How to Build a Repeatable Banding Test for Video Ladders Using FFmpeg

Video banding debates are often inconclusive because engineers test on different footage, making standardized synthetic testing a more reliable approach. A structured method using FFmpeg involves generating a noiseless 1080p synthetic gradient and encoding it four ways: naive 8-bit, 8-bit debanded, 10-bit filter graph with explicit dithering, and 10-bit AV1. Each encoding method reveals a different layer of the banding problem, with the 10-bit filter chain approach — using error diffusion dithering and grain-preserving encoder settings — identified as the step most commonly skipped. The AV1 10-bit encode sidesteps quantisation issues entirely without any debanding filter. A contrast-amplification step using FFmpeg's eq filter is also recommended to make banding artifacts visually obvious during quality review.