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My renders look different on FCP 7!
Hi,
I’ve recently upgraded to FCS 3 & Snow Leopard.
At some point I needed to fix an old project created on FCP 6 and re-render it. The project of course opened fine, and I fixed what I needed and sent out to render (Exported QT and then compressed to Animation PAL via Compressor).Looking at the final render, it looked somewhat odd. I then opened the previously rendered file (done in FCP 6) and played them side by side in QT7.
First of all the aspect ratios were different; although the info palette showed correct sizes for both videos (720×576), the actual size was different, as though one was corrected for 1:1 viewing and the other wasn’t. Opening both movies in QTX was weirder: they had the same window size but the newly created movie seemed stretched and cropped to fit 1:1 viewing.
I then opened the movies in VLC, and lo and behold, they both were sized the same.But the more major issue is that the newly rendered movie looks “softer”. The previously rendered movie is crisp and sharp with contrasty colors, while the new one is just milder in color and detail; the difference is not extreme, but noticeable.
I cannot think of any reason why this could happen, because the render settings remained the same. I even tried playing around with different settings, as well as rendering directly from FCP, among other things, but nothing changed.I’m fresh out of ideas, and quite frankly, pretty frustrated from this, as I need to make a tape master pretty soon.
Is this a bug in QT? FCP7? Snow Leopard? Or just some hidden setting I might have overlooked?Your help will be much appreciated.
Thanks
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6 Replies
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Have you compared the clip inside any pro application (FC, AE, Motion, Colors..)?
Rafael -
Thanks Rafael, that was a good idea.
I imported both files into AE placing them one above the other in a new PAL composition. Hiding and unhiding one at a time, I could now see they were both identical in terms of aspect ratio, and gladly, sharpness and detail as well. The only remaining difference now, was in the relative brightness of each, which might have been the reason for the washed out colors; this leads me to think that I might have changed some gamma related setting at some point.This is more reassuring, but now makes me wonder about the reliability of QT player for reference use. How do you explain this difference?
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Hi Guy,
It seems that things have changed with SL, although I haven’t test my self yet.
I’m still in plain Leopard.
About QT Player, you can not trust it for any critical matter.
Rafael -
The default gamma has gone from 1.8 to 2.2.
I’m right now adjusting a lot of old projects for the new world, sigh.
At least with 2.2, the footage will look the same on Macs and PCs, thanks to having the same gamma.
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Thanks B.J.,
Even though I re-calibrated my monitor after upgrading to SL, I completely forgot about that detail…
But I’ve been doing some more experimenting, and oddly I found that if I render directly from FCP (Export > Using QuickTime Conversion) then the overall gamma is correct and completely identical to the original render; but if I use Export > QuickTime Movie instead, the result is washed out as I stated before.
So I’m not sure if this a bug, or both render methods use different engines or schemes. -
Guy,
Yesterday I’ve exported a movie that I’ve just finished in 10bUn.
I played it with QT and I saw some very strange jumps on gamma in the end of some clips.
I re-exported to Prores.
Now I’ve been comparing the two clips.
There is an noticeable difference between the Prores and the 10b Unc.However I really don’t know which is the correct one. I don’t trust 10b Unc.
Curiously the jumps in gamma in some clips only happens in QT player.
I will die without understanding all this.
I’m with FC 7.0.1 in Leopard.
rafael
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