Final Cut Pro Gamma Headaches – Deadlines… :(

[Aaron Leichter]

A trick I’ve tried when posting for clients and dealing with washed out H.264 exports:

After you’ve exported the Quicktime, open in Quicktime player. Go to Window>Show Movie Properties (command J). In the properties window that opens, click on “Video Track” in the properties list, and then below that, click the “Visual Settings” tab. At the very bottom you’ll see a “Transparency” setting. Change that setting to “Composition”. Save the Quicktime. Note: This seems to disable the internet streaming Fast Start, so encourage clients to download instead of stream. Also note: I’ve noticed strange pixelation and jagged egdes that appear if I’ve downressed using any of Quicktimes preset dimensions options when exporting, so I always set the dimensions to “Custom” and manually type in what I want.

This method doesn’t necessarily solve the ever-mysterious gamma issue, but it seems to satisfy clients.

Best of luck.

[Paul Jay]

WMV can’t be trusted anyway on a Mac.

Even if you create it on a Mac, you should judge it on a Windows system.

[Chris Gordon]

I’ve used JES Deinterlacer (https://www.xs4all.nl/~jeschot/home.html) in the past to adjust the gamma value of an h.264 file after render from FC. Pretty much leave all of the other settings alone and just adjust the gamma value.

[Matt Lyon]

[Chris Gordon] ” I’ve used JES Deinterlacer (https://www.xs4all.nl/~jeschot/home.html) in the past to adjust the gamma value of an h.264 file after render from FC. Pretty much leave all of the other settings alone and just adjust the gamma value.”

Thanks for the tip Chris, this looks like a handy program. Do you know if it’s possible to change the gamma without having to re-encode the whole movie? I only messed around for a few minutes, but this didn’t seem possible.

Matt Lyon
Editor
Toronto

[Bill Moore]

Wow, thanks for the input everyone. I did test the WMV in Windows Media Player on a PC, and it also looks washed out there. I just can’t understand why this process isn’t more or less WYSIWYG… very frustrating. That “Properties” tip was super helpful, I never realized you could control so many properties in there. Too bad it was all stripped out in QuickTime X. Makes me feel like Apple is abandoning us. 🙁

Bill Moore
bill@lot25dmp.com
http://www.lot25dmp.com

[Chris Gordon]

It’s been some time since I’ve had to use it, but I’m pretty sure you can just have it change the gamma but not re-encode. I meant to write up the details of what I did, but never got around to it. Next time I need to do the correction, I’ll be sure to document it for future use.

[Matt Lyon]

@ Chris:

Thanks. Please definitely post about it next time you get a chance to play with the program. If I figure anything out, I’ll update the thread.

@ Bill:

Have you searched on the forum about this issue? There should be tons of posts. Some people report success with other packages, like Episode, or Matrox HD Compress. I’ve had some luck with the quicktime x264 plugin (and messing with the gamma and NCLC atom).

As far as WYSIWYG output goes, I think a lot depends on whether you consider the FCP viewer to be “correct.” It really isn’t. There’s a reason everyone on the forum advocates using a broadcast monitor: Remember in 8 bit digital video, black corresponds to the RGB values of 16,16,16 and white is 235,235,235. But on a computer display, black is 0,0,0 and white is 255,255,255.

So if you grade your video based on your FCP canvas, and push those blacks so they’re nice and dark at 0,0,0 and stretch your whites to 255,255,255, your video is now totally off spec for broadcast and will probably look pretty bad on a TV. But it might look just perfect for web based playback (and maybe that’s all you need).

I guess at the end of the day whatever makes the client happy is all that matters (so long as it passes network QC – if you’re making TV). The only thing I know for certain is that thinking about this too much makes my head hurt 🙂

Hope this helps,

Matt Lyon
Editor
Toronto