I had the same problem.
Now with "sorenson" I have no problem.
Anyway, the trick is fine.

This is something that has puzzled me for some time and therefore did not use H.264.

Thanks for sharing.

[tammo]

To make this even more confusing: Drag a part of the quicktime window to a second monitor.
Suddenly the contrast is back.
A few pixels is enough and it even works during playback.

[plastic_]

H.264 is definitely superior to sorenson.
Why do you have to use quicktime? The problem is in the quicktime player, not in the file.
I'm using adobe encoder for everything and there are no gamma issues, it looks the same with every media player (VLC player, windows, mplayer), youtube, dvd, etc.
Quicktime is broken, I don't know why, but that's how it is. Try downloading a movie trailer from apple.com, it's also washed out.

[trixian]

My thoughts exactly. The only reason I can think of why quicktime got it's foot in the door, was because for a long time (back when sorenson 1 was the king of codecs) it was superior for animation work where scrubbing through clips and frame-stepping is paramount. This changed a long time ago, and there are plenty more viable solutions today. We as a profession need to ditch Quicktime use as fast as possible. There are a plethora of free and even open source alternatives that are usually better\more flexible, but we should all cry out for a true cross platform, non proprietary solution for this, and hopefully someone will build it.

[tammo]

Does anyone know a program for lossless cutting of h264?
I know that its possible with panasonic hdwriter, but that UI has been designed by a glue sniffing monkey.