[Mark Lea]

I did some tests this morning with Snow Leopard and FCS1, and the gamma “bug” is still there when I encode H.264 clips from multiple sources. I tested an HDV clip, an Apple Intermediate clip, and a ProRes 422 clip. All encodes still look color shifted, and desaturated. I wish I understood this problem more, so I could understand why it is doing this, and how to correct it.

In other gamma related notes, I’ve noticed that the new gamma affects the Canvas in FCS1 (I assume the same would go for FCS2 as well, but I haven’t installed Snow Leopard on my production machine yet). As I’ve read elsewhere, the Final Cut Pro canvas is adjusted to reflect a 2.2-like gamma, when viewed in a 1.8 gamma environment. Now that 2.2 gamma is native in Snow Leopard, the same adjustment in Final Cut Pro is still there, making the Canvas video window darkened, and more contrasty. Is anyone else seeing the same thing?

Here’s how I tested it: On my Leopard machine, I placed a captured HDV clip in a sequence and viewed it in the canvas video window. I then opened the same clip in QuickTime, and viewed the windows together. Both windows displayed pretty much the same color and contrast.

On my Snow Leopard machine, I did this same process, and the canvas viewer was much darker than the QuickTime window. I opened the clip in both QuickTime X, and QuickTime 7.6, and had the same result. I’m highly confused.

[Mark Lea]

Dejan,

The QuickTimeMPEG2.component gets installed in the following location:

/System/Library/QuickTime (not to be confused with /Library/QuickTime or ~/Library/QuickTime)

To check your re-installation, just open up the System folder in the root of your hard drive and navigate to the QuickTime folder in the Library folder in there. Be pretty cautious with things in this folder–don’t move anything around without knowing its exact consequences.

That said, I’m debating moving this codec, and other non-standard codecs to either my main user library at ~/Library/QuickTime, or all users /Library/QuickTime. That way, when I do another total system upgrade in the future, this won’t be an issue.

[Mark Lea]

Yes, the MPEG2 component is included with DVD Studio Pro. I believe if you don’t have the component installed, you may run into issues previewing clips in DVD Studio Pro.

[Mark Lea]

David,

I’m unsure of when I’ll be able to install Snow Leopard on my production machine with FCS2 on it, but if/when that happens, I’ll make sure to post to this thread with the results.

I seem to remember having to do this same thing back when I upgraded from Tiger to Leopard. I did the clean install upgrade, and I had to copy the MPEG2 component back to the proper location, as it was removed on the install of Leopard. I’ve read that Snow Leopard’s upgrade is essentially the clean install option that was on older OS installs.

So, based on that, here’s my theory: Since my QuickTimeMPEG2.component was installed in /System/Library/QuickTime, it got overwritten by the default directories and files located on the Snow Leopard installer. Since the MPEG2 component isn’t included on the Snow Leopard install, it wasn’t included. I’d assume that if any other codec was installed in that location, it would be removed as well. But, since most codecs are installed in /Library/QuickTime/ or ~/Library/QuickTime/ codec loss on a system upgrade usually isn’t a problem.

So, if I go to work on Monday, and see that my production machine has the QuickTimeMPEG2.component installed in the /System/Library/QuickTime/ location, I can only assume that it’d be deleted if I install Snow Leopard. However, if the codec is installed somewhere else, like the /Library/QuickTime/ location, it’ll probably still be there when I install Snow Leopard, and there won’t be any issues.

[Mark Lea]

I did the upgrade to Snow Leopard on my Macbook Pro, and it removed the QuicktimeMPEG2.component from System/Library/QuickTime (this is from an earlier FCS1 install). I went into my Leopard backup and just copied the component back to the proper location in Snow Leopard and all is well.

[Mark Lea]

I did the upgrade to Snow Leopard on my Macbook Pro, and it removed the QuicktimeMPEG2.component from System/Library/QuickTime (this is from an earlier FCS1 install). I went into my Leopard backup and just copied the component back to the proper location in Snow Leopard and all is well. I find it a bit strange that the component wasn’t left alone. I wonder if my install of FCS2 on a different machine would work in the same way.

[Mark Lea]

Yeah, I’m wondering about this myself. Doesn’t the current FCP compensate for Mac 1.8 gamma in its video windows for color accuracy (canvas and viewer)? If I shift my gamma in 10.5, the gamma in the video windows in FCP look shifted to me as well.

Will the gamma of the video windows in FCP be shifted in Snow Leopard as well? I wonder if Apple will need to roll out an update to each of its Final Cut programs for Snow Leopard, or if Snow Leopard is FCP aware, or FCP is Snow Leopard aware. I’m very curious.