Jack Tunnicliffe
Forum Replies Created
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I thought I would close the loop on this thread by informing you of some new information that has been forthcoming. First of all my sincere thanks to Jeremy Garchow of Chicago who worked with me through a battery of Final Cut and After Effects tests. The result of these tests is that gamma shifts are being caused in round trips from FCP through AE and back to FCP due to the AJA uncompressed codec component being installed in the QT library folder. Removing this component results in perfect round trip renders for both Uncompressed 10 bit and 8 bit files as well as for ProRes. It is no longer necessary to use the AJA v210 codec for round trips to compensate for colour and gamma shifts. AJA engineering is looking into this issue and will likely release a fix or update in the near future. It is safe to leave this component out of the QT library folder unless you are calling up a project that has legacy files. You may have colour or gamma shifts if the component isn’t installed but for new projects work with it removed.
Thanks everyone for your feedback and help on this.
Jack Tunnicliffe
Java Post Production -
give me your direct email and I’ll send to you. That’s funny that you can’t download the original.
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Yes it is. It’s just a jpeg but is very, very close to accurate values. I’ve used it before when speaking color language to both AJA and Apple engineers and they have not argued about it’s accuracy. It certainly displays the issues that we are seeing on the user end.
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I removed everything AJA as well as any other third party codecs for the renders out of AE only. This was to get back to QT square one. The washed out monitor existed in FCP with all the AJA components back in the QT folder. I may not have explained myself clearly.
I do a fair bit of beta testing so I have this need to always get back to factory settings and start putting things back in, if you know what I mean, so I have a touchstone to start from.
I forgot to mention that the v210 in and HDV timeline displays properly on the grading monitor but the RGB values are too low (crushed down) on the canvas.
Bring all these renders back into AE showed that the only one that went out of AE accurately was the v210. I brought them back in and stacked them on top of the original Macbeth chart and they all had lifted gamma compared to the source chart with the exception of the v210.
Here’s a link to a Macbeth chart. It’s pretty accurate in AE. Don’t measure its values on the desktop in preview as preview doesn’t resolve it properly. I’ve also posted a chart of what they should be. Actually 2 charts. I notice that chip 12 is out of spec. Not sure why.
Here it is:
https://web.mac.com/java009/iWeb/Macbeth%20charts/Macbeth%20charts.html
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I gave up a couple of hours of work this morning to do some tests. I can’t say that I came up with the results I expected. I had a ton of rarely used components in my quicktime library like microcosm, DivX, sorenson, flip4mac, etc. I thought removing all of those might get me back to some normal After Effects renders but in the end no change what so all.
I removed all the AJA components and rendered a Macbeth chart. If you aren’t familiar with a Macbeth it is a series of chips with RGB color values assigned plus a grey scale across the bottom to check gamma.
In the end there was no difference in the QT files rendered as either 10 bit uncompressed or as Apple Intermediate. They both looked virtually the same coming back into Final Cut. The apple intermediate render retained the correct RGB values, very similar to the source file. Certainly good enough for an HDV project.
The problem here is that while they display accurately on the Final Cut Canvas. I used the digital color meter to take the values, they display with a gamma shift when displayed on the color grading monitor. The canvas looks correct and the monitor looks washed out.
Dropping a v210 render into an HDV sequence results in proper output on the grading monitor. (I did not test the grading monitor output but cutting back and forth between AE output and FCP output show the same gamma) but now the canvas is far too dark in FCP.
So, in the end, I’m not sure that I accomplished anything this morning other than to give myself yet a bigger headache. I’m going to send my results to AJA and see what they have to say about this. I am not accustom to working in an HDV project, usually uncompressed 10 bit, but why can’t I when I need to. This particular client is producing a lower budget show for a cable network and is working in HDV. He would like to have the intro I am creating back as an HDV QT but how can I even begin to guess that my settings are accurate. Yeesh!
Sorry to open this can of worms everyone. Again appreciate any feedback.
Jack Tunnicliffe
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Thanks for your post. Will Apple engage? I don’t know but if we don’t try I swear nothing will ever happen. That’s why I made it my New Year’s resolution. I don’t have the time. I am a really busy person and that’s mostly due to inability to accept compromise. My clients appreciate that we are perfectionists about every aspect of what we do, but damn it’s hard in a Quicktime world.
I do have a few inside contacts. I can sometimes get a message to people who will carry the torch but I don’t want to even attempt until I know there are others like yourself who are truly concerned.
AE in YUV. I think that’s a great suggestion. Why not? I’ll post something on the AE user list today and see if I can start some dialogue. They have all this color management built in now so why not YUV color space. Maybe it means re-writing AE from the ground up? What about other applications that only work in an RGB color space. It still wouldn’t solve that problem. The majority of what we do is in AE outside of FCP but there are a handful of other applications that work in RGB space.
Monday I will run the test with removing the AJA codec to see how the 10 bit uncompressed codec round trips without AJA involved. We’ll go from there.
Jack
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Peace, like wow! We’re definitely on the same page. I was so happy to read your post this morning. We’ve felt like we’ve been living on this little island and everytime we ask somebody else about these issues they go, we don’t see any problems. We see colour and gamma shifts in everything we do outside the one and only workflow that works. I speak of the AJA v210 codec. We’ve created levels pre-sets that we apply in AE to compensate for a render back to FCP. It’s just so depressing some days. We have so much to get done and yet have to fight all these little issues along the way.
And then there are the After Effects issues, too. To run AJA files through properly you must remember to use None for your color set up and select the “use legacy quicktime” setting in project settings or your gamma is totally messed up in CS3. I was working on an HDV project last summer and I almost went nuts. There was no way to get files to go round trip without a gamma shift. Adobe finally admitted there was a problem with HDV round trip. Grrrrrr! It still hasn’t been fixed as I tried it the other day. Maybe we’re supposed to all buy CS4 to get the fix.
We have so much invested into FCP suites I can’t ever see us switching over to AVID. I started on Avid when non linear first came along and I’m never going back. I liked Media 100 but then they fell apart as a company and couldn’t keep up with quality and along came FCP which allowed us to work uncompressed and HD. Anyway, that’s another story for another day but lets try and band together and get some Quicktime issues fixed.
Jack
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When exporting footage from Final Cut I almost always use Automatic Duck. In After Effects I get all the Final Cut Layers, transitions, some effects, markers, etc. In this way there is not conversion of the media, AE is accessing the source media files. Also handy for when you collect and archive a project as all media files are collected. Photoshop is another issue. Didn’t think I would get into that one on this thread. It wasn’t mentioned in my original post.
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Interesting concept. I’ll give that a try. Also, there was a response where the reader was confused about Photoshop. I never mention Photoshop in my original post, only Adobe After Effects and motion for doing motion graphics with video. However as it was mentioned, last time I tried exporting video to the extended version of CS3 I also got a gamma shift.
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Have you tried AJA v210 codec? This resolves round trip YUV/RGB/YUV conversion from Final Cut to AE and back. Different companies flag files in different ways so sometimes the round trip isn’t accurate. Even Apple hasn’t figured this out with its own products like Motion but the AJA engineers figured out a workaround codec which is based on 10 bit uncompressed.