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

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.

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.

^^ 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 ,'

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

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

^^ 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).

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Liam, any idea where in system pref's??? I've been looking and don't find anything that looks promising.

The issue I was talking about was with any file played in QT. The files from XDCAM transfer, output files, DV files, anything. But Robert's fix of hitting the tab in the QT preferences did exactly what I was looking for.

The interesting thing is that if I upload a file to my website (as a .mov) it looks fine in firefox (being played through QT) but if you download that file and play it in QT standalone that was when the stuff looked washed out (until I selected the color mangament tab).

Just to make things more confusing for everybody: I had to make a picture from a quicktime move to play side by side in an interactive video. (don't ask why). The picture always came out significantly darker, ruining the effect. I exported/copied a still in every possible way, but the contrast never matched. When I turned on this "enable FCS color" check box, the video got darker and almost matched the pictures. (THE VIDEO WAS NOT EVEN MADE IN FC, IT WAS AN H264 FROM AFTER EFFECTS!) But this is not a fix as the interactive must play off of a PC. I finally had to take "window" grabs and crop out the QT borders in photoshop to actually match the video. It was a huge pain.
What's with QT?!!!?!

What's with Quicktime, indeed. In fact, what's with Apple's lack of keeping FCS up-to-date with competitive products? Only Apple insiders know and they're not talking - as usual.

No, sorry Mark, now that I've checked it's not there, even on my old machine.

That's because Firefox can color manage.