Working with HLG footage

Paul Anderegg · March 15th, 2018, 06:00 PM

After reading the below article, it would appear HLG would have no use for me. I can only see a use for it specifically feeding YouTube for HDR playback...any attempts to view in SDR or 4K without HDR capability, would result in horrible looking footage. I thought YT had some sort of conversion going on for it's SDR versions of uploaded HDR content, but doesn't look that way to me at this point.

So chalking up HLG to a novelty, similar to my VR goggles that came with my Samsung phone, used once, now collecting dust. Will post a full 1:30 HDR clip of the crash scene on the smaller clips...one thing my scenes have is high contrast and high intensity colors that pop! :-D

Paul

http://www.xdcam-user.com/2017/07/wh...o-be-used-for/

Mark Rosenzweig · March 15th, 2018, 07:26 PM

You should switch to Resolve.

Shoot in HLG, REC2020 color.

In settings, set to Resolve Color Management.

Set the input color space, timeline color space and output color space to REC.2100 HLG. Set 'Timeline to Output Tone Mapping' to Luminance Mapping.

Edit, whatever.

Then render (Deliver) using the DNxHR HQX 10bit codec.

Resolve will *automatically* insert the correct metadata (no additional step). The output is ready for Youtube. YouTube will play the video in HDR if you have an HDR and HLG-enabled viewer, otherwise it will play a converted REC709 version. The REC709 version it creates looks fine. Not "horrible looking" footage. You are giving up too soon.

Now, if you want to make a REC709 version of your HLG video, set the input color space to REC.2100 HLG as before but the timeline color space and output color space to REC.709 Gamma 2.4.

Edit (you will have to pay attention to the reduced DR), and render in whatever codec you want.

Very easy.

Here's an HLG HDR video I made in Resolve, in this case from shooting in Slog2 (so then the input color space was Slog2, the rest REC.2100 HLG as above).

and this,

Paul Anderegg · March 15th, 2018, 07:37 PM

Thanks for the tips...I have the newest Resolve on my Macbook, but do you need the PAID version to export 4K files?

And not really giving up, just relegating HLG to "hobby" status, off my list for shooting normal ENG with. I am playing around with my raw clips to see if I can export something in REC709 that doesn't look like raw Hypergamma footage. Will be testing HLG with REC709 color tonight, but I am not sure if you NEED to be in BT2020 in order for HDR to work with FCPX. All the FCPX timeline property selections for HDR show only 2020..the lone 709 one is SDR.

Paul

Paul Anderegg · March 15th, 2018, 08:19 PM

My HD HLG REC709 color test FAILED...uploaded to YouTube, but HDR simply isn't working, and I cannot convert the HDR highlights to anything usable in FCPX...apparently, it seems it doesn't recognize the HDR content encoded as 709, only 2020.

Here is the full length HLG 4K clip as promised. Also including a 1080p HDR to SDR REC709 setting export from FCPX, so you can see what the 4K HLG footage looks like when I try to use it for broadcast...barf. It looks almost like raw S-log graded using levels instead of a LUT.

Paul

Just for kicks, a few clips shot in normal 4K REC709, no HLG or BT2020, just standard PP4 for comparison.

Paul Anderegg · March 15th, 2018, 09:05 PM

I have apparently lost the ability to view youTube HDR...my previous clips that were saying 4K HDR now say only HD with no HRD icon. Unless someone knows how to view HDR on a TV set that takes HDR10 inputs, then I am going to call this a wrap on my end.

Paul

Gary Huff · March 15th, 2018, 10:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul Anderegg

Yes, it received an HDR10 update, and has HDR app support for Netflix and Amazon, but not YouTube.

It supports the signal, but from what I am seeing about your model, it is physically unable to actually display HDR content, which is why you can’t see much of a difference.

Paul Anderegg · March 15th, 2018, 11:11 PM

The "HDR" on my TV basically pumps the backlight brightness to 100%, drops the REC709 area levels to 100cd/m, and allows the upper portions of the HDR signal take up the remaining 100-350cd/m range the set produces. The wonderful side effect of having a 100cd/m normal image with 100% backlight, is that black levels are horrible, and it looks like a TFT LCD panel from 1996! :-P

The Tick on Amazon HDR looks amazing though. :-D

Paul

John Nantz · March 15th, 2018, 11:15 PM

Paul - in the bottom video there is a guy getting into the AMR paramedic vehicle and he is wearing kaki pants with yellow SOLAS reflectors on the cuffs. That’s a good move because car headlights point downward and the cuff reflectors really show up in the headlights.

Canadian ferry crew also wear pants with SOLAS reflectors on the cuffs; HOWEVER, our Washington State ferry crews wear black pants, black shoes, and no reflectors - BUT … they have a chest vest with reflectors. I’ve mentioned to the state ferry safety inspectors, our elected Olympia representative, and a few others about how they should have reflective cuffs. When they’re directing traffic in a large and not that well lit parking lot at night, and one has the windshield wipers going (hey, this is Washington), maybe a bit of fogging on the windows, they don’t show up all that well.

I like that picture! Oh, and the red, white, and blue colors show up good too. Just noticed they even have reflector tape or LED lights on the door, good idea. T-shirt weather, ooooh can’t wait to shed this flannel shirt and heavy sweater.

Speaking of TVs, would the station have anything that would work? Umm, borrow???

Paul Anderegg · March 16th, 2018, 04:28 PM

Yeah, those AMR jackets are BRIGHT!!! I always have to throw a 109-100IRE effect at those clips! :-D

And good news on my HLG testing...I was able to get the Apple Compressor HEVC "Apple Devices" m4v files to playback and be recognized as HDR by my TV, simply by changing the file extension from m4v to mp4. Apparently, Samsung has issued a firmware update that enabled HLG functions, but as Samsung doesn't every give a list of what has been added, changed or fixed on it's firmware, no one knew. :-)

Paul

Paul Anderegg · March 17th, 2018, 01:17 AM

So here is my last HLG video upload. Since HLG is not tone mapped, meaning the areas of normal exposure are not mapped to a peak of 100cd/m, and instead are standard REC709 gamma, the HLG footage I am able to view in HDR mode on my set is identical to the SDR version. With the HDR on my set forcing 100% backlight, instead of HDR10 inky blacks with bright highlights, I just get raised REC709 levels that look like watching SDR with backlight turned up. To be more clear, when I watch YouTube, Amazon, Netflix HDR, the scenes without highlights appear 100cd/m (dim) even with my sets backlight to maximum, which for SDR would mean a 20% backlight for 100cd/m. Maybe some of you with higher end TV sets can see better HDR effect than I can, but I do not honestly believe this camera is able to produce any extreme highlight details above the REC709 footage...it seems HLG on this camera is just a gimmick*?

*FCPX has the option to convert/conform HLG clips to standard PQ tone mapping HDR, for final mastering in HDR10 or Dolby Vision, which may allow it to look more like expected real HDR material.

Here is about 4 minutes of RAW HLG/BT2020 4K 100Mbps footage ungraded and unaltered exported and uploaded to YouTube. The 4 minute HEVC export on my Macbook Pro took 7 hours. :-|

Ricky Sharp · March 17th, 2018, 07:35 AM

Regarding the 7 hours of export, sounds like your computer was using a software-based solution. Newer Macs have hardware-based HEVC codecs.

Here is a test I did back in January showing a very dramatic speedup of hardware-based HEVC:

Granted, the source material was only HD, but I believe the encode/decode will be linear for higher-resolution footage as well as higher framerate. Thus, your footage on a hardware-based HEVC Mac should also be much faster.

Note: The 2017 MacBook Pros contain 7th-gen Intel Core processors. I believe they would be able to support hardware accelerated HEVC. Older MacBook Pros would not.

ORIGINAL TEST (2-Jan-2018):

Finally able to conduct some tests today with a 3 minute, 18-second H.264 clip (1080p, 8-bit 4:2:0, 29.97 fps).

Old Mac (2012 12-Core Mac Pro, 32 GB RAM, Radeon HD 5870 1 GB). Source drive read speed of 100 MBps. Destination drive (separate) a write speed of around 120 MBps. Conversion would have taken around 45 minutes (I stopped it at the 6-minute mark and it had around 40 minutes left to go).

New Mac (2017 10-Core iMac Pro. 64 GB RAM, Radeon Pro Vega 56 8 GB). Source RAID read speed of 600 MBps. Destination RAID (separate unit) a write speed of 400 MBps. Conversion took around 56 seconds.

I just used Apple's 'QuickTime Player' to do an export to 1080p while checking the HEVC checkbox. Both systems also running the same macOS (10.13.2).

Paul Anderegg · March 17th, 2018, 11:58 AM

Yes...my HTPC at home is an i7-6700K, and it has the Intel Quicksync options in Handbrake for h264 and HEVC...unbelievably quick rendering with almost no CPU usage, since it's routed through some little special encoder portion of the chip!

Unfortunately, my 2015 Macbook Pro is stuck with a 4th Gen i7...I am sure even a low end 2 core 13" Macbook Pro circa 2017 would export quicker in HEVC due to the new encoders. The 8 bit HEVC option is not available for my Mac in Compressor, only 10 bit...go figure on that one!

Paul

Paul Anderegg · March 17th, 2018, 09:03 PM

Please pray for me as I dive into the wonderful world of trying to make my HLG camera footage look like HDR...will begin exporting millions of little test ProRes files to YouTube using various settings, in he hope that one day, I may be able to see what my camera can create. :-)

Now for my reading list, step 1...

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rd/pubs/p...anscode_v2.pdf

Paul Anderegg · March 17th, 2018, 10:26 PM

After some more extensive export and transcode testing, here is what I have learned.

FCPX compatibility with YouTube...the ONLY types of files that can be exported out of FCPX that "earn" a YouTube HDR badge, are HDR PQ exports as PRORES. HDR HLG projects, regardless of any other settings, will not earn the HDR badge once uploaded to YouTube. Also, any type of mp4 file I can generate, either exporting a PQ project, or transcoding of an HLG ProRes file through Catalyst Browse, will not earn the HDR badge. The only type of file that will play back on my TV as HDR, is HEVC transcodes, including those from FCPX HLG projects, but these successful HDR playable local files, WILL NOT earn the YouTube HDR badging.

So for local file viewing, I must export HEVC at 1-2 minutes per second of footage, resulting in an HDR experience of lifted blacks and raised REC709 gamma, and no apparent HDR highlight improvements.

For sharing HRD footage, I must export PQ ProRes files, which results in 20GB files that have ultra crushed blacks with slammed gamma and are not viewable in any meaningful manner, but are HDR per YouTube.

I have run out of FCPX options here...open to any suggestions or questions.

Paul

*EDIT The two ProRes files below play as HDR on YouTube app on my Samsung Galaxy S8 phone and look pretty damn good, aside from the phones screen adding a horrendous magenta cast.

Paul Anderegg · March 18th, 2018, 04:19 AM

So it turns out Handbrake makes a special 10 bit h264/HEVC version, available on their daily builds, the one not labeled CLI.

https://handbrake.fr/nightly.php

It is able to retain HDR metadata, and as a result, I am able to transcode PQ ProRes files in a manageable time and size, to upload as working HDR files for YouTube. Using the link above, download the non CLI daily build, set your video encoder to 10 bit h264, but ensure you select profile to HIGH10. The file that works on YouTube on my TV and phone app, will activate HDR when played locally, but the video goes whacky, since I chose level 5.2, which may be too new for the TV to know what to do with. Regardless, below you will find the ProRes LT PQ file converted to 100Mbps 10 bit h264 level 5.2 in handbrake.

March 15th, 2018, 06:00 PM	#16
Paul Anderegg Trustee Join Date: Jan 2013 Location: San Diego, Califonia Posts: 1,559	Re: Working with HLG footage After reading the below article, it would appear HLG would have no use for me. I can only see a use for it specifically feeding YouTube for HDR playback...any attempts to view in SDR or 4K without HDR capability, would result in horrible looking footage. I thought YT had some sort of conversion going on for it's SDR versions of uploaded HDR content, but doesn't look that way to me at this point. So chalking up HLG to a novelty, similar to my VR goggles that came with my Samsung phone, used once, now collecting dust. Will post a full 1:30 HDR clip of the crash scene on the smaller clips...one thing my scenes have is high contrast and high intensity colors that pop! :-D Paul http://www.xdcam-user.com/2017/07/wh...o-be-used-for/

March 15th, 2018, 07:26 PM	#17
Mark Rosenzweig Trustee Join Date: Mar 2011 Location: New Haven, CT Posts: 1,004	Re: Working with HLG footage You should switch to Resolve. Shoot in HLG, REC2020 color. In settings, set to Resolve Color Management. Set the input color space, timeline color space and output color space to REC.2100 HLG. Set 'Timeline to Output Tone Mapping' to Luminance Mapping. Edit, whatever. Then render (Deliver) using the DNxHR HQX 10bit codec. Resolve will automatically insert the correct metadata (no additional step). The output is ready for Youtube. YouTube will play the video in HDR if you have an HDR and HLG-enabled viewer, otherwise it will play a converted REC709 version. The REC709 version it creates looks fine. Not "horrible looking" footage. You are giving up too soon. Now, if you want to make a REC709 version of your HLG video, set the input color space to REC.2100 HLG as before but the timeline color space and output color space to REC.709 Gamma 2.4. Edit (you will have to pay attention to the reduced DR), and render in whatever codec you want. Very easy. Here's an HLG HDR video I made in Resolve, in this case from shooting in Slog2 (so then the input color space was Slog2, the rest REC.2100 HLG as above). YouTube (Short URL) and this, YouTube (Short URL)

March 15th, 2018, 07:37 PM	#18
Paul Anderegg Trustee Join Date: Jan 2013 Location: San Diego, Califonia Posts: 1,559	Re: Working with HLG footage Thanks for the tips...I have the newest Resolve on my Macbook, but do you need the PAID version to export 4K files? And not really giving up, just relegating HLG to "hobby" status, off my list for shooting normal ENG with. I am playing around with my raw clips to see if I can export something in REC709 that doesn't look like raw Hypergamma footage. Will be testing HLG with REC709 color tonight, but I am not sure if you NEED to be in BT2020 in order for HDR to work with FCPX. All the FCPX timeline property selections for HDR show only 2020..the lone 709 one is SDR. Paul

March 15th, 2018, 08:19 PM	#19
Paul Anderegg Trustee Join Date: Jan 2013 Location: San Diego, Califonia Posts: 1,559	Re: Working with HLG footage My HD HLG REC709 color test FAILED...uploaded to YouTube, but HDR simply isn't working, and I cannot convert the HDR highlights to anything usable in FCPX...apparently, it seems it doesn't recognize the HDR content encoded as 709, only 2020. Here is the full length HLG 4K clip as promised. Also including a 1080p HDR to SDR REC709 setting export from FCPX, so you can see what the 4K HLG footage looks like when I try to use it for broadcast...barf. It looks almost like raw S-log graded using levels instead of a LUT. Paul YouTube (Short URL) YouTube (Short URL) Just for kicks, a few clips shot in normal 4K REC709, no HLG or BT2020, just standard PP4 for comparison. YouTube (Short URL)

March 15th, 2018, 09:05 PM	#20
Paul Anderegg Trustee Join Date: Jan 2013 Location: San Diego, Califonia Posts: 1,559	Re: Working with HLG footage I have apparently lost the ability to view youTube HDR...my previous clips that were saying 4K HDR now say only HD with no HRD icon. Unless someone knows how to view HDR on a TV set that takes HDR10 inputs, then I am going to call this a wrap on my end. Paul

March 15th, 2018, 11:11 PM	#22
Paul Anderegg Trustee Join Date: Jan 2013 Location: San Diego, Califonia Posts: 1,559	Re: Working with HLG footage The "HDR" on my TV basically pumps the backlight brightness to 100%, drops the REC709 area levels to 100cd/m, and allows the upper portions of the HDR signal take up the remaining 100-350cd/m range the set produces. The wonderful side effect of having a 100cd/m normal image with 100% backlight, is that black levels are horrible, and it looks like a TFT LCD panel from 1996! :-P The Tick on Amazon HDR looks amazing though. :-D Paul

March 15th, 2018, 11:15 PM	#23
John Nantz Trustee Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: Seattle WA Posts: 1,254	Re: Working with HLG footage Paul - in the bottom video there is a guy getting into the AMR paramedic vehicle and he is wearing kaki pants with yellow SOLAS reflectors on the cuffs. That’s a good move because car headlights point downward and the cuff reflectors really show up in the headlights. Canadian ferry crew also wear pants with SOLAS reflectors on the cuffs; HOWEVER, our Washington State ferry crews wear black pants, black shoes, and no reflectors - BUT … they have a chest vest with reflectors. I’ve mentioned to the state ferry safety inspectors, our elected Olympia representative, and a few others about how they should have reflective cuffs. When they’re directing traffic in a large and not that well lit parking lot at night, and one has the windshield wipers going (hey, this is Washington), maybe a bit of fogging on the windows, they don’t show up all that well. I like that picture! Oh, and the red, white, and blue colors show up good too. Just noticed they even have reflector tape or LED lights on the door, good idea. T-shirt weather, ooooh can’t wait to shed this flannel shirt and heavy sweater. Speaking of TVs, would the station have anything that would work? Umm, borrow???

March 16th, 2018, 04:28 PM	#24
Paul Anderegg Trustee Join Date: Jan 2013 Location: San Diego, Califonia Posts: 1,559	Re: Working with HLG footage Yeah, those AMR jackets are BRIGHT!!! I always have to throw a 109-100IRE effect at those clips! :-D And good news on my HLG testing...I was able to get the Apple Compressor HEVC "Apple Devices" m4v files to playback and be recognized as HDR by my TV, simply by changing the file extension from m4v to mp4. Apparently, Samsung has issued a firmware update that enabled HLG functions, but as Samsung doesn't every give a list of what has been added, changed or fixed on it's firmware, no one knew. :-) Paul Last edited by Paul Anderegg; March 16th, 2018 at 07:12 PM.

March 17th, 2018, 01:17 AM	#25
Paul Anderegg Trustee Join Date: Jan 2013 Location: San Diego, Califonia Posts: 1,559	Re: Working with HLG footage So here is my last HLG video upload. Since HLG is not tone mapped, meaning the areas of normal exposure are not mapped to a peak of 100cd/m, and instead are standard REC709 gamma, the HLG footage I am able to view in HDR mode on my set is identical to the SDR version. With the HDR on my set forcing 100% backlight, instead of HDR10 inky blacks with bright highlights, I just get raised REC709 levels that look like watching SDR with backlight turned up. To be more clear, when I watch YouTube, Amazon, Netflix HDR, the scenes without highlights appear 100cd/m (dim) even with my sets backlight to maximum, which for SDR would mean a 20% backlight for 100cd/m. Maybe some of you with higher end TV sets can see better HDR effect than I can, but I do not honestly believe this camera is able to produce any extreme highlight details above the REC709 footage...it seems HLG on this camera is just a gimmick? FCPX has the option to convert/conform HLG clips to standard PQ tone mapping HDR, for final mastering in HDR10 or Dolby Vision, which may allow it to look more like expected real HDR material. Here is about 4 minutes of RAW HLG/BT2020 4K 100Mbps footage ungraded and unaltered exported and uploaded to YouTube. The 4 minute HEVC export on my Macbook Pro took 7 hours. :-\| YouTube (Short URL)

March 17th, 2018, 07:35 AM	#26
Ricky Sharp Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2015 Location: Chicago, IL USA Posts: 180	Re: Working with HLG footage Regarding the 7 hours of export, sounds like your computer was using a software-based solution. Newer Macs have hardware-based HEVC codecs. Here is a test I did back in January showing a very dramatic speedup of hardware-based HEVC: Granted, the source material was only HD, but I believe the encode/decode will be linear for higher-resolution footage as well as higher framerate. Thus, your footage on a hardware-based HEVC Mac should also be much faster. Note: The 2017 MacBook Pros contain 7th-gen Intel Core processors. I believe they would be able to support hardware accelerated HEVC. Older MacBook Pros would not. ORIGINAL TEST (2-Jan-2018): Finally able to conduct some tests today with a 3 minute, 18-second H.264 clip (1080p, 8-bit 4:2:0, 29.97 fps). Old Mac (2012 12-Core Mac Pro, 32 GB RAM, Radeon HD 5870 1 GB). Source drive read speed of 100 MBps. Destination drive (separate) a write speed of around 120 MBps. Conversion would have taken around 45 minutes (I stopped it at the 6-minute mark and it had around 40 minutes left to go). New Mac (2017 10-Core iMac Pro. 64 GB RAM, Radeon Pro Vega 56 8 GB). Source RAID read speed of 600 MBps. Destination RAID (separate unit) a write speed of 400 MBps. Conversion took around 56 seconds. I just used Apple's 'QuickTime Player' to do an export to 1080p while checking the HEVC checkbox. Both systems also running the same macOS (10.13.2).

March 17th, 2018, 11:58 AM	#27
Paul Anderegg Trustee Join Date: Jan 2013 Location: San Diego, Califonia Posts: 1,559	Re: Working with HLG footage Yes...my HTPC at home is an i7-6700K, and it has the Intel Quicksync options in Handbrake for h264 and HEVC...unbelievably quick rendering with almost no CPU usage, since it's routed through some little special encoder portion of the chip! Unfortunately, my 2015 Macbook Pro is stuck with a 4th Gen i7...I am sure even a low end 2 core 13" Macbook Pro circa 2017 would export quicker in HEVC due to the new encoders. The 8 bit HEVC option is not available for my Mac in Compressor, only 10 bit...go figure on that one! Paul

March 17th, 2018, 09:03 PM	#28
Paul Anderegg Trustee Join Date: Jan 2013 Location: San Diego, Califonia Posts: 1,559	Re: Working with HLG footage Please pray for me as I dive into the wonderful world of trying to make my HLG camera footage look like HDR...will begin exporting millions of little test ProRes files to YouTube using various settings, in he hope that one day, I may be able to see what my camera can create. :-) Now for my reading list, step 1... http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rd/pubs/p...anscode_v2.pdf

March 17th, 2018, 10:26 PM	#29
Paul Anderegg Trustee Join Date: Jan 2013 Location: San Diego, Califonia Posts: 1,559	Re: Working with HLG footage After some more extensive export and transcode testing, here is what I have learned. FCPX compatibility with YouTube...the ONLY types of files that can be exported out of FCPX that "earn" a YouTube HDR badge, are HDR PQ exports as PRORES. HDR HLG projects, regardless of any other settings, will not earn the HDR badge once uploaded to YouTube. Also, any type of mp4 file I can generate, either exporting a PQ project, or transcoding of an HLG ProRes file through Catalyst Browse, will not earn the HDR badge. The only type of file that will play back on my TV as HDR, is HEVC transcodes, including those from FCPX HLG projects, but these successful HDR playable local files, WILL NOT earn the YouTube HDR badging. So for local file viewing, I must export HEVC at 1-2 minutes per second of footage, resulting in an HDR experience of lifted blacks and raised REC709 gamma, and no apparent HDR highlight improvements. For sharing HRD footage, I must export PQ ProRes files, which results in 20GB files that have ultra crushed blacks with slammed gamma and are not viewable in any meaningful manner, but are HDR per YouTube. I have run out of FCPX options here...open to any suggestions or questions. Paul *EDIT The two ProRes files below play as HDR on YouTube app on my Samsung Galaxy S8 phone and look pretty damn good, aside from the phones screen adding a horrendous magenta cast. YouTube (Short URL) YouTube (Short URL)

March 18th, 2018, 04:19 AM	#30
Paul Anderegg Trustee Join Date: Jan 2013 Location: San Diego, Califonia Posts: 1,559	Re: Working with HLG footage So it turns out Handbrake makes a special 10 bit h264/HEVC version, available on their daily builds, the one not labeled CLI. https://handbrake.fr/nightly.php It is able to retain HDR metadata, and as a result, I am able to transcode PQ ProRes files in a manageable time and size, to upload as working HDR files for YouTube. Using the link above, download the non CLI daily build, set your video encoder to 10 bit h264, but ensure you select profile to HIGH10. The file that works on YouTube on my TV and phone app, will activate HDR when played locally, but the video goes whacky, since I chose level 5.2, which may be too new for the TV to know what to do with. Regardless, below you will find the ProRes LT PQ file converted to 100Mbps 10 bit h264 level 5.2 in handbrake. YouTube (Short URL)