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-   -   Why do QT videos look so low contrast? (https://www.dvinfo.net/forum/final-cut-suite/123507-why-do-qt-videos-look-so-low-contrast.html)

Benjamin Eckstein June 11th, 2008 09:38 AM

Why do QT videos look so low contrast?
 
When I look at a video file in FCP and then view it straight in Quicktime, the QT viewer looks very low contrast and low saturation. This is on my newer Mac Pro on Dell monitors. On my MacBook Pro, I do not get this effect. I have noticed this on other Mac desktops too. I find the change to be huge, to the point that I think it looks bad. Does anybody know why this is happening?

Thanks,
Benjamin

Robert Lane June 11th, 2008 09:56 AM

1 Attachment(s)
No doubt, it is weird behavior but the fix is easy. In your prefs for QT you'll note a checkbox at the bottom that enables color-matching to FCP; turn this on and things will look better.

David Scattergood June 11th, 2008 10:35 AM

Good tip Robert - I'd ordinarily alter the contrast/brightness and colour (and aspect ratio) via QT's movie properties - it almost always looks washed out.
Mind you, I receive different images for each codec setting...some of the lower web codecs have better colour but awful/stuttering movement.

David Scattergood June 11th, 2008 10:39 AM

^^ By the way - is that a recent amendment to QT? I don't seem to have that option on 7.4.5...little wary of updating Qt at the moment also.

Liam Hall June 11th, 2008 10:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by David Scattergood (Post 891425)
^^ By the way - is that a recent amendment to QT? I don't seem to have that option on 7.4.5...little wary of updating Qt at the moment also.

You'll find it in QT 7.4 in QuickTime Player>Preferences... or by hitting 'cmd ,'

David Scattergood June 11th, 2008 11:14 AM

1 Attachment(s)
Quote:

Originally Posted by Liam Hall (Post 891433)
You'll find it in QT 7.4 in QuickTime Player>Preferences... or by hitting 'cmd ,'

I feel a little neglected here Liam...it's a hiding from me?!?

Mark Keck June 11th, 2008 11:45 AM

If memory serves me, you must have FCP6 installed to get this option

David Scattergood June 11th, 2008 01:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mark Keck (Post 891452)
If memory serves me, you must have FCP6 installed to get this option

^^ That will explain it - i have version 5.

Cheers Mark.

Liam Hall June 11th, 2008 01:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by David Scattergood (Post 891520)
^^ That will explain it - i have version 5.

Cheers Mark.

Sorry David, bowled you a wrongen' there!

Have a look in System Preferences, I seem to remember an option for color mapping there, though I could be wrong (as proved above).

Benjamin Eckstein June 11th, 2008 02:52 PM

Robert,
You are a genius. Thanks.

If I am playing a QT file on a computer that does not have FCP will it look washed out?

B

David Scattergood June 11th, 2008 03:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Liam Hall (Post 891521)
Sorry David, bowled you a wrongen' there!

Have a look in System Preferences, I seem to remember an option for color mapping there, though I could be wrong (as proved above).

No probs ol bean. I'll dig around, otherwise I'll stick with adjusting contrast/colour via Movie Props.

Quote:

If I am playing a QT file on a computer that does not have FCP will it look washed out?
When I adjust contrast and aspect ratio I'll save the file (in the same location) keeping the new adjustments permanent. I suspect that the same will apply with colour matching.

Robert Lane June 11th, 2008 04:19 PM

The main issue, of why QT desaturates colors during output from a FCP sequence is an odd one. Telestream's Episode Pro does not alter gamma/saturation and the original color space is retained. I've not ever seen an explanation as to why this behavior in QT exists and it's highly annoying.

I have verified however, that this lackluster de-saturated look does in fact port over the PC QT players; when booted in XP (bootcamp) the same QT video exhibits the same desaturated look.

I don't know of an all-encompassing workaround for this other than manually compensating (which absolutely shouldn't be required) or, using another encoder for the job.

At some point I'd like Apple to wake up from it's iPhone hang-over and get back to work on better supporting their pro-apps and figure out all these annoying and sometimes crippling behaviors.

Bill Ravens June 11th, 2008 08:56 PM

washed out looking images are so so typically the result of adding setup once in the render, then the player adds setup again. Jeez, there's so many apportunities in the render process to screw up the pedestal/setup, it could be a million things. Best of luck, but, I would sure like to know if you added setup/pedestal in the basic render.

Robert Lane June 11th, 2008 11:31 PM

Unless you manually change the rendering codec for the timeline from it's default setting (which would be the editing codec) I don't see how setup could be introduced during the render process. Most people don't even know about being able to change the render to a completely different codec than the timeline. It's most certainly a QT engine issue because as I say, Episode Pro does not change the color rendition at final output.

Liam Hall June 12th, 2008 01:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Robert Lane (Post 891778)
Most people don't even know about being able to change the render to a completely different codec than the timeline. I

I think most people know that. I think most people struggle with color management and by most people I include software and hardware designers not just the great unwashed.


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