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Red artifacts in FCP
Hello there. I’m currently working on the post for a TV commercial. The quality of the graphics and images must obviously be in the best quality possible. I’m working on a uncompressed 10-bit sequence on FCP 7. My online material is all uncompressed as well and looks perfect. The problem I’m facing is with the red color in my graphics. Specifically with the red lettering. The edges are totally pixelated, but the white lettering on that exact same scene and later on in the animation looks great. I’ve tried all kinds of compressions and codecs such as Animation, png, photo-jpeg and ProRes (HQ) and the new ProRes 4444. None of them seem to work. The footage looks great on quicktime, but as soon as I insert it in my sequence it becomes pixelated. I had a similar problem with a typographical video that had lots of red and changing the sequence to ProRes 4444 seemed to do the job. I tried that again, but it didn’t work, and I still have to export it as uncompressed due to the high quality needed in the output. I hope someone has a solution or has ran into a similar problem and knows a workaround. That would be really helpful since the client is already breathing down my neck.
Below are some specifications of the hardware I’m using. Thanks!
JVC HD broadcast monitor, Mac Pro Quad core 8GB RAM, Aja Kona LHi video output card. -
11 Replies
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How are you monitoring? Is your canvas set to view at 100%? Are your RT settings set for viewing at “Full”?
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
EPK Colorist – UP IN THE AIR – nominated for six academy awards
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.
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Bring the amount of red saturation down. Do you have a vectorscope? Make sure the red is within legal limits.
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Red’s always a tough color. Have you checked your scopes? Is the red legal?
John
MacPro 8-core 2.8GHz 8 GB RAM OS 10.5.8 QT7.6.4 Kona 3 Dual Cinema 23 ATI Radeon HD 3870, 24″ TV-Logic Monitor, ATTO ExpressSAS R380 RAID Adapter, PDE enclosure with 8-drive 6TB RAID 5
FCS 3 (FCP 7.0.2, Motion 4.0.2, Comp 3.5.2, DVDSP 4.2.2, Color 1.5.2)Pro Tools HD w SYNC IO & 192 Digital I/O, Yamaha DM1000, Millennia Media HV-3C, Neumann U87, Schoeps Mk41 mics, Genelec Monitors, PrimaLT ISDN
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Concerning all three responses:
Yes, I have a pro JVC HD monitor, even though my sequence is SD the monitor is excellent and has a 1:1 aspect ratio mode.
Yes, the red is legal and looks ok in my scopes. Even so I have already decreased the saturation and/or brightness of the red and that doesn’t seem to do it. The footage when viewed in QT looks perfect, the problem really is in Final Cut.
I’ve read all other posts concerning similar issues with red, but they are mostly about DV codec, which I know sucks when it comes to red. I’d never seen such artifacts this bad in an uncompressed sequence. I really don’t know where to go from here. Here’s a screenshot so you know what I’m seeing.
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Are you eventually laying to tape?
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Just as a test, can you change the color to blue or something to see if it persists?
I have seen this on a similar logo on an Avid project I did awhile back (also red letters…similar font). It was also SD.
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Yes to both Digital and Analogic Beta tapes. We’re sending them to several television channels so the quality has to be excellent
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First of all, thank you so much for all the help. I’m amazed at how quickly you guys responded. I tried the solid blue and it also wasn’t working. I eventually used a compound blur on the red channel and that seems to give it a little more quality, but it still isn’t perfect. John, how did you manage to fix the problem with your red logo?
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[Antonio Baines] “John, how did you manage to fix the problem with your red logo?”
We didn’t, really. The final looked like crap, but we had no choice.
We even tried doing the composite in After Effects (adding a blur, as you did) instead of Avid. It was only marginally cleaner.
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Some of this will get ‘cleaned up’ a bit when laying to tape.
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