Washed out color on compressor export

[Rafael Amador]

[Steve Komen] “I have changed the aspect ratio within QT and that is working fine, but still would love to know why my exports don’t have the same aspect ratio as my Canvas and Viewer windows.”
Because by default QT read all the pixels as Square.

[Steve Komen] “I have a project that looks great in FCP, but when I compress it, the color is washed out, blacks aren’t deep,chroma is down. It looks a bit like footage from an old VHS camcorder. “
FC Canvas shows the picture with a 2.2 Gamma, while QT display with the default Apple Screen Gamma of 1.8. Go to QT preferences and check “Enable Final Cut Studio Color Compatibility”. QT will play with the 2.2 Gamma.
Rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com

[Steve Komen]

Hi Rafael-

Great! Thanks for getting back to me.

I found that I could fix the aspect ratio issue within Quicktime by changing the dimensions of the aspect ratio to 960 x 540 for true 16 x 9 and then saving the QT with the changes.

As to the gamma issue, I changed the preferences to the FCP setting and it looked great. Thanks for the tip. My new question is, how can I export so that the gamma is embedded in a way that will look normal on a QT player with default settings as my clients are likely to do.

I trust that any project that goes up on the web will be a fairly accurate (with compression artifacts if turned into Flash) reflection of what my final QT looks like in terms of color and image density. Am I right in my assumption?

Again, thanks for your help.

Regards,
Steve

[Rafael Amador]

Hey Steve,
This is an old issue because MACs work with a different Gamma than PCs and Monitors.
What you get in the FC canvas is what you will get in a PC or Monitor screen. Think that what you get in QT player with default setting, will look much darker in a PC or monitor. Or what you get in a PC will look much lighter in a MAC. If you are making videos for the web you will need your videos look well in PCs because the most of the people uses PCs. But there is no way that the movie will look the same in both platforms with the default settings.
If your customers use MAC they should be aware of this. The only solution is to change the QT Prefs as I told you, or change the Screen Gamma (in the System Prefs). This second solution will change the gamma of everything you have in your screen, not only the QT movies.
Rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com

[Howard Ferguson]

Hi Rafael !

Thanks very much for your response.
I don’t find that as a choice in QT 7.2 or in 7.5.5.

I’d be happy to learn of this !

Thanks again,
Howard

[Rafael Amador]

Hi Howard,
In QT Player you have two different set of preferences;
– QT Preferences
– Preferences
In this second one, in the “General” tab you can check this “Enable Final Cut Studio Compatibility”.
I’m sure is in QT 7.
You have also a box ” Use High Quality Video setting when available”. Check that one too.
rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com

[Howard Ferguson]

Hi Rafael,

I very much appreciate your help with this.
I don’t find any Final Cut selection in the Perferences General Menu of QT 7.5.5 or QT 7.2.

I’d be happy to know more of this.

Thanks !
Howard Ferguson

Here’s a screen shot of what I’ve got:

[Howard Ferguson]

Hi Rafael,

Sorry for the delay in response, but I wanted to understand better the situation before responding.

Could the reason I’m not seeing that is because
I’m using FCP 5.1.4 ?

The selection to “Enable Final Cut Studio Compatibility” does not appear in any version of Quicktime that I have 7.2 to the latest 7.6.

Can you tell me what qualifies a system for having this option ?
And if others with Macs do not have it also, how does it help the color in Export to QT problem ?

Still trying to figure out how to get the same color I have in Final Cut into a high rez Quicktime movie.

I have additionally discovered something very interesting, concerning color shifts I was having from scene to scene along the Timeline in a Final Cut Sequence.

I put that into a new Thread.

https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/8/1038132

Thanks for your help !
Howard

[Riordan Galluccio]

Hi I have the same problem but the file plays better in Itunes then in Quicktime. Also Quicktime has no “preferences” that I can find in the player. I have Snow Leopard.. Any thoughts?

Riordan

[Isaac Viejo]

Hi… I´ve got the same problem working on Snow Leopard…
the thing is that I can check the “Enable Final Cut Studio Color Compatibility” in QT 7 (it is in Utilities Riordan) and looks the same than FCP canvas, but QT X still looks wash out…
I played the same video on TV and still wash out…

…I am lost… please, any thoughts???

thank you…..

[Riordan Galluccio]

I used vimeo settings to upload a file in Compressor and it looks great. QT uses a different color space then the native in FCP. Changing the setting in QT preferences on playback corrects this. I haven’t noticed the same problem with Snow Leopard since I used Compressor to export my file.