I have other posts regarding a "Mezzanine" format for video...something that is high enough quality for repurposing, but more compressed than the original to save on storage space in your digital asset management or video asset management system. H.264 is an excellent video format to use as a mezzanine, but with compression, comes "loss." One of the main issues with H.264 is a loss of color saturation. Here are a couple helpful tips to give your video a little "bump" if choosing H.264 as your format.
When rendering or exporting your video, depending on which encoder you use, you should add a couple filters. You can play with the settings to fine tune it, but when rendering, I tend to lower the brightness a couple clicks, up the contrast a couple clicks, and increase the saturation between 10-20. If I am feeling spunky, I will add a level of sharpen to it as well. Below are before and after frame grabs. The first is a straight H.264. The second is the H.264 with the above enhancements. As you can see, it is a much better looking image, which will repurpose better in a video asset management system.
Regular H.264
H.264 with Filters
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