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Odd crushed black problem
OK, here’s a wierd one I’m hoping people will be able to help with.
I’ve helped a friend edit an art piece – it’s someone doing sign language on what should be a black background. For a variety of reasons the background is more gray than black, a bit mottled and noisy. Nevermind think I, I’ll CC it to crush the blacks – using the FCP CC tool that’s what I do and it all looks fine before rendering. Checking in the scopes gives me nicely flatlined blacks at 0.
Render it and it all goes to ****. Blacks are mottled with blue noise and the scopes are registering ‘sub black’ rather than 0, if that makes sense. What gives?
This is FCP 6.05 in PAL ProRes (normal not HQ), 10.4.11, QT 7.6
Any ideas?
Jason
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Before you criticise a man, walk a mile in his shoes.
Then when you do criticise him, you’ll be a mile away. And have his shoes.*the artist formally known as Jaymags*
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7 Replies
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If you’re in the US, black is 7.5 IRE units, not zero. Zero black is a Japanese thing. The noise in your picture when you started is also a bad sign. I’d start there.
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Thanks Mark, but as I said in the post its PAL ProRes. 0 IRE. I assumed, as I’ve always experienced in the past, a crushed black is a crushed black and once it’s at 0 on the scope no picture information is there. It’s always been that way in the hours of onlining i’ve done, and whilst the slight noise is a nuisance, again black is black…
Ahh well, never do freebies for friends. They’re always the hardest to do.
Jason
_________________________________
Before you criticise a man, walk a mile in his shoes.
Then when you do criticise him, you’ll be a mile away. And have his shoes.*the artist formally known as Jaymags*
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Seems strange that is looks different after render with that codec.
Perhaps it might work better to luma key to a black slug underneath.
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[Jason Porthouse] “using the FCP CC tool that’s what I do and it all looks fine before rendering. Checking in the scopes gives me nicely flatlined blacks at 0.
“Always use the 3-Way CC.
According to FCP guru Larry Jordan, the standard FCP CC is RGB and should be avoided.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
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[Jason Porthouse] “This is FCP 6.05 in PAL ProRes (normal not HQ), 10.4.11, QT 7.6 “
DId you capture this way? Where’s the footage from?
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Hi Jason,
I agree with David.
Use the 3W-CC. Works in 10b/YUV.
The “blue dots” maybe just noise.
Try applying some Gaussian Blur to the Blue or Green channel.
Apply the Broadcast Safe filter so the “SuperBlacks’ will be clipped.
rafael
BTW: Blacks in FC must be at “0” whatever your format PAL or NTSC and whatever the country. -
Thanks chaps,
Funnily enough I used the 3-way thinking along similar lines David. It seemed to be better but not perfect.
Moving the sequence to Blackmagic 10 bit PAL made things slightly better, but not perfect.
I didn’t think to slap a broadcast safe on, will give it a go, so thanks for that. It was about 1 in the morning…
What I still don’t get is the fact that after rendering the black levels went lower than 0 – in fact you can see on the scopes that the blue channel has dipped the least, but is still down. It’s in FCP scopes as well as on my external ones… pre-render, it looks exactly as it should, inky black with scopes reading correctly. Yet another PAL bug?
BTW this originated from a Z1 shooting DVCam. Ingested to ProRes via SDI. I do have a digital copy (firewire in to FCP then burnt to DVD as QT) so I may try that to see if it’s any different.
Thanks all
Jason
_________________________________
Before you criticise a man, walk a mile in his shoes.
Then when you do criticise him, you’ll be a mile away. And have his shoes.*the artist formally known as Jaymags*
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