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Color Subsampling, or What is 4:4:4 or 4:2:2??

In the video space, there’s always a lot of talk about these number ratios - 4:4:4, or 4:2:2, or 4:1:1, but what exactly do they mean? Recently, someone argued with me that it was better to convert every video clip from my Canon Rebel T2i DSLR camera into a 4:4:4 intermediate codec before editing; that this would make the color magically “better” and that editing natively was somehow bad. They were wrong, and I’m going to explain why.

Before you read on, make sure you’ve read my earlier articles on 32-bit floating point and on YUV color, and look at the picture from the Wikimedia Commons site of the barn in YUV breakdown.

In the picture of the barn, try to look at the fine detail in the U and V channels.Typically, without any brightness information, it’s hard to see any detail in the color channels. The naked eye just does a much better job distinguishing brightness than color. This fact holds true for moving pictures. If the video uses YUV color space, the most important data is in the Y channel. You can throw away a lot of the color information, and the average viewer can’t tell that it’s gone.

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Disclosure, to comply with the FTC’s rules 16 CFR Part 255 This article was either written by Adobe employees or for Adobe by an outside contractor. It is intended for the Adobe Channel on ProVideo Coalition, which Adobe sponsors.

Mr. Soule,

Interesting that someone might think it possible to get back color by using an intermediate codec.

Surely using intermediate codecs has been, over the years, one the most clever and cost-effective this shooter producer has ever done.

I’m talking about the days not real long ago that Premiere (or FCP) would be interminably slow or just choke and crash. And the days when Premiere (or FCP) didn’t support the new hot camera like the Sony EX1, for one example. I wasn’t ready to adopt Vegas (by Sony) and without Cineform’s intermediate I don’t know how I’d have cut lotts of corporate stuff. I set up a workflow that had people cutting it on their corporate laptops!

Back in the day when that just wasn’t possible by going native using Premiere (or FCP).

I understand that the new Mercury engine is awesome though. Can’t wait to hear all about and checkout it’s native awesomeness asap.

I bet it’s a long time before Mercury makes more sense than something like Cineform when cutting high quality HD longform on a corporate-strength portable though. I think that’s awesome too.

Posted by wsmith  on  07/03  at  05:09 PM

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Exactly, wsmith - I think there will always be needs for intermediate codecs. I’m not knocking their use. In fact, I’m using some of Cineform’s stuff now on some stereoscopic work in Premiere Pro. Just needed to clarify to a few people out there what an intermediate codec doesn’t do for you.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  07/12  at  01:39 PM

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