Real uncompressed, useable codec – please help

[Jeremy Garchow]

Old version of the Kona drivers. This is a problem with AE, but AJA has found a way around it. If you download and install the latest Kona (v6.0.3) driver, this will fix it. If you don’t feel like doing that, quit everything, go to your LIbrary > QUicktime folder and remove the AJAUncompressedcodec.component from the Quicktime folder. Start AE and rerender. This will cure the gamma shift, but you will lose access to any legacy AJA Uncompressed movies (not Apple Uncompressed, different things).

The new driver is easier.

Jeremy

[Andras Sarkadi]

Thanks Jeremy, that sounds great, first thing to try tomorrow morning.
As noone mentioned any codec that could be useful and its name is starting with AJA, i have to ask why?

Andras

[Jeremy Garchow]

I think it has to do with the AJA Uncompressed codec filling a gap a long time ago before FCP had a native Uncompressed HD codec.

The AJA Uncompressed codec correctly set the color space to REC709 when the frame size went above SD, while Apple’s uncompressed did not. Apple eventually fixed it and now the AJA and Apple codec are pretty much the same, except for the name.

These days, it is not necessary in 4:2:2 uncompressed HD.

Hope that helps.

Jeremy

[Gary Adcock]

[Jeremy Garchow] “180MB/sec won’t be fast enough for two seats doing Uncompressed 1080, but it should be fine for ProRes and HQ.”

True
that is barely fast enough to do a single stream of 10bit UC, and the xsan controller would limit that if 2 machines were on the server at the same time to some thing considerably less -think 1/2 the throughput to start or about the same bandwidth you get with 2 raided drives over Sata.

gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows

Inside look at the IoHD
https://library.creativecow.net/articles/adcock_gary/AJAIOHD.php

[Gary Adcock]

[Andras Sarkadi] ” I ran the wrong test i guess…”

I think your Tech/ IT guy told you that you had a 2Gig Fibre connection- and did not explain that gigabit is not gigabytes of data.

Andras, in corporate IT worlds, some guys think they know everything about drives and storage- and they apply their boxed solutions to our storage problems.

I have had dozens of battles with IT guys about the reality of handling video on a network.
I tell IT people that I need a minimum of 6 disks per user for compressed HD, and 10 if doing UCHD on an xsan system increase that by one additional controller for every 4 users and increase the disks by 50% due to the overhead required.

I do not ever recommend editing in 4:4:4 or 2K on a shared volume unless someone really really understands the needs.

YES HD can be done on less, but over a network, I want something that will work reliably.

gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows

Inside look at the IoHD
https://library.creativecow.net/articles/adcock_gary/AJAIOHD.php

[Andras Sarkadi]

Gary, i also have bad stories about IT guys, but this time it was really my fault… thanks for steering me to the righ tool to measure disk performance. I also take a note of what you’ve written above about estimating disk needs.
Jeremy, I upgraded to the 6.0.3 Kona drivers, but I still had the problem. After that I removed the AJAUncompressed codec.component file, but I still have the color shift…
I uploaded a file with jpg exports of two versions I have now. Both versions were converted in AE from a TGA sequence. The uncompressed version matches the source perfectly.
If you have the time, please check it out:
http://www.umbrella.hu/uncomp.vs.prores.jpg

thanks for all your help
Andras

[Gary Adcock]

[Andras Sarkadi] ” Both versions were converted in AE from a TGA sequence. The uncompressed version matches the source perfectly. “

OK

What is your workflow and how are you doing this? Where are the targas files from?

Where and how you do the conversion from RGB to YUV makes a huge difference.

gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows

Inside look at the IoHD
https://library.creativecow.net/articles/adcock_gary/AJAIOHD.php

[Andras Sarkadi]

Gary, the TGA sequence originates from a DPX sequence which comes from a Baselight grading session. I didn’t really trust AE to do the DPX-TGA conversion, so I did it in Digital Fusion. (I know, bringing in another software rarely helps, but I wanted a TGA sequence I can trust). After the conversion, the DPX and the TGA sequence looks the same.
I am reading right now, that switching the “Match Legacy After Effects QuickTime Gamma Adjustments” in AE might help, so I’m going to do a test with that. I work with AE CS4 by the way.

thanks again
Andras

[Gary Adcock]

[Andras Sarkadi] “TGA sequence originates from a DPX sequence which comes from a Baselight grading session”

Ok first question

why are you not working with the DPX originals? I do this on a daily basis using the Gluetools Plugins with FCP.

Andras you seem to be doing an incredible amount of jumping thru hoops when something like gluetools will allow you to handle the files as graded in baselight.

gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows

Inside look at the IoHD
https://library.creativecow.net/articles/adcock_gary/AJAIOHD.php

[Andras Sarkadi]

Gary, I’m pretty new to the mac-fcp-aja world. I had no idea i would run into problems like that. And i never wanted to work with a dpx sequence in this project. There are so many other unknown factors about using aja and fcp for me, that I wanted follow the route i know and trust, and that was 1. to have a sequence that matches the grading, but in a format i know, trust and can use in AE, Nuke, whatever. 2. make a movie out of that to use in fcp. Two weeks ago that was the idea of a workflow in the given situation.
If I feed the DPX files to AE and convert them to ProRes, I have the same problem…

Andras