2 QT (current settings) exports from exact same source, but 1 darker?

[Michael Gissing]

Well a lot depends on what your sequence settings are and how you are looking at the QT file. Also I assume you are exporting via QuickTime movie, not QuickTime conversion.

[Hal Masonberg]

Yes, exporting via Quicktime Movie, not Conversion. And I am opening the mov files in QT and looking at them side-by-side. The newer ones are now brighter. Not significantly, but certainly noticeably. I can’t imagine what would account for this. I never changed anything in Sequence Settings.

[Michael Gissing]

Still don’t know important things like sequence settings and source codecs but in the meantime, try importing the files back into FCP and see if they are different. QuickTime has always been an unreliable place to make technical assesments. Depending on which version of QuickTime there may be settings which will help but your lack of useful information makes it hard to guess.

[Hal Masonberg]

Understood. I would think if the settings having changed, the output wouldn’t either. My settings are NTSC DV (3:2), NTSC – CCIR 601, Field Dominance: None, Compressor: Photo-JPEG (because that was what the materials were delivered to me on many years ago and I don’t want to put it through another compression render in FCP), Quality: 100%.

Again, outputting with current settings, and then viewing both QT files side-by-side in Quicktime 10.0. And the older file I output from FCP last week is a tad darker than any new QT file I export from FCP now. And I prefer the slightly darker one. But it doesn’t have the audio fix I recently made.

Hope that’s the info you were looking for.

Thanks.

[Michael Gissing]

Well jpeg in a DV sequence is going to be recompressed as DV. Also DV is standard def so there might be scaling going on depending on your source material. Is your source material still images or motion jpeg video files. Motion Jpeg at 100℅ is almost uncompressed but a DV sequence is not good.

QT 10 is a really poor player to do critical testing of a file. I would import the file into FCP and compare with a split screen to see if there is an real difference.

[Hal Masonberg]

Unfortunately, working with standard def. This was shot on 35mm, but what we’re working with here is a rough cut in SD from some DVD dailies. Long story, but the footage was taken from the dvd’s as Photo – JPEG even though this is a feature film. What we’re cutting here has no relation to what the film should look like in a proper transfer from the 35 elements. That said, I am still trying to offer the best and most accurate quality possible under these circumstances. Is there another setting I should be working in? I’m assuming the damage has already been done and there’s no reversing it. However, if there are options open to me, I’d love to know what they are.

I’ll import to FCP and compare that way. Thanks.

[Michael Gissing]

Try a prores 422 sequence. DV is an awful lossy codec. Duplicate the sequence and change the settings to ProRes 422. The exported QuickTime should have correct gamma.

[Hal Masonberg]

I’ll try that. Wish the materials had been prores from the get-go. Question, if the sequence I have now is already rendered as DV, would bringing it into a new sequence and re-rendering just add another generation of loss to it, or does that only happen when exporting?

[Michael Gissing]

When you rendered it made it DV. So changing and rendering as ProRes is much better. Then export movie with current settings and then gamma should match plus the quality will be better than DV

[Rafael Amador]

Set also “Render all YUV in High Precision”.
rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com