Does Shotcut support 10-bit color?

[unfa]

I’ve recently got a Panasonic GH5 and I’m testing what libre software can take advantage of the 10-bit (and V-log) capabilities of that camera.

AFAIK MLT only works in 8-bit internally, so I expect my footage will be downgraded to 8-bit when I play it in Shotcut, but I wanted to make sure.

Is 10-bit color supported in Shotcut?

[Austin]

10-bit is not currently supported. Shotcut can read 10-bit, but it will be downsampled to 8-bit as you expected.

From what I understand, adding higher bit depth support to MLT is a major development focus for 2021, so stay tuned! Beautiful camera you’ve got. Hope you enjoy it!

[RilosVideos]

The other question would be: which video player is capable of playing 10bit color depth and of course you need a monitor that is able to. I think when it comes to 4k and 30 or 60 fps the color depth is inferior in my opinion. But good to know it will be possible soon

[Austin]

This lack of support used to be true, but not anymore. Most new 4K TVs support BT.2020 and HDR, which is a minimum of 10-bit. It’s necessary to get the wider color gamut, which makes a huge visual difference. So in that sense, it is already well supported these days. I eagerly look forward to this new capability in Shotcut as well.

[unfa]

@Austin

From what I understand, adding higher bit depth support to MLT is a major development focus for 2021, so stay tuned!

Oh, it’s good to know the MLT developers are working on this.

@Austin

Beautiful camera you’ve got. Hope you enjoy it!

Thanks! I’m slowly learning it and exploring how much I can do with free software on Linux with this camera.

@RilosVideos

The other question would be: which video player is capable of playing 10bit color depth and of course you need a monitor that is able to.

I’m not thinking about 10-bit color as a delivery format really - but to have more lee-way with color correction and processing before exporting to an 8-bit delivery format.

BTW - I don’t think Linux has even any way to deal with 10-bit displays right now. I’ve heard X.org can do something, but all the software is hardcoded to use 8-bit color, so I have no idea how we’d get actual 10-bit color displays working in Linux. That’s not my concern though.

[Austin]

Perhaps Blender or Natron or Blackmagic Fusion would process 10-bit during editing. I haven’t specifically checked when it comes to video import. But given they are all big-time compositors, I would expect them to operate at higher bit depths internally.

Earlier discussion on Shotcut support:

Shotcut native bit depth and chroma subsampling

No, but technically that reduction occurs outside of the transitions and track blending. Yes, but first Brian and I have made plans to run some experiments to decide on a direction for greater than 8-bit and linear color that also addresses performance (hopefully better than today’s 8-bit but not worse). We expect to start these experiments by the end of the year.

[Austin]

@unfa

how we’d get actual 10-bit color displays working in Linux

Shotcut supports the Blackmagic DeckLink PCI cards for monitoring. The limit is 8-bit today. In theory, 10-bit video could be sent through a card once Shotcut has a 10-bit processing engine. It’s a totally separate video chain than Linux display drivers, so Linux would not be a bottleneck.