Chris Tomberlin
Forum Replies Created
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Felix,
I’ve been able to determine that with the latest BMD 5.01r2 drivers, the gamma shift is related to where you make your ramp. If you create a ramp in FCP, drop it into a 10-bit sequence, export it, bring it into AE, render it to BMD 10bit (trillions) from a 16 bit comp, you will get correct gamma. In other words, you can make a round trip from FCP to AE and back to FCP in 10-bit without screwing up your gamma. However, if you create the ramp in AE, it will render with a gamma shift. The gamma shift is also different depending on what plug-in you use to create the ramp. The gamma shift you are seeing is typical of the “Ramp” plug-in built into AE. I also did a ramp using the Tinderbox “T_Grad” plug in and got a different curve. So, it would seem that BMD has put in some gamma correction that applies to clips coming from FCP (which solves most of my issues) but does not fix gamma for things that originate from within AE. Here are some scope shots to illustrate:
Hope this helps
-Chris Tomberlin
OutPost Pictures
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Luke,
I already have a Decklink HD card, and am very interested in the Multibridge line (extreme in particular). Will there be any advantages to using the PCIe bridge with the Extreme versus just using the HD-SDI out of my card and connecting it to the Multibridge?
Thanks
Chris Tomberlin
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Well Luke, for what it’s worth, this update did seem to fix the display gamma issues in After Effects, as well as the crazy green lines that would show up on 10-bit material when in 16bit mode. I didn’t do much more testing after I tried to play something in FCP and got very stuttery playback in the viewer/canvas (but not on the video out). After reading all the other posts, I just went back to 5.0.
Thanks
Chris Tomberlin
OutPost Pictures -
Luke,
The tech doc on your site looks mostly right except for “so you must either quit from other video applications which may use the DeckLink output…”. Because Color Finesse is a plug-in, you wouldn’t want to actually quit the program that it is running in, just disable the video preview. The actual keyboard shortcut for AE is Command (mac) or Control (windows) and forward slash on the numeric keyboard. In Final Cut, the video preview toggle is conveniently the same as it is in AE. This makes it easy to assign that keyboard shortcut to the top part of the side switch on a wacom pen (for example) and it work smoothly in both applications. I don’t know about Premier, so someone else will have to figure that one out.
[Luke Maslen] ” I would also be happy to credit you in the support note” Thanks, but that won’t be necessary. If everyone who finds the tip useful could just send a dollar to my PayPal account….. 😉
Chris Tomberlin
OutPost Pictures -
It can be done, but doesn’t work like you’d think. In the Colour Finesse preferences, set the “secondary preview monitor” to be your NTSC monitor. The trick is that the CF GUI wants to own that output, and so Final Cut or After Effects can’t have it at the same time. So before launching the CF GUI, you have to turn off the external video preview in Final Cut or After Effects. You can turn it back on when you leave the CF interface. In both FCP and AE, there is a keyboard shortcut to turn the video preview off and on. I’ve found that the fastest way to make all this workable is to assign that keybord shortcut to one of the buttons on my wacom pen, and use that to toggle the video preview off before entering the CF GUI, and back on when leaving it.
Chris Tomberlin
OutPost Pictures -
[Matt Dowling] “My apologies for the delayed action. Sometimes we just don’t get the chance to get on the Cow as much as we would like.”
That’s OK. Hopefully, you’ve been burning the midnight oil getting the Multibridge with PCI express ready instead of hanging around here at the COW 😉 I’m hoping to get a few of those when they are available….
Thanks again-
Chris Tomberlin -
Matt,
Thank you for addressing these issues, and responding to our posts. I am truly grateful, but why did it take so long to get any word from you guys on this? Most of these issues started showing up here on the forum about a month ago. I mentioned in an earlier post that perhaps the quick response from Blackmagic on past issues has spoiled me, and if that is the case, then you just set a high bar in the early days! That has always been one of the great things about BMD; please don’t forget about us out here in the trenches.
OK, enough of that. I’m glad you’ve nailed down the display issues in AE. I look forward to the new release.
[Matt Dowling] “The only way i can think of, that would get around that is to remove the Apple codec from the system and replace it with the BMD 10 bit codec.”
When I first read the above, I think I misunderstood, because I removed the 1.2 version of “FCP Uncompressed 422.component” from the QT folder and then installed the Blackmagic (software only) codec. Of course, this gave no video output from FCP or AE. SO, I reinstalled the Blackmagic 5.0 drivers. I was surprised to find that there was now a “FCP Uncompressed 422.component” back in the quicktime folder. Apparently, the version 1.1 of “FCP Uncompressed 422.component” is part of the Blackmagic 5.0 install.
Now, this fixes everything in AE (except the issue to be resolved later this week), but how will it affect FCP 5.02? Everything seems to play back and display properly, but is there going to be a problem using the 1.1 version of the FCP Uncompressed 422.component? FCP 5.02 installs the 1.2 version presumably for a good reason, though as we’ve seen, it certainly seems to do more harm than good. Any chance you could just get Apple to ditch their 10-bit codec, license the Blackmagic codec, and call it a day?
One last thing. A couple of us here on the forum have spent quite a bit of time troubleshooting this stuff, and have provided BMD with detailed info on what we have found. Does that really help you, or are we just wasting a lot of our time?
Thanks
Chris Tomberlin
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[Chris Poisson] “with everything else running just as well, AE 6.5.1 included”
I’m a little surprised to hear this. What capture card do you use? Could you do a couple of quick tests?
1) Take a quicktime that was captured with FCP 5.02 at 10-bit uncompressed and bring it into AE. Put AE into 16-bit mode. Does everything look OK, or do you get green lines across the frame? Have you “turned on” 2Vuy in the AE preferences file?
2) If you have the ability to monitor the output of your system on a waveform monitor, look at the display output of AE versus the output of FCP. Does AE look darker? A grayscale ramp would be the best way to test this.
Thanks
Chris Tomberlin
OutPost Pictures -
Richard,
As you may recall, I too have noticed these issues. I have done extensive testing, and tried to make as much noise about this as possible, but have not received any promising feedback from anybody anywhere. Here are some links to threads that go through many of these issues in some detail:
https://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/new_read_post.cgi?forumid=124&postid=855174
https://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/new_read_post.cgi?forumid=124&postid=855074
I have continued testing with the Apple uncompressed 10-bit codec and arrived at the following conclusions:
1) There is a bug (likely in the desktop video output component) of the current BMD drivers in Tiger. This bug outputs an incorrectly low gamma from After Effects to the NTSC monitor. It does not, however, affect the rendered file. A grayscale ramp that displays an incorrect gamma curve on a scope while viewing in AE, will render correctly and display a proper gamma curve from FCP. This bug makes proper color-corrections in AE difficult, if not nearly impossible. This problem does not exist with an AJA iO setup, or when booted in Panther.
2) Motion, Compressor, FinalTouch HD, and Quicktime exports of the grayscale ramp to the apple uncompressed 10-bit codec ALL render a correct gamma curve in Tiger.
3) After Effects, in Tiger, does not properly recognize the new version (1.2) of the Apple uncompressed 10-bit codec when in 16bit mode. This is what is causing the green lines on the footage when you put AE in 16bit mode.
The fact that the gamma curves are all correct in Motion, Compressor, FCP and Quicktime indicates that when apple changed the 10-bit codec, they at least made sure the production suite was consistent in adopting the change. After Effects is the only odd-man out here, so the green line issue has to be the way AE 6.5.1 is handling that codec in Tiger. I believe an update to AE is in order, and would call for making noise in the appropriate forum as well as contacting Adobe.
The display issue listed in #1 would appear to be a BMD issue, and has not yet been resolved. I suppose that this could also be an AE problem, but seems to point at BMD.
Now, on a bit of a rant. I was an early adopter of FCP, and early to do higher end work with desktop tools. It has been a slow, uphill battle with many clients to convince them that with the proper experience, a person could create on a desktop system comprised of FCP, AE, and an assorted bag of other tools a product of the same quality as you would get from a far more expensive box. Issues like this that are slow to be addressed by all the developers involved, undermine that whole struggle. Most of us rely on these tools to feed our families, and when they are broken it is extremely stressful. Sure, I could just work in Panther, but then, why did I buy several copies of the FCP suite? I did it so that I could meet the needs of my clients. Well, Apple, Adobe, BMD; we are YOUR clients. We have some needs here that need to be met.
Chris Tomberlin
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Robert,
There are indeed a few issues right now with the current drivers, but I haven’t noticed the ones you’re mentioning. I have a decklink HD card, and a panasonic DVCpro-50 deck. I have found that I have to set deck control to “Panasonic RS-422” rather than Sony to get audio to work correctly. Believe it or not, a good power cycle on the deck also often helps with mysterious issues.
-Chris
Chris Tomberlin
Editor/Compositor/Owner
OutPost Pictures