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Difference Between Quicktime on Mac and on PC?
Hi,
I have a project in which I have to render on both Mac and PC. I’m currently running tests using identical source files and filters – rendering from AE to uncompressed Quicktime files. I’ve compared the resulting files – looking at them on Mac, PC and on an NTSC monitor. The files are not identical – even accounting for gamma differences between the two platforms. The Mac QTs are sharp and seem to retain chroma and shadow better – looking very close to my AE comp. The PC files are softer, shadows are lighter, there is more chroma loss, there is an increase in grain. Even color correcting to bring the files closer together in chroma and contrast does not fix the softer, less precise look of the PC files.
I also tried rendering an uncompressed AVI version. The PC AVI and PC QT looked identical. The Mac QT looked superior.
Does anyone know why there would be a difference between QT on Mac and PC and what accounts for that difference? Also does anyone have any fixes to improve the QT renders on the PC?
Thanks very much for any help,
Eric
Eric Goldstein
Giraffe Film Company
Los Angeles
er**@*********lm.com -
4 Replies
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QuickTime on the Mac platform is an integral part of the OS and therefore is not an external process that necessitates a non-native driver to compress the video. Likewise, Window users utilize the Windows Media as the foundation for integration and interface with the OS.
If you were to take two identical files from the same source and use the exact same QuickTime compression scheme on a PC and a Mac, and then play them back side by side on either the result would be the same as you
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Hi Michael,
Thanks for your take on this. The interesting thing is that the PC generated QT looks virtually identical with the Windows Media file. Both look inferior to the Mac QT.
Could this have to do with QT having 10 bit capability while AVI is only 8 bit?
Eric
Eric Goldstein
Giraffe Film Company
Los Angeles
eric@giraffefilm.com -
Not to dissapoint you here, but Quicktime Animation @ 100% is lossless on both platforms. I’ve rendered to QT Anim hundreds of times on Windows, and the image didn’t degrade at all. Occasionally you can run into gamma differences between platforms, but other than that lossless is lossless.
Also, both the Quicktime wrapper and the .avi wrapper allow for higher bitdepths than 8-bit.
So I’d double check your settings once more.
Bar3nd
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Hi Barend,
My settings, filters, etc. are identical and there is definitely a difference that goes beyond gamma between the results from
the Mac and the PC. Also, I’ve confirmed with the engineers at Cineform that the AVI wrapper is 8 bit capable only. In fact, they had to write 10 bit capable software and re-write the standard avi wrapper to acheive 10 bits with Cineform.Eric
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