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FCP > COLOR > FCP bug?
The full Final Cut Studio 3, MacPro 8 core, 8 gig ram, 8 terra raid, Blackmagic Multibridge Extreme bla, bla, bla…
I just finished cutting a 1hr 50min 4 camera show. 3 camera’s were HDV and 1 camera ex 1. As FCP will not allow multicam timeline to be mixed resolution (1440 and 1920) I layed out 4 video tracks and applied 50% to each to create a quad split. (ok not quite correct but you get the gist of it)
After the final cut I ended up with 4 video tracks that had the occurance of each camera separated that would make it easy to identify when in Color. (this 4 way quad had always been my technique prior to multicam editing features in NLE’s).So I sent it to Color and did the grade and made all the camera’s match perfectly including some over-exposures that I could bring back to life. As I am an old school colourgrader/CCU operator colour correction is one of my expertises.
Wait for it, I am getting to the bug…. (insert commercial break here…)
During the grade I noticed a couple of shots looked a little soft so I went to the ColorFX room and added a 0.2 sharpness filter which made a better match to the other camera’s. I noticed when playing thru those clips in Color that the fields went a little odd on the ‘sharpened’ shots (one of the fields lacked chroma) but I chose to ignore it thinking it was the poxy playback engine.
After rendering and sending back to FCP it all worked fine and looked great except those ‘sharpened’ shots; they were way over the top in sharpness and noise and the fields went rather funky but I decided to just return back to Color and delete the ‘sharpned filter’ from those clips and re-render.
Then I went back to FCP and checked those particular clips and they looked much better and determined I could live with the occasional ‘softer’ shot.
But now for the bug – not all of the altered shots got updated in FCP; they still showed the errors that were exhibited initially. I then went back to Color and re-checked that I didn’t miss any and sure enough they no longer had the ‘sharpen’ filter; I had indeed deleted it. Again I rerendered those shots and went back to FCP and FCP had not updated itself to the new Color rendered clip. I then selected the clip in FCP and went ‘reveal in finder’ and sure enough it found the correct rendered clip but also showed several other versions of the same clip from previous renders.
So I opened the last rendered clip in Quicktime and it was OK even though FCP showed me different. I then manually dragged that clip into FCP and it showed the error which clearly was not there in the Quicktime player… now wait, this is where it gets interesting… so I decide to move ALL the clips to the trash for this one instance of the enigma… FCP then displayed ‘media off line’ which is what I would have expected. Back to Color and re-rendered that one shot and then back to FCP which immediately reconnected and guess what… THE OLD SHARPENED CLIP re-appeared! I thought, what the naughty words are going on here!?!
So I move that clip to the trash and then told my Mac to empty the trash. Guess what; it deleted every clip except the first Color rendered clip and said it was still in use! This is where I got a little terse and decided to take up drinking Whiskey, straight up!
But at least now I knew what was going on. I closed FCP, emptied the trash which then allowed me to do every deletion, went back to Color and re-rendered the sample clip I was working on then re-opened FCP and it was all good!
During the checking process I had the occasion to have to revisit Color to make further changes and when returning to FCP had the odd occasion where FCP stuck with the old render and didn’t update to the new one. So each time I just closed FCP and reopened the project and it relinked to the correct one. As an observation I noted that once a clip was altered in Color and re-rendered, apon returning to FCP I would see the newly rendered clip momentarily ‘flash’ in the timeline indicating that it was ‘updating’ that instance of the clip. So it knew to update but still did it wrong.
So now I have to live with the fact that when ever I alter an existing grade in Color I have to specifically check that FCP had updated correctly – very boring for a man who is always on a deadline; maybe if I was a woman it would be different, I know I would be different.
I did some research and noticed it is not recommended to have such large projects go to Color but I break all the rules which is probably why I get into so much trouble but in my opinion Color handled this whole process just fine considering a 110 min 1000+ shots, all with a grade of some kind.
Anyone else seen this problem and do you think I should bug report it?
Baz
What would I do without the ‘UNDO’ button!!!!
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4 Replies
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Funny post, Baz.
Did this project start on FCP6 by chance?
Jeremy
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[Jeremy Garchow] “Did this project start on FCP6 by chance?”
No – it was “FCP 7/Color 1.5” all the way.
What would I do without the ‘UNDO’ button!!!!
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I’ve had exactly the same issues with FCP 6.0x / Color 1.0x. Frustrating and confusing as hell to say the least, something I was hoping would be resolved in FCP 7 / Color 1.5 but apparently not. I’ve really only seen it in the FCP > Color > FCP work flow also. We do tons of FCP > AE > FCP with out this issue.
For me the problem isn’t that severe since we edit 30-60s TVC mostly. I can just imagine the head-ache of doing 60 min shows…
Speaking of Color render / output bugs I have quite a few times had it “reset” it output preset from what I want to what… I guess it wants. Input is RED 4K, output is 1080p Uncompressed or PreRes. Very often, after a render or so it will reset and change the output to 2K, screw up my framing and re-linking in FCP. Again, manually redoing the output setting, framing and rendering solves the problem but is a hassle even when I’m only dealing with the odd 5-10 clips (and doesn’t feel very reliable).
Erik Lindahl
Freecloud Communication
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[Baz Leffler] “No – it was “FCP 7/Color 1.5” all the way. “
I saw this on a project orgininsally started on FCP6 recently but haven’t seen it in FCP7/Color 1.5.
Clearing all the render files and rerendering is what did it for me too.
As far as the Color FX sharpness, I believe that some effects only render progressive so you have to adjust for a reinterlace on the way out. I forget exactly how to do it, but I bet if you search the Color forum you will find it.
Jeremy
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