PSDs imported and animated to 16bit comps (the artwork is a concrete texture with a black vignette over, lots of greys, blacks blending into each other)

Rendered to 16bit PhotoJPEG .MOVs (the masters look fine, no gamma shift at this stage but at 750MB too large to upload to client)

Encoded in Episode to H264 (blacks are crushed, all detail is lost, gamma is generally shifted darker)

Encoded in QuickTime to H264 (gamma is shifted lighter and reds are shifted towards blue)

I've tried playing with various options and settings in Episode, but any gamma compensated reverse shift I apply brightens the highlights but the blacks are still crushed. Playing with the QT export filters are really hit or miss with little effect.

Anyone come across this before and found a workaround? Or a better encoder. I had an old version of compressor at one time but removed it as it was so unstable and buggy and required a reinstall every two weeks.

At this stage I've resorted to trying to introduce the reverse gamma shift as an adjustment layer in AE prior to final render to compensate for the shift in Episode. So far I  have yet to find the sweet spot that solves the problem

many many thanks