P2 Log and Transfer looks flat

[Shane Ross]

And you are monitoring…how? External monitor? Basing it on what you see in the VIEWFINDER or camera LCD? Those are hardly color accurate.

FCP doesn’t do anything to the footage, processing wise, to alter the image in any way. it simply wraps the files in QT and copies them to the media drive. There should be zero quality shift.

If you want you can download a demo of MXF4MAC and import the MXF files natively and see how that looks.

Shane

GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Arnie Schlissel]

What Shane said.

If your footage comes in flat looking on a properly calibrated broadcast monitor via L&T, well, it’s probably shot flat.

Open up the FCP scopes. If the blacks are near zero and the whites are near 100 on the waveform and the color goes at least halfway out on the vectorscope but your footage still looks flat, then there’s a problem with your monitor. If the blacks are not near 0 or the whites not near 100 or the color doesn’t come out very far from the center, then your footage is flat.

This is why you need to use a properly calibrated broadcast monitor on set. There are small models for this use. Some even have scopes built in.

Arnie
Post production is not an afterthought!
https://www.arniepix.com/

[Kevin James]

Thanks guys for your help.
I’ll try to explain a little more.
The transfered footage IS flat (waveform confirmed).
When the scene was lit in the field there is full range video.
When the scene is played in camera it is full range video (waveform confirmed).
When the footage is “Log and Transfer” to AVC Intra 100M or ProResHQ it is flat.
We have tested this on different systems here and the result is the same.

When I “Log and Capture“, from camera SDI out, to Mac Kona AJA SDI in, the footage looks great (waveform confirmed). It looks like what was monitored in the field and played back in camera.

There is a 10 IRE jump in the SDI “Captured” footage compared to the “Transfered” footage, with the blacks levels remaining consistent.

Any ideas?

[Shane Ross]

NO idea. I have never heard of this. And the fact that it is happening on several systems, as ProRes or AVCIntra… is puzzling.

So you attach a waveform to the camera and the footage looks fine. But import and look at the footage in FCP and it is flat? Why not edit, and then COLOR CORRECT to remedy this? That is what typically is done anyway.

I don’t know what is going on here. Never heard of this issue before. Tough to really have insight without being there.

Shane

GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Kevin James]

Yes color correction ‘repairs’ the footage. But I’d like to save the time and rendering overhead.

I’m wondering if there is a color management setting somewhere that’s at play.
I get the same result with System Prefs Monitor at 1.8 gamma and 2.2 gamma.

[Joel Knoop]

Was there ever a solution found for this issue?

I am having a similar problem. Transferring P2 footage from HVX200. Huge color variance in the “Transfer” window to the FCP window…
The transfer window matches what I saw in the field…
I have tried various import options… anyone?

Pic here:
https://liveoutloudproductions.com/pic.png
(the right side is before import)

https://pindropaudio.com‘>Detroit best location audio https://pindropaudio.com

Joel knoop

Continuous effort – not strength or intelligence – is the key to unlocking our potential.
Winston Churchill

[Shane Ross]

Never critically judge the quality of your footage on anything OTHER than a broadcast monitor or good HDTV. The log and transfer window, the Viewer, the Canvas…the VIEWFINDER…are just ways to see what you are doing…nothing more. They are not designed to show you the full quality true image.

Shane

GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Kevin James]

Problem solved.
The DP had his camera set-up improperly.
He was using the “Film Like” setting. This shifted the gamma of the recorded footage.
This setting flattened out the image for Telecine color corrections.
The HDSI OUT compensated the gamma for previewing purposes.
What was really surprising was that none of his other clients mentioned it. That’s why I thought something was amiss at our facility. Now that the camera is set-up correctly ingest looks great.

Thanks