The H.264 codec in Moho sucks (for no apparent reason)

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Sketch_Turner
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Joined: Sun Oct 02, 2016 3:53 pm

The H.264 codec in Moho sucks (for no apparent reason)

Post by Sketch_Turner »

Hi, everyone! I've only recently discovered a very odd thing about video exporting in Moho. Basically, it screws up colours if you choose to export via H.264 codec.
I used to think, "Welp, that's the price of compression." But then I got curious and decided to export raw AVI, import it into Adobe Premiere and then export it back using its own H.264 codec. Guess what: in Premiere's interpretation the colours look exactly as they should.
Just to illustrate:
Original: http://www.justaboutfun.com/images/Ext/ ... 20test.png
Moho H.264: http://www.justaboutfun.com/images/Ext/Moho.png
Premiere H.264: http://www.justaboutfun.com/images/Ext/Premiere.png

Is there a way to fix this? Replace the codec or something?
(I'm aware that you should only use compression during the last stage of video production anyway, but that's a debate for another time.)
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Greenlaw
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Re: The H.264 codec in Moho sucks (for no apparent reason)

Post by Greenlaw »

I almost never output final animations in a video format from Moho. Moho's native video output options are very limited. If I ever use the default MP4/H264 preset, it's only for generating a quick preview for review purposes. For final quality output, IMO, it's better to output an image sequence in a lossless format like PNG, and then compile the animation in a compositing program like AE or Fusion, or in a video editor like Vegas Pro or Premiere.

But if you must export to a video format, you're be better off using a format that allows a lossless codec. To do this, choose AVI (Video For Windows,) (the 2nd AVI option) and you can choose any codec you have installed on your computer.

I recommend installing a lossless codec like MagicYUV or Lagarith. MagicYUV comes in a free or a commercial version, and I highly recommend the commercial version...it has many modern features and it's cheap! Before I found MagicYUV, I liked Lagarith because it's more capable than HuffYUV and has better playback peformance during editing. But the paid vesion of MagicYUV supports deeper color spaces and has even better playback performance. (That said, Moho's max color depth is only 24-bit, so it really doesn't matter for Moho. The devs need to improve that.)

If you want to go with a 'traditional' codec, you can use Avid's free DNxHD. This codec is still widely in use by pros but, IMO, it's pretty dated and I've seen aliasing problems with it when I have highly saturated edges.

You can even choose PNG as a codec for AVI (VFW) if you like, although it's probably not going to playback smoothly for editing purposes.

If you're on a Mac, you should probably use ProRes. (FYI, I'm on Windows editing in Vegas Pro and these days I'm mostly using MagicYUV on the timeline.)

If you're creating the video for a streaming service like Vimeo or YouTube, I would output to H264 only for the final upload version, and export this video from an editor like Vegas, Premiere or Final Cut.

A common problem when uploading a movie to Vimeo or YouTube is that the image may lose contrast (the black will appear faded.) If this happens, you need to adjust the video from Computer RGB to Studio RGB. In Vegas Pro, I add a Levels plugin to the main output channel and set it to the Computer RGB to Studio RGB preset. You may need to do something similar in other editing program. Note: this is only for uploading files to Vimeo or YouTube. You don't do this for videos meant for regular computer playback. Do a search on Google for instructions for other editing programs.

Hope this helps.
Last edited by Greenlaw on Sun Feb 18, 2018 7:56 pm, edited 7 times in total.
Sketch_Turner
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Joined: Sun Oct 02, 2016 3:53 pm

Re: The H.264 codec in Moho sucks (for no apparent reason)

Post by Sketch_Turner »

Thanks, man! I gave MagicYUV a try. Looks like it'll do the trick!
Also, just a general thank you: your answers are always very detailed, and I appreciate that.
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Greenlaw
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Re: The H.264 codec in Moho sucks (for no apparent reason)

Post by Greenlaw »

Glad to help. You probably know this but a third party codec like MagicYUV is mainly intended for editorial and archival use, not public distribution. This is because everybody else would have to install the codec to view the movie. (I don't think Vimeo or YouTube would even recognize it.)

Of course, after you're done editing, you can choose a more universal codec for the final output.
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