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Gamma shift(?) in After Effects after installing Kona2
Hello,
Just installed a KonaLH in our PMG5, and while FCP works beautifully, our AE is acting strange.
Prior to installing the card, AE treated our DVCPROHD clips perfectly. As soon as the card was installed, our full res renders (only full res) look like they have a gamma shift or a setup shift (raising our blacks). As soon as the Kona drivers are removed, the shift disappears.
To be clear, the shift is seen both on the AE composition and the AJA card (when used as a AE video preview). The shift is also seen in rendered movies – using the same render settings as before the Kona install.
I couldn’t believe that a simple card install could affect the render output of After Effects – that is until I remembered that the card accelerates DVCPROHD codecs. Is the card being accessed during my After Effects render? Does my AE comp need to be in YUV (can I even do that)? Do I need to change something in my AJA setup?
Anyone else had this issue? -
6 Replies
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hi mike,
i’m new to hd and still in learning mode But my first instinct is to ask if after installing the kona card, didyou go to aja’s web site and download the latest software update?
this is the only thing i know and can help you with.
i hope it works for you
all the best
david issko -
I have this issue also. Since I’ve had my Kona 2 card longer than I’ve been working with DVCProHD, I didn’t think that the driver could be the culprit. Interesting. I have all the latest updates, and it doesn’t seem to be an issue with that. I had assumed the shift was coming in the YUV to RGB conversion (since AE only works in RGB AFAIK).
Here’s how I’ve been dealing with it until I find a solution: Export the prtions of DVCProHD material you need for AE in FCP (which as you know, handles the footage corectly.) with Animation codec, or Uncompressed. Bring that in to AE and then render out with Animation or UNC back to FCP. Lots of extra rendering, but it gets the job done.
Depending on how much footage comes from AE in an FCP sequence, sometimes I’ll just bump the entire FCP seq to Uncompressed and use that as my master sequence.
Please keep us posted if you make any progress towards a REAL DVCPro HD solution though! I have seen this come up several times now without any proper solution.
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As we added this card in to our system half way through a project (I know, I know, bad idea…), we don’t have the luxury of exporting our clips as anything other than DVCPRO HD – our AE comps are half done.
I think there is something else weird with the aspect ratio/resolution for the video preview in After Effects.
My only current solution is an uninstall of the AJA drivers while we render in After Effects – and then to reinstall. Not exactly my preferred way of working. -
It’s not the best solution, but render out to the animation codec, bring that into FCP, and then re-render in FCP. The re-render goes really fast. You have to watch the way AE (especially 6.5) handles the aspect ratio of DVCPRO HD. Make sure your footage is interpreted correctly in AE.
What version of FCP/Quicktime/AE and all that stuff are you using?
Jeremy
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Thanks for the tip, although I think Matt Larson beat you to it.
Our software versions are:
FCP – 5.0.4
QT – Latest
AE – Latest
Kona Drivers – 3.0 (latest for 5.0.4)We will be upgrading to 5.1 in the near future, however I doubt it’s going to fix anything. All this seems to point to AE not handling the DVCPROHD codec correctly, but only when the AJA Kona card is installed. Let me know if you are on FCP 5.1 with the AJA 3.3 drivers and still experiencing these issues.
Thanks for the tips guys!
Mike -
Oops, should have read that.
I am on FCP 5.1.2 and use AE almost daily. I always render out to Animation as this has been an issue with FCP/AE for a long time. I always understood it as the yuv rgb yuv gamma shift.
Supposedly some codec updates have been made, but I have never seen a change with this issue.
AJA’s 10 bit uncompressed codecs will also help with this issue
Jeremy
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