Author Topic: Old subject: totally different on output photojpeg vs h264 (screens included) (Read 7560 times)

skysense · « **on:** September 27, 2016, 10:21 »

Hi people, i know this is old and unanswered topic but, can someone please tell me why is there such a difference in exporting photojpeg vs h264. I use Premiere Pro CC, video is slightly color corrected. It is the same clip, after rendering nothing is touched, just exported in two different ways. I added two print screens below so you can see the difference. There is a very noticeable shift in contrast, even in sharpness i would say.

Photojpeg settings:

Quality at 90, Max render and depth quality

H.264 settings:

Profile-High
Level-5.1
VBR,2 pass
Max render quality and depth
Target Bitrate 70/ Max 101

- PHOTOJPEG

- H.264
or
Folder

Any help/suggestion is much appreciated.

PeterChigmaroff · « **Reply #1 on:** September 27, 2016, 20:11 »

Here's a good enough definition of Codec borrowed from Wikipedia "A codec encodes a data stream or signal for transmission, storage or encryption, or decodes it for playback or editing. Codecs are used in videoconferencing, streaming media, and video editing applications." The key word being the encoding, which in all cases means taking a huge amount of data and making it as small as possible while maintaining best quality. The method used by the various codecs differs and during the decoding stage the image differs from the original. The question is, which of the two looks closest to the original? Which has the fewest artifacts? And which file is the smallest?

Shooter · « **Reply #2 on:** September 27, 2016, 21:57 »

photojpeg = banding gradients.

Thomas Dutour · « **Reply #3 on:** September 28, 2016, 02:02 »

The Photojpeg looks much better but as stated by Shooter I have experienced some banding gradients.
I know Photojpeg is the preferred codec at Videoblocks. I do not think other agencies state their preferences regarding codecs.
So I use photojpeg now except if I have banding.

click_click · « **Reply #4 on:** September 28, 2016, 06:24 »

I experienced the same as the OP. I could never get h.264 produce super crisp details. It was always murky and blocky (After Effects CS6 or Media Encoder) no matter what bit rate I used.

I finally gave up on PhotoJPG as well (used to love it - never had banding issues) and moved over to ProRes which delivers fantastic results.

Files are huge but the quality is top IMO.

ccbcc · « **Reply #5 on:** September 28, 2016, 07:17 »

ProRes is so much better, especially as a delivery codec.

unnonimus · « **Reply #6 on:** January 02, 2017, 18:19 »

I wrote my own video renderer and am familiar with these codecs.

The reason why you have problems is because there are hidden variables that can be set for MJPEG and H264 that the software has preset that you cannot configure, which will affect the output, and because the software is not properly translating the codec settings.

The "90%" setting is somewhat meaningless and does not translate to real world use for the photo jpeg codec. in other words, the actual codec doesn't have a '90%' setting, it was created by your software develoepr and is not accurate. The codecs use quantizers and others variables that are explained on the wiki pages and in the codec documentation. the developer should have given you the quantizer setting instead of the '90%' setting which does not exist in the actual codec. H264 has far more configuration options than prores and mjpeg and is more complicated and difficult to explain.

your software developer made a front end to a codec, and if he did not implement all the features, then they are not available to you. and if the developer did not use the highest quality settings by default, then you do not have access to it. it might say 'best' in the software, but when it is translated to the codec, the developer may not have actually used the highest quality setting.

photo jpeg is a series of jpeg images. other codecs use deltas, meaning they store the difference between frames, and are not a series of images.

I did a pixel by pixel comparison of various codecs and if you use the best quality settings, they all perform about the same. it is once you use lower quality settings that you see large differences in the codecs.

Fredex · « **Reply #7 on:** January 02, 2017, 22:23 »

Codec differences aside, another thing worth checking is the monitor settings. My LG monitors on HDMI automatically change the Black Level setting to high when some video players are opened. I always use them on low as it has better colour saturation but they don't actually tell you they have changed setting and it still actually says it is set to low so you have to change it to high and back to low or the colours are washed out.

You can actually drag the player from one screen to the other and see it suddenly change but if the player is less than 50% on one screen it will stay set to low so you can place it between the two and see the huge colour difference.

This drove me insane for a while until I worked out what was causing it. Haven't been able to find a way to stop it changing either. Some video players with some codecs cause it to happen on playback but others don't. Photojpeg mov played with quicktime caused it to happen but a h264 mpg played with media player classic or VLC didn't as I recall so the difference between the two codecs looked far higher than it actually was.

gyllens · « **Reply #8 on:** January 03, 2017, 03:41 »

If youre on Mac go for Prores HQ so much better. H.264 is not really a good codec.

Rage · « **Reply #9 on:** January 25, 2017, 11:34 »

Quote from: skysense on September 27, 2016, 10:21

Hi people, i know this is old and unanswered topic but, can someone please tell me why is there such a difference in exporting photojpeg vs h264. I use Premiere Pro CC, video is slightly color corrected. It is the same clip, after rendering nothing is touched, just exported in two different ways. I added two print screens below so you can see the difference. There is a very noticeable shift in contrast, even in sharpness i would say.

Photojpeg settings:
Quality at 90, Max render and depth quality
H.264 settings:
Profile-High
Level-5.1
VBR,2 pass
Max render quality and depth
Target Bitrate 70/ Max 101

- PHOTOJPEG
- H.264
or
Folder

Any help/suggestion is much appreciated.

Almost the same question. Need H264 since uploading huge files is not possible for me.

What are the optimum settings i can use in adobe aftereffects or media encoder.

what I'm using is max depth and render and a target bitrate of 70 for both HD and 4k videos. Can't figure out where to put VBR in AME.

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Author Topic: Old subject: totally different on output photojpeg vs h264 (screens included) (Read 7560 times)

skysense

PeterChigmaroff

Shooter

Thomas Dutour

click_click

ccbcc

unnonimus

Fredex

gyllens

Rage

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