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A Nice Plus
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[Rafael Amador] “As FCPX does.
To simply tweak your luma on any YUV stuff you need to go RGB.
Some time ago people would have said “overkills”.”Sure, luma adjustments are mathematically easier in YUV than RGB.
However, here’s a counterexample: compositing is traditionally done in RGB. Performing the same composite math on two images in YUV may yield different results than on the same images in RGB. For blend modes to yield the “correct” expected results, they must be processed in RGB.
That said, these are computer problems, not user problems. Users care how the image looks, and users care about having all the tools they need to adjust the image. Users do not care how an image’s colors are encoded.
The key is that with sufficient precision, RGB and YUV can be converted back and forth without clipping or rounding errors, so developers are free to use whichever color encoding is most convenient for a particular processing algorithm without incurring any quality loss. On modern systems, the speed penalty for converting RGB/YUV is negligible.
FCPX is not alone in processing in RGB, either: it joins apps like After Effects, Color, Flame, Fusion, Nuke, Resolve, SCRATCH, Shake, and Smoke.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events -
[Oliver Peters] “With MC6, you have native, licensed ProRes support. In the pre-MC6 versions, Avid DNxHD QT exports (same as source, rec601/709) convert reasonably seamlessly into ProRes using Compressor. Just make sure you get your Avid files that way and that you have the free Avid QT codecs installed in your system. There will be a minor level difference, but it’s not the huge gamma shift we are discussing.
The reason is because Apple does not open the encoding specs, so everyone has to reverse engineer passing their levels from a non-QT codec over to QT. The actual encoding is done by the closed QT engine. That’s what you get with a proprietary format without any official standardization.”
If only I could request such an easy thing. Sometimes the file is passed around so much, I have no contact with the originator. I do what I can.
As far as the QT problems, yes. I hope AV Foundation will clear some of this up. QT and it’s limitations could go away as far as I’m concerned. Avid has no open platform to provide an MXF without buying their software. They went the other way and started accepting native QT and rewrap.
There’s a LOT that could be done to try and standardize this mess by all parties.
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I fully agree with you Walter, but I think that the chance of rendering in both color spaces that would have been a real plus for FCPX. Although just 8b in RGB, FC have it.
A kind of 3w-CC or Pro Amp for basic correction or legalizing would have been fine.[Walter Soyka] “FCPX is not alone in processing in RGB, either: it joins apps like After Effects, Color, Flame, Fusion, Nuke, Resolve, SCRATCH, Shake, and Smoke.”
Being no one of them NLEs.
rafael -
[Rafael Amador] “I think that the chance of rendering in both color spaces that would have been a real plus for FCPX. Although just 8b in RGB, FC have it.”
I guess my point is that with floating point RGB processing, it doesn’t matter how you render at all; where necessary, the RGB/YUV transforms are built into the effects. The editor doesn’t have to worry about encoding or precision. If you want to make a luma adjustment in an effect, you can. It doesn’t matter to you if the computer stores the images in RGB and translates them back and forth to YUV for processing, because it’s all lossless.
I know that you know what you’re doing, so you’re able to understand why you might want to render in YUV or RGB with FCP7 and are able to choose accordingly. Not everyone was.
I think this was one of the good simplifications that FCPX made over FCP8. A dual-system rendering engine requires dual-system effects, many of which will just do a YUV/RGB transform themselves and then follow a single processing path. FCP was a mess, offering some YUV effects and some RGB effects. Because the RGB processing was 8-bit, it was easy to get clipping or rounding errors if you didn’t know the mechanics behind what you were doing.
Doing all processing in floating point RGB makes it simpler for users, simpler for developers, and doesn’t affect the image at all.
There’s a lot I’m not fond of in FCPX, but I think this engineering decision was sound.
[Walter Soyka] “FCPX is not alone in processing in RGB, either: it joins apps like After Effects, Color, Flame, Fusion, Nuke, Resolve, SCRATCH, Shake, and Smoke.”
[Rafael Amador] “Being no one of them NLEs.”
Well, Smoke is an NLE (among other things), but this raises an interesting question: where does a modern NLE end, and a coloring, compositing, or effects app begin? FCPX does all of these things, too.
I think that its new imaging engine is probably the single most important improvement over FCP7. But then again, I’m biased. I do graphics work, so I’m more into the grading/compositing/effects/finishing side and less into the editorial than a lot of folks here.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events -
[tony west] “I use a broadcast monitor in the field while I’m shooting, and when I bring the stuff in it looks pretty much the same as what I saw out there.”
The lucky FCPX users working with a controlled environment are happy, indeed. Acquire, cut, finish and deliver; That’s what FCPX is for. The others who must rely on third parties to accomplish other things are the ones who always will be burned, and sadly are nowhere near Apple’s radar. Much of the hate and love FCPX is getting today is based on this fact, and unfortunately, it won’t change in the foreseeable future.
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[Christian Schumacher] “it won’t change in the foreseeable future.
“How do you know this?
“My Name is Steve and I’m an FCPX user”
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I’m with you, Walter. As the world (ever so slowly, some faster than others) moves to 444 RGB acquisition, 32bit RGB makes a lot of sense.
This level of X’s “simplification” of a complex task is very welcome.
Jeremy
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[Christian Schumacher] ” The others who must rely on third parties to accomplish other things are the ones who always will be burned, and sadly are nowhere near Apple’s radar. Much of the hate and love FCPX is getting today is based on this fact, and unfortunately, it won’t change in the foreseeable future.”
Not sure what this means here. Do you mind explaining?
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[Steve Connor] ” [Christian Schumacher] “it won’t change in the foreseeable future.”
OK, I meant it shouldn’t change in the foreseeable future. And is based on Apple’s recent decisions to leave to third parties the workarounds to fully sustain FCPX in a collaborative workflow.
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[Jeremy Garchow] “There’s a LOT that could be done to try and standardize this mess by all parties.”
The great thing about standards is that there’s so many to choose from…
Avid uses an open codec, but an inaccessible container. Apple uses an open container, but an inaccessible codec.
A truly universal lightly-compressed HD format would be huge.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events
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