AE render won’t match

[Ron Craig]

Hi Aaron,

Thanks very much. It would be great to continue working with AE the way I have in the past.

Yes… I am on Leopard.

Ron

[Aaron Neitz]

Leopard is the one unknown for me: I’m on Tiger still. Did you get all the latest updates from Adboe? I know there was a 4 month gap when Leopard came out that After Effects was supposed to have “issues” with Leopard.

I’d also definitely cross post in the AE forum… plus I’ve got an issue as you’ll see:

Ok, I exported a 1080 ProResHQ clip from FCP 6.0.2. My “project settings” in AE (right click on the 8bpc switch) are:

Depth: 8 bits per channel
Working Space: none
All boxes UNCHECKED
Footage is also set to “none” colorspace

Now something crazy is happening to my renders. the FIRST TWO frames of the render are too bright (gamma shift) – but the rest of the clip is a perfect match to the original final cut media!

Then I did:

Depth: 16 bits
Working Space: 709
boxes unchecked
footage set to read as 709

Same problem: FIRST TWO frames bright, rest of render perfect.

Finally I used some DV50 footage with my original settings, and it rendered out perfect the whole way through.

I’m not sure what the First Two frames being bright means. I almost always do uncompressed 4:2:2 when working with HD and After Effects but seem to recall a discussion about this before. I’d simply solve the problem by adding two frame handles at the head… but it’s a bit concerning nevertheless.

I’m also on QT 7.3.0

let me know if anything comes of it!

[Ron Craig]

Thanks Aaron,

Great information. (What’s up with those first two frames? Weird.)

I think I’m up to date on versions but I’ll check. I bought the AE upgrade recently, supposedly after the Leopard issues had been worked out.

I’ll run a test with your specs and report back.

Ron

[Ron Craig]

I can’t report any success. I tested a few seconds of 720p Pro Res (HQ) video exported from FCP to After Effects and then rendered out of AE with nothing done to it. My hope is to export something out of AE that will be a match for the original clip in FCP.

I have tested these settings in AE:
Workingspace: none
8 bit per channel
Footage also set to none for color space
Export as animation.
This did not produce good footage; it is much darker thatn the original when imported back into FCP.

I tried the same settings as above, exported as ProRes. Same problem.

I tried:
Workingspace: 709, 709 (16-235), SMTP-C
All the same: footage is darker when reimported to FCP.

I tried all the same settings in 16 bit per channel. No joy.

Does anyone know certain settings that will let me export my material from FCP (shot as DVCPRO HD 720p 30 fps, captured in FCP as ProREs 422 (HQ)) into After Effects…. and then work with it there and export back to FCP successfully, with color match?

Or is it just impossible? It was suggested here that I raise this question on the After Effects forum. I’ll do that.

Ron

[Rich Rubasch]

WAIT a minute!!!! Remember that not only do you have to set the Project color space, but you then must ALSO select each clip and go into the color space tab and choose the SAME color space you selected for the project. There will be TWO places to make the color space change, once to the Project (Project-Settings) and once on each clip (select clip and hit command-F to get to the color space tab on the clip).

Be sure you did both before rendering. It’s not just the project color space setting!

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media

[Aaron Neitz]

Well heck… I’m stymied. The only thing I can think is a Leopard problem.

Is it just a brightness shift? Maybe in FCP you can open “item propeties” and enter 2.2 in the “gamma” field? Maybe FCP is just mis-reading the gamma as 1.8?

OR…

Are you seeing this footage on an external monitor? I know FCP has those “approximate” and “accurate” gamma settings that just affect the computer monitor, but don’t affect the actual video output.

sorry we haven’t been able to crack the code!

[Ron Craig]

Thanks, Rich. I appreciate your point but I was careful to change the colorspace settings in each location on each test.

Are you able to do what I can’t: export high def video(ProRes 422 HQ)from FCP 6.0 to AE and render back into FCP with an image match? In Leopard. Man, if you can do that it would be a world of help for me to know your settings/workflow.

Lee

[Ron Craig]

Thanks Aaron,

Tried the Gamma setting but it didn’t do any good.

Say, when you said that you had played around with this problem and come up with some decent results, were you making adjustments to anything I wasn’t (as described in my test report, above)?

Lee

[Aaron Neitz]

Nothing else. My AE crashed not to long ago and I deleted all the prefs – so I was literally using the out-of-the-box settings. Footage goes in, drop into composition, render out to same codec, and it looks exactly the same.

[Ron Craig]

OK…and not to drag this string on forever…

Are you working in high def? And in FCP 6 and AE CS3?

Thanks