Grading Canon .H264 footage in AE

[ABK]

Everyone,

 

I'm a 3D visualiser but beginning to use video more and more and have a few problems with grading my footage in after effects.

 

I'm using the canon 550D .H264 footage straight from the camera to grade in AE.

I've been told that this is bad - that .H264 footage does not grade well at all.

 

Does anyone have any experience of this?

Or know the best solution?

 

 

Antony

[Fooch]

Hi antony,

 

H264 is always compressed and it does have banding if you crank it. Its all about testing and playing with it to see what you can push it with.

You might want to try to increase the bitrates for the 550d by hacking it with magic lantern. That my give you more bitrates to grade with.

 

Another tip i would give is to learn to read the histogram while filming. Make sure you dont get over blown or really dark spots. Those are a nightmare to recover..

Try not to do noise reduction .. Post cleaning say via neatvideo is always better

 

The alternative is to just use a better camera and to record it via a firestore / other hdmi out recorders. That can bypass h264 as a codec.. but i can start to get very very expensive gear wise. That said, you might not get a clean HDMI out in most cameras.

 

 

 

f