[Dustin Parsons]

Jeff Meyer It’s the semi-transparent box that’s killing you on your render time. If you go with a solid box you can use Compressor which will be the fastest option.
Shy of using Compressor you can still expedite the process by dropping your sequence onto a new sequence and applying the generator to the nested sequence. This removes one export.

There’s no render time in my workflow, just export time – which is significantly shorter than render time. If I were to nest my sequence like you suggested and put the TimeCode Reader on the nest, then I would have to render that.

As far as I can tell, there’s no way to put a box (semi-transparent or 100% opaque) around the timecode in Compressor, please correct me if I’m wrong about this.

[Dustin Parsons]

Yeah, I should have mentioned that I don’t like Compressors TimeCode Generator because there’s no option to add a semi-transparent black box around the text so the text disappears behind white frames. I tried making a box for the text and using it as a watermark, but the watermark appears over the text so that won’t work. D’oh

[Dustin Parsons]

Wow… that sucks. This is my first project with Motion and already it seems I should have stuck with After Effects. Guess I’ll just have to fake the DOF in Final Cut.

Thanks

[Dustin Parsons]

I had run into this issue a few years ago when round tripping DVCPRO HD footage to AE but I thought it had been resolved… I guess it hasn’t been.

I think you’re right – as long as the final product that the audience sees looks correct (which it will because it’ll be online), then I’m not going to kill myself over the QT color shift.

Thanks for your help Matt!

[Dustin Parsons]

[Matt Lyon] Have you tried bringing the exported clip back into FCP and A/B’ing it on a timeline with the original footage? That would probably be a more accurate way of checking the footage then comparing the quicktime window with the FCP viewer.

Just tired that, and they look the same in Final Cut!

Here’s a few more things I’ve tried:
• Transcoding the ProRes clip into an H.264 (still got the color shift) and then uploaded that to YouTube where the colors looked correct
• Opened the clip in MPEG Streamclip and the colors looked correct
• Opened the clip in VLC Player and the colors looked correct
• Opened the clip in QuickTime Player X and the colors had shifted just as they had in QuickTime 7

So the problem is definitely with QuickTime because it’s appearing correct everywhere else. Has anyone run into this issue before? Even though the video appears to have the correct colorspace in other players, it’s still very important to me that it works in QuickTime because I’m pretty sure that’s what my clients use to view the cuts. Also, there just shouldn’t be a discrepancy like that.

[Matt Lyon] I recall one situation recently where I had a similar issue and I had to check the “recompress all frames” options. Don’t know if that will apply to your situation, but worth a quick test.

I just tried turning that on and exporting a new clip – it gave the same results as if I left it unchecked.

Thanks for the comment! Any more troubleshooting ideas?

[Dustin Parsons]

No, the shift happens even when I have Enable Final Cut Studio color compatibility checked in QT – the shift is even worse when it’s unchecked.

[Dustin Parsons]

I’d say (B) but more than anything I agree with Herb, we should let the editor decide. The problem with Apple’s approach to X right now is they think they know how you should work better than you. Maybe Apple is planning on putting in an option to use a Viewer but they didn’t want to release the program that way because nobody would give the single viewer a chance and they really want people working that way. However, now that a lot of people have adopted the single viewer style of editing Apple can now, potentially, put in an option to turn on the Viewer and still retain a lot of users who’ve accepting their new editing paradigm.

Or, who knows… most likely it’s their way or the highway.

[Dustin Parsons]

[Helmut Kobler] “1) I really want a new way to create alternate cuts of the same project, without having to duplicate the whole project.”

Agreed, I can’t believe FCPX doesn’t have this! I duplicate my projects all the time and would think that most other editors do too. How are you supposed to experiment without destroying the work you’ve already done?

[Dustin Parsons]

Yeah, I figured that was the answer. Just wanted to make sure.

Thanks Dave

[Dustin Parsons]

Yeah that’s pretty ridiculous. I can’t wait to start using Thunderbolt myself.

A lot of people are predicting the death of MacPros but with new technology like this, will it matter?