[Jonah Lefkowitz]

Totally Awesome!
I can verify that this also worked for me, very well as far as I can tell.
AEP Project file was 21MB with calls to both Knoll Light Factory, keylight, and Trapcode (stroke, starglow, particular). Everything rolled back to CS3 fine except for a few minor things with keylight, as another poster pointed out. That material looked slightly different.
Still…. such a life saver.
Thanks you, -JL

[Jonah Lefkowitz]

WTF indeed. I’m not really sure what they’re doing with this crippled QT X pos.
It has a no export, no switch to frame counter, no final cut compatibility mode. And it’s not like Snow Leopard can read your mind to know when you want these feature, which is always!

So it seems we’re left with the option of installing Quicktime 7 into the Utilities folder (nonsense) and dragging MOVs into it when you want to use ‘pro’ features.
As an added bonus, FlipforMac WMV doesn’t install correctly into QT X, only 7, so you can count on never getting to double click a wmv file to watch it again without a “Quicktime Player must be installed to run this application” error.

I think that between Snow Leopard and Adobe CS4, the word upgrade should be redefined as something which reduces functionality and performance.

I’ve been surfing other forums for a real fix for this. If you find one, please post it here. I’ll do the same, but I’m starting to worry. This ‘upgrade’ really cripples my workflow.

[Jonah Lefkowitz]

Hi Alex,

Thanks for your fast response on an old thread.

>>What codec are you editing with in FCP?

My sequence is in AppleProRes HQ 29.97 720×480 CCIR 601 16×9 Anamorphic.
This is somewhat arbitrary given that all of my source material is 8-bit JPGs. I just wanted something that would match aspect on the 16×9 Progressive Anamorphic DVD I’ll have to deliver on eventually. I’d be very open to more efficient suggestions here.

>>Are you seeing this issue in FCP or only in the self-contained file you’re exporting?
This is where the voodoo comes in.
Sometimes the saturation problem will appear in the FCP timeline preview, but not in QT export.
Sometimes it will appear in both.
Sometimes the saturation problem will actually get ‘stuck’ in the ‘Render Files’ folder in scratch and your Sequence>Render>All trick will stop working until I’ve completely deleted the cache.
There’s no rhyme or reason to it. I’m willing to live with 3 pointless steps before each important QT export.

>>Try adding a de-interlace filter to the still images.
I’ll have to get back to you on this but thanks in advance.

>>Yes, and it’s so irritating! I compensate for it by boosting the contrast by 5% in the adjustments tab in the QT export settings.

My only guess is that it’s a color space problem. It is definitely worse because my monitors are spyder2pro calibrated to 2.2Gamma 6500k. (I don’t know if I should be doing this but I come from a photography background so it’s muscle memory at this point) Flipping though various color profiles under display settings causes the h264 video’s color to jump all over the place while an Animation or Photo/Jpeg render will shift only slightly.

The same h264 file will look almost correct when opened in VLC instead of quicktime.
It will look absolutely correct in QT with “Enable Final Cut Studio color compatibility” checked under preferences.
That button doesn’t exist for windows quicktime users but from what I can tell in bootcamp, Windows QT looks a hair better than Mac VLC and a hair worse than Mac QT with Compatibility mode on.

There simply has to be a non-hack fix for this. Trailers from Quicktime.com look fantastic in H264 regardless of whether Compatibility is turned on.

It’s touched on here without conclusion:
https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/8/1006780

Episode Pro will give you about 20 more options for rendering to H264 than Compressor or QT export, but only a few of them affect color space, and I wouldn’t try to answer your question by encouraging you to waste more money. This is Creative Cow, not Macforums! Amirite? 🙂

Thanks again, and sorry for this long winded response.
-Jonah

[Jonah Lefkowitz]

Hi All,
Long time beneficiary of this amazing online resource. First time poster. Let me know if I commit forum fail.

I’m doing the exact same thing as Bob Stephens for a client and having the exact same problem with Final Cut Studio 6.0.2.

There seems to be a random element to when FCP decides to pass the saturation drop through to my render, not necessarily dependent on whether the drop appears in FCP. Maybe the codec I chose (Photo/JPG, H264, m2v), maybe what mood FCP’s crazed brain is in.

The most consistent cure seems to be:
quit FCP, delete render files on your scratch, reopen project, and as Alex suggested,
>Sequence, Render All, Both
Then try your export again.

Getting the little render state bars at the top of the sequence from green to blue seems important, although, I would question the professionalism of software that passes half rendered information to a final render… and then everyone in LA would shout me down and pelt me with iphones. 🙂

Bob, 2 questions for you, and anyone else reading.

Do you ever have problem with your m2v (to Dvd) renders trembling or twitching when your still photos aren’t moving enough? If so, have you found a fix?

Have you noticed that rendering your sequences to h264 (usually for preview purposes) produces a completely washed out render that lacks saturation throughout?

Cheers, Jonah