[Erik Lindahl]

Bugaboo-hoo… 🙂

I’ll be putting FCS3 on the system at home soon for “out of office” testing so we’ll see if the issue is transferred there. Note that this machine had Leopard and FCS2 installed where Snow Leopard was upgraded on top of this.

Erik Lindahl
Freecloud Communication
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[Erik Lindahl]

But everything is fine aside from FCP 6 acting out… I’ll try it out but it sounds far-fetched.

Erik Lindahl
Freecloud Communication
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[Erik Lindahl]

KGCore is a pretty “fresh” plugin, I’d mail their support about these issues.

Even if it’s perhaps not any help but I beta-tested this on FCP 6 and hand no stability issues so it could be a local FCP 7.0 or 7.01 issue.

EDIT: Jeremy, your’re too fast man… 🙂

Erik Lindahl
Freecloud Communication
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[Erik Lindahl]

I’ve tried both. Setting QT7 player with the “Final Cut Studio gamma” preference rendered things slightly better but it’s still miles off. The main oddity lies with-in FCP on SL. The issues was greater when using ProRes than Uncompressed media also (i.e rendering the timeline as the former or the later and comparing the two outputs). In FCP they however look the same.

Erik Lindahl
Freecloud Communication
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[Erik Lindahl]

– At home on Snow Leopard I use the standard 2.2 gamma
– At the studio on Leopard I work in 1.8 gamma.

The odd thing is:

Home
FCP: Good Color Correction
QT: Washed out

Studio
FCP: Washed out (similar to QT at Home)
QT: Washed out (similar to QT at Home)

I get that a 2.2 setting at home should produce a slightly darker / more contrasty image in general but it shouldn’t be the massive difference i see now (and it’s only in FCP I see the problem, QT and other apps only show the slight gamma difference there should be since we’re talking 1.8 gamma vs 2.2 gamma).

The same thing goes for the following:

Home
Color: Good Color Balance
QT: Similar to Color, looks good
FCP: Very Dark, looks bad

Perhaps just using 1.8 gamma at home will sort it given that should also render the images even brighter in QT / Color so I’m not sure about that…

I know there can be inconsistencies between apps esp. when not working in RGB but this is extreme and far beyond anything I’ve seen before.

Erik Lindahl
Freecloud Communication
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[Erik Lindahl]

This is true and it is best practice but does not answer my question at all, sadly.

QUESTION:
Are there gamma-issues with FCP 6.x in terms of monitoring the canvas in Snow Leopard?

From what I can see and what I’ve read there are severe issues. Question is if this can be sorted somehow or if FCP 7 handles the gamma issue better.

At our studio the FCP canvas and my broadcast monitor look similar – not identical but very similar. At home the FCP canvas is A LOT darker than what the image actually is when viewed on the same machine in QT Player, Color or in my studio at work (in the FCP canvas or on the broadcast monitor). The studio machine resembles QT Player at home quite well, hence the problem relies in FCP at home. The only difference is the fact I run SL at home compared to Leopard at work. This issue also worries me if we move over to SL / FCP 6 or 7 at the studio… I don’t want the canvas and my reference monitors to have this massive difference in look.

I could try to take some screen-shots to really show the differences if that helps.

And again no, it’s not an option for me to get a Kona card / broadcast monitor at home.

Erik Lindahl
Freecloud Communication
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[Erik Lindahl]

Not an option at home and it shouldn’t be this bad (it isn’t in FCP 6.0 on Leopard).

Erik Lindahl
Freecloud Communication
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[Erik Lindahl]

Hmm… Found another thread stating FCP 6.0 will correct the display gamma to 2.2 which ever gamma your display has… This is fine (good) when working in a 1.8 gamma situation originally but SL defaults to 2.2 gamma hence I think I’m seeing a gamma correction on something that doesn’t require this…

Is this correct? How do I solve this? I actually prefer sitting in a 2.2 gamma world since most of the outside world does this as well.

Erik Lindahl
Freecloud Communication
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[Erik Lindahl]

I think what Olof points out here is one of FCP biggest problem and features today. As I’ve understood it Apple doesn’t want developers to tie FCP to dedicated hardware. Why I do somewhat ask my self but I do understand keeping it tied to software and general hardware is the way of the future. I think FCP is just lagging a bit behind…

The Next “Generation” of Final Cut Pro HOPEFULLY embraces the true “future” of computing at the moment looking at Snow Leopard…

– OpenCL and Grand Central for full use of the available GPU(s) and CPU’s in the system
– Full 64-bit for use of more memory and being able to push more throughput (and have better performance!)

If only FCP was able to effectively use the power of the current systems I think we’d see a lot more RT and perhaps a lot more guaranteed RT. Also, if Apple moves to OpenCL the possibility is always there for custom solutions to again enter the market. These aren’t actually custom hardware for FCP, but general purpose high end GPU’s such as the nVidia Tesla that in theory could hook up to the OpenCL-system and accelerate stuff 100 fold to what we have today.

Personally I think this one of the biggest drawbacks with FCP today – high end realtime performance.

Erik Lindahl
Freecloud Communication
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[Erik Lindahl]

Two things that will bog your rendering / preview speed down are:

1. Working in greater than 8-bits
2. Working with a color managed project

No 1 is pretty obvious why it will make things render slowly.

Why no 2 makes life unbearable in AE I’d personally like to know. The speed hit is just to high for me to be able to use that. Even after a render is done the screen refresh is dog slow (in combination with the speed hit video-output over the video-card get’s, this is amazingly slow).

But yeah, in general, working with 3D layers in AE with DoF effects, lights, shadows etc is dog slow. The end result can be really nice, but you need patients to say the least.

Erik Lindahl
Freecloud Communication
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