What sharpness, saturation, and contrast settings do you usually use with Truecolor? Unfortunately, I'm no expert in experimenting myself as I really don't know what to look for; other than the fact I tend to like to saturate things more than the real pros; and I know what noise looks like.
I use -1/0/0.
Limiting contrast with -2 for example will not result in better results when grading.
Let me illustrate. The codec, is a spectrum of data available for recording. I am going to call it a doorway.
Your video is a table. It is painted in the colors of the rainbow. ALL colors existing.
When you record, the table is pushed through the doorway. When using value 0, it fits as perfectly as it can through.
When using minus levels of contrast, you are compressing the table. Many fibres are lost, they fall to the ground. Gone forever, you compressed it!
It comes out on the other side. Using Post options, you can stretch it back out. But some gradients are forever lost, you squeezed them off!
If using a positive (+2) contrast value, the table will expand before passing. It wont fit. The edges will shatter/disappear. The table comes out on the other side, same size as it was before expanding. But the edges are gone. You have lost some gradients in the process.
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The end.
It is my belief the whole -3 bonanza started because people thought footage looking gray, like Alexa footage (which is a whole other story), would automatically make it more like Alexa quality. This is rubbish. Do not compare the Phantom cam with a 70.000 dollar cinema camera.
This in combination with the former upper 60 mbit codec limit. The absolute lowest parts of the spectrum suffer in this low bitrate. It might have been a good idea to compress the table then. Lost some midtone "fibres" to save some shadows. But that does not apply anymore now that we have 100mbit recording.
Pretty satisfied with that analogy there. Hope you understand.