HLG to YouTube HDR workflow

Can anyone help me figure out how to take my Sony HLG XAVC footage, and squeeze it through FCPX so that it works properly as an HDR playable file on YouTube? I am following the HDR to YouTube guide posted by Apple, but it doesn't seem to indicate an HLG original media option. My Macbook cannot display HDR, neither can FCPX without an external playback hardware device. My HDR TV can only support HDR10, not HLG, so YouTube through my Chromecast Ultra YT app would seem the only way to see my HLG in HDR, if only I can understand the process settings.

Secondary question...when dealing with HLG clips, if I want to just use them as standard HD REC709 exports, what would be the proper settings?

support.apple.com/en-us/HT208283

Was unable to get an h264 or ProRes out of FCPX to tag as HDR...had to send to Compressor 4K 10bit HEVC to get YouTube to declare the file "4K HDR". My 27 second test clip took half an hour to export though...O...M...G...!

Is there a faster way to accomplish this process? YouTube HDR how to says 10 bit h264 required, but the same tutorial guide doesn't list HEVC as acceptable for .m4v files. An hour per minute of footage seems a bit extreme for a simple transcode.

Paul

I haven't had a ton of experience with HDR, but you need to be sure your FCPX Library is setup as a "Wide Gamut HDR" library.
You can find that setting by:
1. select the Library in your FCPX browser
2. pen the inspector
3. Click the blue "Modify" button next to the Library name in the inspector
4. Click option for Wide Gamut HDR

If you've already done that, I'm not sure what's going on.

Scott

Your export of 10-bit HEVC takes that long because you must have a Skylake processor (supports Quicksync for HEVC 8-bit) or less, whereas Kabylake (2017 iMac for instance) will render it much faster.

HLG, if properly exposed, doesn't need any grading. This was shot with GH5 HLG, edited in 10.4, no CC, and simply *shared* on Youtube.

Know the guy from another forum. Has a 2017 iMac and a modern HDR-TV with HLG-support. Just shared it ...

HLG doesn't need to be 10-bit, afaik. Wouldn't make much sense, since i.e. Sony offers HLG 8-bit as recording format:


Anyone who watches these clips in SDR (99% will do here, I suppose) will find that they are a tiny bit flat, but perfectly watchable. This answers your next question:

Secondary question...when dealing with HLG clips, if I want to just use them as standard HD REC709 exports, what would be the proper settings?

No need for a special setting. Use them in a rec_709 project and grade them to your taste. The colors fit ootb, you just had to do normal CC and adjust contrast.


There obviously is a bug in the HDR scopes. They don't show nits instead of IRE. So either you grade in Resolve and roundtrip (because the export is easier in FCP) or you wait until this is fixed. Anybody who invested $2500 in an AJA-box and finds the scopes broken is probably, er, deeply disappointed.

BTW: Who are you grading for? Local broadcast? UHD supports rec_2020, WCG. Doesn't look worse on SRGB or rec_709 displays. The latter is going to lose relevance and becomes a hypothetical worst case scenario.