[Ron Craig]

Hi Jeremy,

Yep, I think the moving of that codec and the legacy adjustment in AE are the critical items. But I had been tearing my hair out for so long, trying to make the FCP>AE>FPC workflow successful that I wanted to follow every little step of the procedure I was given.

A couple of questions for you: I have never used Automater. Would it be too much trouble to post how you used it in this instance (or would it just be obvious to me if I got into Automater)? Also, do you have an explanation of why that AJA codec should be put back in place? I figured that if it was messing up gamma levels, etc. it needed to be taken out permanently — while they’re presumably re-writing it.

[Ron Craig]

Yeah, Ron. Id’ love to hear that.

OK, here goes…information from AJA Tech Support with notes added from my experience:

1) Close applications. In Finder, go to /Library/QuickTime and remove any third-party QuickTime components such as: Avid, Media 100, etc. (Don’t move any Apple components.)

2) Delete QuickTime preferences, as follows:
a) Go to: /users/username/library/preferences
b) Delete: com.apple.quicktime.plugin.preferences.plist.
c) Delete: QuickTime preferences

3) Restart.

4) Delete the FCP preferences. (This can be painful if you have a lot of customized transitions, window placements, etc. in Final Cut but doing all of this exactly as specified is what solved my problem. Good advice: backup your current preferences first. You can do a test later, reinstalling your original preferences and see if that affects the gamma. If not, you can go back to using your original set, which is what I ended up doing.) Delete prefs with FCP Attic or some such s/w, or as follows:
a) Close FCP.
b) Go to: /users/username/library/preferences/FCP user data/
c) Delete: FCP preferences, OBJ cache and Prof cache files.

5) Go to: /library/quicktime and temporarily remove the AJA uncompressed QuickTime component. (I think this is the key step.)

6) Start FCP and export a QT movie.

7) Start AE and start a new comp.
File>Project Settings>Color settings: 8 bits per channel. Working space: None.
CHECK the box “Match Legacy After Effects QuickTime Gamma Adjustments.” (That last step is particularly important.)
My composition settings in this instance were: Composition>Composition Settings: Preset: Custom. Width: 1280. Height: 720. CHECK the box “Lock aspect ratio to 16×9.” Pixel aspect ratio: Square pixels. Frame rate: 59.94 fps. (Note: I have read elsewhere that a square pixel setting is necessary to avoid the dreaded gamma shift. I don’t know if that is true; I haven’t tested these instructions with a non-square pixel setting.)

8) Import the QT movie that you exported from FCP; put it in the composition. Add it to the Render Queue.

9) Set your Render module at “Current Settings.” Set your Output Module: Format: QuickTime movie. Format Options: Compression Type: Uncompressed 10-bit 4:2:2. (This is an Apple uncompressed codec, not AJA Kona or anything else.) Frames per second: 59.94.

10) Render movie. Import to FCP. Good luck!

Thanks again to the great tech support guys at AJA for this. I was completely unable to get perfect round trips between FCP and AE until I followed these instructions.

— Ron

[Ron Craig]

Walter is entirely right, of course. In addition to that, I’d be interested to know if you are using a Kona 3 card. I had a problem with a Kona codec that was screwing up my exports from AE to FCP. The great, great tech support folks at AJA figured it out and gave me the solution, which resulted in perfect FCP>AE>FCP round trips. I can post their guidance here if someone wants it but it’s fairly detailed and I won’t waste the bandwidth unless you think it really addresses your issue.

[Ron Craig]

My system is quite different from yours so I can’t really give advice. But I can tell you that I was getting LOTS of crashes, kernel panics, etc. on my new Octocore. I spent hours with AppleCare and ended up zeroing out the hard drive and building up from scratch last week. I re-built with the latest OS update; ditto for FCP and QuickTime. I’ve done only limited work on the system since then but at least it’s been entirely stable.

Clearly there was some nefariously broken code somewhere deep down there. I have no idea if your problem source is the same, of course. Zeroing out is a real time-consuming pain but it ended up solving — I hope — my problem. And, in reference to your real question: so far so good with 6.0.4 for me.

[Ron Craig]

Thanks to Dan and Warren.

Onward and upward.

–Ron

[Ron Craig]

Thanks, Jeremy!

[Ron Craig]

HEY WAIT!!

I LIKE Bob Zelin’s style. Obviously you do, too, Walter. And I’ll bet a lot of other people do, too. I was just making a joke about his style — not complaining about it.

I don’t want to go overboard on this but let me be one to say that Bob Zelin brings great intelligence, enormous experience and a style that is –THANKFULLY — not like all the rest of us quiet, moderated, politically-correct clones. Do we all have to be ALIKE to be accepted on this forum? Can’t someone be testing the boundaries? Isn’t life more fun that way??

BRING BACK BOB ZELIN!! I need my hand slapped. (Hmmmmm… maybe that sounds a bit S&M. Or is that still OK to say here?)

[Ron Craig]

Yes..my BNC connectors in the patch bay are 75 ohm. I’ve got the system a bit disassembled right now (some power supply issue on the Octocore that I’m working on with AppleCare) but I’ll give this a try when I get things back together tomorrow.

Thanks Aaron. And Bob Zelin hasn’t slapped my hand yet!

[Ron Craig]

Hi again Aaron,

The patch bay is BNC, not weco.

This all stems from using the Kona 3 breakout box, which is rack-mounted. On the front it has a lot of SDI/BNC connectors that connect to a multi-cable in back, which in turn connects directly to the Kona 3 card. I have a couple of devices that I want to connect to those breakout box BNCs. Of course, I could just run long BNC cables directly from the devices and bring those cables around to the front of the rack to plug into the breakout box. But I hate that idea. So I would rather connect those devices to the back of my BNC patch bay and then use some short BNC cables in front to connect those devices to the Kona 3 breakout box SDI connections.

Any thoughts?

[Ron Craig]

Thanks Aaron. Of course you’re right and I won’t compromise my material for the sake of a few bucks. I just wanted to be sure that BNC simply isn’t good enough for HD. And, frankly, if that’s so I’m just curious as to why.

Cheers,

Ron