Footage DIfference

Adobe Premiere Pro

Footage DIfference

Posted by Andrew Clark on January 12, 2013 at 8:42 am

Hi all –

I’ve attached a screen shot of footage in WMP and QT. The screen shot was captured in Windows.

The footage in the QT player was captured into FCP X.
The footage in the WMP was captured into PPRO CS6 (Windows 7 64bit).

Same footage, obviously, but I noticed a difference between the two. The FCP X capture seems lighter than the PPRO one does.

My questions as to what causes this are:

– Is it just a QT or WMP playback setting?
– Is it a “capture” setting … in either application (FCP X or PPRO CS6) that I would be able to adjust?
– Is it an OS platform issue?

If more info. is needed, please let me know.

Appreciate any insights as to why this is.

Ivan Myles replied 13 years, 3 months ago 3 Members · 5 Replies
5 Replies

Ivan Myles
January 12, 2013 at 4:50 pm

This is a known problem with QuickTime. The file captured in QT should look OK when viewed in other video players (Windows Media Player, VideoLAN player).

Here is a great overview of the issue and a summary of potential fixes:

https://vitrolite.wordpress.com/2010/12/31/quicktime_gamma_bug/

The best solution for MAC users is to load the x264 codec.
Angelo Lorenzo
January 12, 2013 at 9:15 pm

Ivan may be jumping the gun.

How does the footage from both captures look in Premiere/FCPX? What is your capture codec? HDV/DV?

Generally, Quicktime 7 is a terrible video player on Windows and will not render the video anywhere near what an NLE will. VLC will come close but my experience is that it will be ever so slightly darker than Premiere or Final Cut.

——————–
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Andrew Clark
January 15, 2013 at 7:28 am

So, if I bring the FCP X generated QT files into PPRO CS6 (Windows), it should be fine … meaning no loss of visual tones of what I am seeing in the QT Player in Windows … is that correct?

Regarding the basics of the footage:

The footage was shot on an Canon XL1 (MiniDV)

I captured the footage into FCP X utilizing the “Create Archive” function.

I captured the footage into PPRO CS6 by the usual “Capture” process and using the DV setting.

So, I looked at the footage on the Mac OS in the QT player and on Windows in WMP on a separate computer. The QT footage looked a lot better in the Mac OS. But there was still a (slight) tonality difference between the two. It could also could be due to the fact that I’m looking at two different computer LCD screens that may have something to do with this as well.
Andrew Clark
January 15, 2013 at 5:51 pm

So has the QT gamma issue been fixed?

I’ve been searching on the Web for this and have not found anything stating it has been fixed; just some workarounds.
Ivan Myles
January 16, 2013 at 1:45 am

The gamma issue seems to be significantly worse on PCs with both QuickTime and Adobe Creative Suite. The same videos that look pretty bad on one computer look great on another machine that doesn’t have the Adobe apps loaded. YMMV

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