u/pickladgurka

Hello,

Been testing grain survival in web delivery (Frame.io + Vimeo).

All tests in 1080p delivery.

I thought I’d share my findings, and I’d also be curious to hear how others approach this. I noticed that grain can sometimes help reduce banding, but it often gets heavily destroyed by compression.

ProRes

• 4444 showed more visible compression than 422 HQ resulting in less grain
• 422 HQ held up better overall
• Best result (422 HQ): custom grain
  • Amount 0.100 / Size 8 / Softness 0 / Sat 0 / Defocus 1.0
• Default 16mm: better at reducing banding, but grain mostly gone

H.264

• Least banding: 35mm 400T default
• Most retained grain: same custom grain as above
• Most Resolve grain presets collapse or disappear after upload

Notes

• Consistent pattern: more grain reduces banding, but only up to compression threshold, then it collapses fast
• Sharpening before H.264 increases banding + macroblocking (blocky / “pixel chunking” look)
• 65mm grain looks good in Resolve but doesn’t survive web compression
• Vimeo + Frame.io produced essentially identical results

H.264 export

• MP4 / H.264
• 20,000 kb/s cap
• High profile / CABAC
• Multi-pass on
• Keyframes every 60
• Frame reordering on
• Data levels auto

Curious if anyone has found a grain approach that consistently survives H.264 without just brute-forcing bitrate, or if it’s fundamentally always a trade-off.