-
AE color space setup for Varicam YUV422 uncompressed 8bit?
I’m working on effects shots for a movie that was filmed with the Varicam and captured on a Kona card 8bit uncompressed into Final Cut Pro. When I load that footage into After Effects it shows “YUV422 codec” – the footage is uncompressed, but I’m guessing that its just showing the color space information there.
How should I setup my color space (file -> project setttings -> working space) so that I’m working in the correct color space and not changing the colors in my comps? Do I use Adobe RGB, sRGB, … etc?
-
3 Replies
-
If you can wait until NAB next week, when the AE CS3 public preview will be launched, then you’ll find that Color Management in CS3 is much easier, streamlined and powerful. It may not be the kind of thing that looks spectacular in feature bullets, but I believe many people will find it’s one of the most amazing additions in this version.
In this case, you will be able to pick a REC709 working space (generic name I’m giving, I’m not sure if I’m allowed to name specifics) and CS3 will most likely assign automatically a REC709 input profile for your footage (if it doesn’t, you’ll be able to do that yourself). You will also be able to simulate how it would look on an HDTV monitor. How cool is that?FWIW, most gamma/luminance shifts when going from AE to FCP are not related to subtle RGB>YUV space conversion issues, but rather to a the idiosyncratic way FCP has for handing gamma in RGB files. If you’re rendering from AE for FCP, you may find that a gamma correction of 0.824 will compensate for the gamma increase FCP will apply to the clip (credit to Chris Meyer for the actual gamma correction number).
Adolfo Rozenfeld
Buenos Aires – Argentina
ar(AT)adolforozenfeld.com -
[Adolfo Rozenfeld] “Color Management in CS3 is much easier, streamlined and powerful. It may not be the kind of thing that looks spectacular in feature bullets, but I believe many people will find it’s one of the most amazing additions in this version.”
This is actually one of the features I’m more excited about =) I don’t claim to be any more than a babe in the woods when it comes to video color management, but I’m eager to sink my teeth in and learn more.
I think I understand the basics of gamma encoding now, not that I would be able to help with this particular question.
-
[wuzelwazel] “This is actually one of the features I’m more excited about =) I don’t claim to be any more than a babe in the woods when it comes to video color management, but I’m eager to sink my teeth in and learn more.”
We are all babes in the woods when it comes to CM in video 🙂
Fortunately, you’ll see it’s much less esoteric than one fears. It’s something you can understand in 10 minutes, given the right explanation (I mean the basics, I wouldn’t claim to have digested more than that).
AFAIK, no application provides such a comprehensive CM approach for all stages of the image processing pipeline (input/project/display/output) as AE CS3 will…I recommend taking a very serious look at a display calibrating device. Even something inexpensive, like the $70 Spyder2Express.
Adolfo Rozenfeld
Buenos Aires – Argentina
ar(AT)adolforozenfeld.com
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up