Rendering causing MASSIVE degradation?

[markinhifi]

In the final film i'll ever cut in FCP 7, i've run into a pretty huge issue at the finish line: major image degradation upon rendering a clip. Take a look.

No grading. Plain ole h.264 file.
http://rovingtypistfilm.com/misc/sc3.jpg

After grading is applied with Magic Bullet Looks (unrendered)
http://rovingtypistfilm.com/misc/sc2.jpg

After grading is applied with Magic Bullet Looks and clip is rendered
http://rovingtypistfilm.com/misc/sc1.jpg

See how that quality went way downhill after it was rendered? What's happening there? Am I doing something wrong? Can this be prevented in any way?

[rzxrey]

Might have been your final output settings. Unless you have been using the same settings for your past projects then this happened all of a sudden.

[eiker_ir]

what are you rendering out to?

[markinhifi]

Sorry, not sure if I understand the questions exactly. I'm not exporting this film. I'm talking about simply just rendering the clip in the timeline after applying anything to it. The files are h.264 from a Canon 7D. (I read that could cause a problem, so I tried a ProRes clip and get the same results). Here are all of my sequence settings, if that provides any insight at all. http://rovingtypistfilm.com/misc/sequence.jpg

[Finn Yarbrough]

This may not be degradation, it may just be taxing your RAM to playback at full quality. Try exporting the clip as a self-contained movie to verify that degradation has actually occurred.

[markinhifi]

This may not be degradation, it may just be taxing your RAM to playback at full quality. Try exporting the clip as a self-contained movie to verify that degradation has actually occurred.

Just tried. Looks the same after export :/

[markinhifi]

Hi folks! Update! User bscheerer sent me a message with the solution. In Sequence settings > general > quicktime settings, I had the render settings set to h.264. Switching that to ProRes solved the issue! Thanks to him, as well as everyone else in this thread. Cheers!