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Best settings for RGB workflow
We are doing a CG series – files are RGB tga’s – we have been converting them to Pro RES HQ and they look great – but now the lighting supervisor says the QTs don’t match the targas. Shots seem to be brighter/washed out once coverted to YUV codec.
We need to go 100% RGB. Is there an ideal setting with the LHe? I’m getting shifts when the playhead is stopped – some settings cause screen to go darker when playing – some lighter when playing. We need the screen to be the same whether playing or paused in FCP.
I’m testing Kona 10bit RGB codec, Sheer RGB codec and Animation codec.
Lance
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12 Replies
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When you say screen, do you mean the canvas or a production monitor? Use only an external monitor to judge the quality of the image. The canvas is merely a reference.
Jeremy
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I have a 1080p attached via comp and an SDI NTSC monitor. The shift is happening on both – just trying to find out the correct settings for reliable RGB workflow with FCP/Kona.
Lance Bachelder
Southern California -
Take it to an RGB codec, tell fcp to render in RGB (apple-0 to bring up sequence settings) and you should be good.
Sheer or the Kona RGB should suffice, animation codec can be a problem as it’s not exactly rt active in FCP. Or, if you convert to a YUV codec, live with the shift and color correct it back to where the lighting sup wants it to be.
Jeremy
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I’ve tested Sheer and Kona RGB – both look good, but still gettin a shift when I hit play – files either look great while playing or great while parked depending on the codec???
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have you tried bring in the image sequence to an RGB timeline, forcing RGB render, render, than see what it looks like?
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Yes – but the same shift happens – when playing the files look overly crushed. Just trying to get a setting so the image looks the same whether playing or paused – and not washed out like it loks when using a YUV setting.
Thanks so far.
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It’s not an easy process. You have to find something that you and the lighting sup agree on. I’d go with something that looks good when it’s playing and find a gamma setting that please you both.
Jeremy
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Are you seeing this in the Viewer or Canvas? Drop these clips into a sequence for playback, I have similar problems when I play RGB clips back in the Viewer, but they work fine in the Canvas.
There used to be an issue where you would get that kind of gamma shift on playback if you had the overlays on in the Canvas of FCP. Try turning those off if you have them on.
Also, you might try converting your RGB sequence to YUV using FCP rather than some other editor (like After Effects). If I need to take a DVCProHD clip into After Effects (RGB only) I get a noticible gamma shift unless I first convert the DVCProHD(YUV) to Animation(RGB) inside FCP. It seems to handle it much better.
I’ve also found the gamma setting in the AJA Control Panel can trip me up while in After Effects if it is not set properly (or in Automatic mode).
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This shift on playback happens when FCP and your IO card are doing RGB to YUV conversions on the fly to your broadcast monitor. If you set your timeline to the RGB codec used and set the sequence settings to RGB and set your video output setting to an RGB setting (not a 10 or 8 bit) the shift will go.
Just listing those off the top of my head without the system in front of me. Had to solve the same issue a few months back.
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Great call, but I thought he tried that?
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