[Vuk Vukmirovic]

I want to thank all for your help and write what I think/hope will be a conclusion.
The bad CC in FCP was definitely a product of H.264 sequence settings. I don’t know why does FCP let you make these settings, if it doesn’t work good… Anyway, even the CC was now acceptable, the DP wasn’t satisfied, so he insisted to have a TIFF sequence on a PC. That brings me to the problem of underexposed TIFFs that you get from FCP and/or Compressor. From what I read, this gamma shift can only be bypassed with a manual gamma shift in the export settings, so this is what I did. First I exported QT from FCP with Current Settings for all the camera formats separately, with sequences matching camera formats. The exception was with H.264 files which I put in Apple ProRes 4:2:2 HQ sequence, so that’s the video file that I got. From these QTMs I exported TIFF image sequences in Compressor, where I manually adjusted gamma to 0.82 and got correctly exposed images. Don’t know if I “lost” something with this, but that’s the only thing I found as a solution. At the end, I had one other problem. All the TIFFs were fine except these from Apple ProRes 4:2:2 HQ. They were fine too, but they had 16 bit color depth which PPro doesn’t read, so they couldn’t be imported there. I didn’t find where I could manually adjust this in Compressor export settings and I didn’t have time for any more experiments, so I ended up making an action in Photoshop changing all the TIFFs in 8bit. Hopefully this will be the end of my agony…
Just one more question, what is the best option for an uncompressed format exported from PPro and importing again in FCP7? Or maybe is the best thing to finish everything now on the PC?

[Vuk Vukmirovic]

First, THANK YOU ALL FOR HELPING!

[Shane Ross] “SO…how can you fix this? Change your sequence settings to PRORES 422. Go into the SEQUENCE menu and choose SETTINGS. Change the COMPRESSOR to ProRes 422. Render. Well, remove all your filters, and then render. Export a self contained QT file. FILE>EXPORT>QUICKTIME MOVIE. Check SELF CONTAINED, and SEQUENCE SETTINGS. This will give you a single, ProRes file. Now, you can either bring that back into FCP, chop it up on the cut points and color correct that, or bring that to a PC Adobe setup and do the same.”

As I wrote in the first post I already done this, a bit differently, but still…I removed all the filters and copied footage to sequences: HDV video to an HDV settings sequence, JVC video to XDCAM sequence, left the DSLR in H264 sequence… and export the QT self contained with current settings. Then I took these files and put it in Compressor to get TIFF image sequences for PC and on first look they all looked fine. When the DP compared the original MP4 from JVC and the exported one I gave him, the image is much darker from the original. He couldn’t compare the HDV as he doesn’t have the original and I’m still waiting for him to compare the DSLR footage. Do you think it could make a difference doing it with ProRes?

[Shane Ross] “Yes, you do have that option. If you have Thunderbolt”

This is not the newest iMac, but a version from some years ago, so I’m not sure if it has Thunderbolt, but main problem is production, we don’t have a budget for anything else. Anyway, I will try to get rid of H264 footage and sequences and export a test with CC filters.

[Vuk Vukmirovic]

[Shane Ross] “So is the codec HDV perhaps?”

Yes, it’s HDV.

[Shane Ross] “Do you have a video capture card connected to an HDTV?”

No, I don’t have this, only an 27″ iMac. After a problem with CC in FCP I read that I will not have an accurate image in FCP canvas, so this is one of the reasons I tried to transfer for CC in PPro. The image that I got on DVD was not slightly different, but a BIG difference and a image is so “RED” that is not technically correct.

[Shane Ross] ” Yes, deinterlacing does degrade the image”

I know it degrades the image, but I never saw something like this and this needs to be done, as all other material is progressive.

So, the question is, if I don’t have external monitor for CC in FCP, is there a way to do this without it with acceptable results? If not, is there a way to transfer material to PPro without loosing quality? Actually the big question is: why the image exported from FCP is darker (without doing anything to it, just Log and Transfer and putting it on timeline) then it is in the original MP4?

[Vuk Vukmirovic]

[Nick Meyers] “it helps if you monitor your grading work on a calibrated external monitor,
not just on the computer screen.”

I don’t have that option, I have an 27″ iMac, or to go on PC.

[Vuk Vukmirovic]

[Spencer Averick] “Are you saying your the sequence codec was set to H.264?”

Yes, it was set to H264 as most video is from DSLR.

[Spencer Averick] “Try setting that to ProResHQ in FCP and do a test export to see how it looks”

I can do that, but will this help fix a problem of “one image in the viewer, the other in exported image”?

[Vuk Vukmirovic]

[eric pautsch] “What specifically are you asking?”

I’m asking: if I stay in FCP, how to get a correct image after CC, or if I’m transferring to PPro, how to get “original” image to it? Of course, I’m also very interested in what exactly I’m doing wrong?