Delivery workflow

Send graded footage to clients
without banding, from export to approval.

The grade you signed off in the suite and the grade the client approves on a laptop should be the same picture. The delivery step is usually where the two separate. Here is the chain a frame travels, the export settings that survive it, the trade-off at the hosting step, and where the approval should happen.

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Updated September 2026

Chain of custody

Four generations sit between
your timeline and the client's eye.

A grade does not survive or fail in one place. It passes through a sequence of hands, and each one is allowed to make a decision about your bottom stops. Name the four before you argue about any of them, because the fix is almost always to remove a generation rather than to tune one.

Your export

The one generation you fully control. Codec, profile, bit depth, rate control, frame rate and color tagging are all yours, and every choice below is spent here.

The platform's re-encode

If you upload to a re-encoding host, your file is an input, not the output. Vimeo states it plainly: during transcoding your file is re-encoded into several formats. YouTube's own wording is that it always re-encodes videos to optimize their playback quality.

The client's player

Whatever decodes the rendition that arrives, in whatever software the client happens to open. You do not choose it and you cannot inspect it.

The client's display

A laptop panel at an unknown brightness in an unknown room. This is the generation nobody can fix from the delivery side, which is why the other three are worth getting right.

Banding is what you see when a smooth falloff runs out of distinct values to sit on. The mechanism, the arithmetic of code values and quantization, is covered on the diagnosis page: fix color banding after upload. This page assumes you already know why it happens and asks the other question, which is what a finishing artist should actually do on Monday when a graded reel has to reach a client for approval.

The short version: control generation one properly, then choose generation two on purpose rather than by habit, then put the approval somewhere the note lands on the frame. The rest is honesty about the two generations you do not own.

The export step

Export once, for the file
that will actually be watched.

These are the settings, and where a published specification backs one, it is named. Nothing here is exotic. The common failure is not an unusual setting, it is a default nobody looked at.

What to set

Why, and who documents it

Codecand profile

HEVC in Main 10 for a10-bit deliverable.H.264 High Profile, neverMain, where H.264 is the target.

Apple's HLS authoring specification requiresHEVC Main 10 and names H.264 HighProfile Level 4.1 for maximum compatibility.Vimeo's upload guidance says High Profile,not Main. YouTube's says High Profile too.

Bitdepth

10-bit wherever thecodec allows it.

Main 10 is the 10-bit profile, and it is theone Apple's specification requires for HEVC.More code values in the falloff is morematerial for the encoder to spend.

Ratecontrol

CRF 18 or below.

Vimeo's own compression guidelines sayto set the constant rate factor to 18or below. A lower CRF spends bits on theflat gradients where banding forms first.

Framerate

Constant, at the rateyou shot.

Vimeo lists constant frame rate at 23.98,24, 25, 29.97, 30, 50, 59.94 and 60.Apple's specification lists the same VODrates and says above 60 shall not be used.

Colortagging

Rec. 709 primaries, transferand matrix, written intothe file.

The QuickTime colr atom carries threeindices, primaries, transfer function andmatrix, where index 1 is Rec. 709 in each.Apple's HLS spec also asks for one colorspace per stream.

Audio

AAC-LC, 320 kb/s CBR,48 kHz.

Vimeo's recommended upload audio.Its published delivery maximum is256 Kbps, so this is the last copy atthe rate you exported.

Container

MP4 or MOV, with the moovatom at the front.

YouTube asks for Fast Start explicitly.It costs nothing and it is what lets aplayer start without reading the whole file.

Profile, rate control, frame rate and audio figures are from Vimeo's compression guidelines and YouTube's recommended upload settings; the Main 10 requirement, the H.264 High Profile level and the VOD frame-rate list are from Apple's HLS authoring specification. All fetched 4 September 2026 and listed in the sources below.

Why an untagged export shifts, and how far that claim goes

Color tagging is the one item on that list where the documentation is unusually precise, so it is worth quoting the mechanism rather than the folklore. Apple’s QuickTime file format documentation describes the colr atom as carrying three 16-bit indices for primaries, transfer function and matrix, with index 1 meaning ITU-R BT.709 in each field. It also states that colr supersedes the older gama extension, that a writer should never write both, and that a reader should ignore gama when colr is present. Apple’s Technical Note TN2227 supplies the other half: media without an nclc tag is color managed by QuickTime X as if it were created in the SMPTE-C color space.

That is the documented reason an untagged Rec. 709 export can come back looking different from the file you made. It is also the whole of what is documented. Nothing official describes how any particular browser renders a tagged or untagged file, and this page will not extend the mechanism into a claim about one. Tag the file, and the question stops mattering.

The delivery step

A ladder that plays everywhere,
or the bytes you graded.

This is the fork in the workflow, and both sides of it are real. A re-encoding platform gives you renditions that play on almost anything, and takes the encoding decision out of your hands. A byte-exact host gives you your own encode, and asks the viewer’s machine to decode it. Pick per delivery, not per career.

Apple HLS reference ladder, top 4K HEVC rung, SDR

16,800 kbps

Apple HLS reference ladder, top 4K HEVC rung, HDR

20,000 kbps

Vimeo published maximum, 4K HDR and HEVC rendition

up to 16 Mbps

Vimeo published maximum, 4K H.264 rendition

up to 22 Mbps

A 150 Mbps grade export, streamed here as uploaded

150 Mbps, your own file

04080120160Mbps

Apple's figures are the top 4K rungs of the example HEVC ladder in its HLS authoring specification, the industry's reference for what a streaming ladder is designed to carry. Vimeo's figures are its own published maximums per rendition, and Vimeo states that a video could transcode lower depending on the complexity of the image. YouTube publishes no delivery bitrate at any resolution, so it has no bar. The 150 Mbps figure is an export you choose; the player here streams the file you upload, and playback then depends on the viewer's hardware decoder.

Read those bars for what they are. Apple’s own top 4K HEVC rung is 16,800 kbps SDR and 20,000 kbps HDR, and Apple wrote that specification to tell the industry what good looks like. A finishing master runs an order of magnitude above it. That gap is not a scandal, it is the design brief of streaming: build a ladder that plays on a train. It just means that when your grade goes down a ladder, the bottom stops are the first thing the encoder is allowed to spend.

A re-encoding platform

What arrivesat the viewer

A rendition built by theplatform's encoder. Vimeo:re-encoded into several formats.YouTube: always re-encodes.

The exact file you uploaded.No re-encode of video or audio.

Bitrateat 4K

Vimeo publishes up to 22 MbpsH.264 and up to 16 Mbps HDRand HEVC. YouTube publishesnothing about delivery.

Whatever you exported.The practical browserhardware-decoder band isaround 300 to 400 Mbps.

Adaptiveladder

Yes. That is the point of it,and it is a real advantageon a bad connection.

None. A slow connectionbuffers rather than droppingto a softer rendition.

ProRes andDNxHR

Accepted as uploads.YouTube lists both among itssupported formats, and bothare re-encoded for delivery.

Hosted for client download,not streamed. Browsersdo not decode them.

Per-fileceiling

Vimeo: 300 GB and 24 hours,every plan. YouTube: 256 GBor 12 hours, whichever is less.

50 GB per file, MP4 or MOV,carrying H.264, HEVC or AV1.

What ismetered

Vimeo: 2 TB a month ofbandwidth on self-serve plans,with Studio and Enterpriseon other terms.

Storage only.No bandwidth meter,on any plan.

Time tofirst watch

YouTube processes uploads inlow quality first; higherqualities can take hours.

The file is the file.Nothing is queued for asecond pass.

Competitor figures are from the Vimeo and YouTube help pages listed in the sources, all fetched 4 September 2026. Vimeo's bitrates are published maximums, not measurements. Our column describes behaviour verified in the product on the same date.

One more caveat belongs here rather than in the marketing. Whether a given 10-bit 4:2:2 file decodes inside a browser is not documented by any browser vendor. The single official primary document on the subject, Microsoft’s specification for the Windows HEVC decoder, lists Main, Main Still Picture and Main10 with 4:2:0 chroma only. Our side of it is simple and checkable: we do not re-encode, so what you upload is what is served. The decoder at the other end is the viewer’s, and this site states what is documented and stops there. That is the subject of 10-bit 4:2:2 HEVC in the browser.

The approval step

Put the note on the frame,
not in an email thread.

A grade is approved shot by shot, and a delivery workflow that ends in an email saying “the interior feels warm” has thrown away the only thing that made the round trip cheap: the timecode. This is the step where the review room earns its place in the chain.

Versions on one link

Grade v1, v2 and the trim pass live under the same link. The client opens what they opened last time and sees the new one beside it, instead of hunting for the most recent attachment.

Per-version approvals

Approval is recorded against a specific version, red or green, so a sign-off cannot drift onto a cut nobody approved. When a note arrives after the fact you can see which version it was written against.

Timecoded comments and drawings

A note lands on a frame, and a drawing lands on the part of the frame it is about. A client circling a sky is unambiguous in a way that a sentence about the sky is not.

Deliverables beside the stream

The files the client is meant to keep sit next to the video they just watched. The ProRes master, the caption file, the broadcast version: hosted for download rather than streamed, and available from the same page as the approval.

The reason to hold the approval on the same file the client will keep is the reason this whole page exists. If the review copy is a rendition and the delivered file is the master, the client approved a picture that nobody is going to receive. When the stream is the export, the picture they approved and the picture you delivered are one file with one encode behind it.

Two limits, stated rather than buried. Passwords are set per video, so a delivery is a link per film; there is no multi-video client portal here. And playback depends on the viewer’s hardware decoder, which is exactly why the next section exists.

When the client’s machine is the weak link

Send two files,
and say plainly which is which.

Some approvals happen on a five-year-old laptop in a meeting room, and no amount of correct encoding fixes that. The professional answer is not to argue about decoders. It is to ship a second file and label both.

Upload the 10-bit master as the primary

Your HEVC Main 10 export at the bitrate you chose. This is the one that carries the grade, and it is what anyone with a capable machine should be watching.

Export a conservative companion

H.264 High Profile, 8-bit, a bitrate the client's connection can obviously carry, constant frame rate, tagged Rec. 709. Nothing clever. It is meant to open anywhere, on the widest-compatibility profile Apple's own specification names.

Label them in the client's language

Not 'v2_h264_final'. 'Full quality, for a fast machine' and 'Compatibility copy, plays anywhere'. A producer who knows which is which will pick correctly and will tell you which one they watched.

Ask which one they approved

One sentence in the note. If the sign-off came from the compatibility copy, you know a fine grading note about the shadows is a note about the companion file, not about your grade.

Why this is worth doing even though it costs you a second export

The alternative is a round of notes about artifacts that exist only on the client’s side of the chain, followed by a re-grade that fixes nothing. An hour of encoding is cheaper than a day of chasing a problem that was never in your timeline. It also removes the argument entirely: if the compatibility copy plays and the master does not, the machine is the constraint, and everyone can see that without anyone having to be right about it.

When to use a platform instead

If they are going to watch on a phone
on cellular, the ladder wins.

There is no adaptive ladder here. That is the deliberate trade behind streaming the exact bytes, and it cuts both ways. On a good connection the client sees your encode. On a bad one they wait, because there is no lower rung to fall to. A platform that builds a ladder will keep playing where this will buffer, and that is a genuine advantage, not a rounding error.

So when the review is a producer watching on a phone on cellular in a car, or an approval going to a client in a region with an unreliable connection, or a link that has to reach twenty stakeholders whose circumstances you cannot predict, upload to a re-encoding platform and accept the encode it makes. Getting a decision beats protecting the bottom stops of a picture nobody can load. The same is true when reach is the point: YouTube costs nothing, is discoverable, and no byte-exact host is a substitute for that.

Keep the byte-exact route for what it is good at, which is the finishing approval itself: a named client, a known machine, a picture that has to be judged rather than merely seen. That is the delivery where the difference between 22 Mbps and your own export is the whole job. For what to hand over once the grade is signed off, see deliver final video files to clients and ProRes delivery.

Questions

Frequently asked

What single change removes the most banding from a client delivery?

Removing a generation. Every re-encode between your timeline and the client's screen is another quantizer deciding how many code values a flat falloff deserves. If the file the client plays is the file you exported, only your own encoder made that decision, and you controlled its settings. Everything else on this page is second to that.

Does a 10-bit export help if the client watches on an ordinary laptop?

It helps the encode, which is the part you control. Ten bits give your encoder more code values to work with in the falloffs where banding forms, and they remove one rounding step from the chain. What the viewer's machine does with the decoded picture is the viewer's machine's business, and no browser vendor documents how it handles every combination of bit depth and chroma. That is why the honest workflow is to send a conservative companion file alongside the 10-bit master rather than to argue about decoders.

Why does an untagged export look different on the client's machine?

Because something has to decide what the numbers mean, and if the file does not say, the reader guesses. Apple's Technical Note TN2227 is explicit: media without an nclc tag is color managed by QuickTime X as if it were created in the SMPTE-C color space. Tag the export with Rec. 709 primaries, transfer and matrix, which is index 1 in each of the three fields of the QuickTime colr atom, and there is nothing left to guess.

Is 22 Mbps really the ceiling on a streaming platform?

Vimeo publishes up to 22 Mbps as the maximum for its 4K H.264 rendition and up to 16 Mbps for its 4K HDR and HEVC rendition, and says plainly that those are maximums and a video could transcode lower. YouTube publishes nothing at all about the bitrate it delivers. Apple's own HLS authoring specification, the industry's reference ladder, tops out at 16,800 kbps for 4K HEVC SDR and 20,000 kbps for HDR. Streaming as a discipline is built around a ceiling in that region.

What happens here if the client is on a slow connection?

The video buffers. There is no adaptive ladder, so nothing silently switches them to a softer rendition to keep playback going. That is the trade honestly stated: on a good connection they see your grade, and on a bad one they wait. If you know the review is happening on a phone on cellular, use a platform that builds a ladder.

Can I send the ProRes master itself?

You can host it here for the client to download, and ProRes 422, ProRes 4444 and DNxHR are stored for exactly that. They do not stream in a browser, so the file the client actually watches is your HEVC or H.264 export. Uploads are MP4 or MOV carrying H.264, HEVC or AV1, up to 50 GB per file.

Does a per-video password cover a whole client folder?

No. Passwords are set per video, so a delivery is a link per film rather than one portal covering a client's whole library. There is no multi-video client hub here, and this page is not going to describe one.

Put the approval on the frame

The review room streams the exact file you uploaded, carries versions, per-version approvals, timecoded comments and drawings, and keeps the deliverables beside the stream.