Gamma shift with P2 to FCP vs. P2 to Avid Express Pro

J

Jim2000

Well-known member
Has anyone compared their HVX200 footage imported into Final Cut Pro with HVX200 footage brought into Avid Express Pro? The two editing systems seem to interpret the footage in completely different ways. My FCP system seems to shift the gamma, adding major contrast and reducing shadow details in my footage. While the Avid Express Pro gives me way more shadow detail and seems to more closely match what I saw with the LCD monitor when I shot the material.

What motivated me to write this post was that I shot some footage of a band in a nightclub today with my AG-HVX200. I recorded in 720/24pn mode with the generic scene f5 setting. I boosted the gain to +6 and filmed with the iris wide open. The club had a decent light system, and I thought I was getting a good exposure based on the LCD monitor. When I loaded my material into FCP, everything looked way more dark and contrasty than it seemed when I filmed it. On top of that, there were vertical bands across the frame, as if I had shot through a sideways venitian blind. It was at this point that I decided to load the original MXF files into the Avid Express program. With the Avid, there was no vertical banding and the footage looked like I thought it was going to look like.

What is going on here? How can FCP and Avid have too totally different interpretations of the same shots?

Any comments on this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

p.s. I have FCP 5.0.4 and Avid Express Pro 5.5.3.2430 with Mojo on a Machintosh 2.7 ghz Dual.
 
1st, your LCD monitor on the HVX is not all that acurate. If you're using that to base your final footage on, well, good luck. It actually can cause you to shoot darker footage than you think you're shooting.

Unless you're using an external professional monitor, you really have no idea what the footage really looks like. Every NLE handles gamma in a different way.

Does anybody know if DVCPRO-HD codec supports Y,CBCR or is it just RGB?
 
BenB said:
Every NLE handles gamma in a different way.
Click to expand...

Isn't this a major problem now that we're all moving to file based workflows?

In the world of Beta SP, we had colorbars that enabled us to digitize the same tape in different editing systems and end up with the same results. How do we get that same level of consistency in our new world of computer files?

I'm about to embark on a short film that I will most likely edit in Final Cut Pro and then colortime on an Avid Nitris System. I'm now worried about FCP reducing the image quality of my files so that I have less to work with when I get to the Avid color space.
 
I had the same problem with Final Cut. I imported a lot of footage and I wanted to blame the monitor for the footage being dark. But I distinctly remember it looking fine in the LCD and on the external monitor I had setup.

I was going back to import some stuff through Final Cut's IMPORT p2 setting, and noticed that the exact same clip was actually exactly how I expected it to be BEFORE p2 import. Like, in the p2 previewer, the gamma, saturation, EVERYTHING was right.

Yet the stuff on the timeline was pretty dark.

Maybe I should do an export of the timeline to see how it looks. I hope FCP isn't screwing up my footage.
 
FCP doesn't do anything to the color space of your file. But your computer monitor does. The DVCPRO-HD codec is the DVCPRO-HD codec.
 
Here are two exact frames. One is from Avid Express Pro 5.5.3.2430, and the other is from FCP 5.0.4. Notice the vertical banding/(ailising?) on the FCP image.

The FCP image was imported off the P2 card in the camera, and the Avid picture was taken from the MXF files copied into an Avid media folder.
 

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BenB said:
FCP doesn't do anything to the color space of your file. But your computer monitor does. The DVCPRO-HD codec is the DVCPRO-HD codec.
Click to expand...

Hey Ben,

I have Avid and FCP on the same computer with the same monitors (planar px212m and planar px1910m). The two different editing programs are clearly instructing my computer monitors to do two different things.

I've put up 2 jpegs. I'd love to hear what you think.
 
That's the only thing I can think of. Because it sure as hell ain't what I'm seeing in the P2 Viewer versus import that's for damned sure.

So FINAL CUT and AVID are both telling the monitor to do different things, BenB?
 
Still waiting on BenB's expertise. Cause it seems a bit odd that the screen is showing two different images just between FCP's P2 Import viewer and the timeline.
 
Both Avid and FCP use (and this is not the official lingo, just the best way I can describe it) proxy based Real-Time Engines. When the footage is ingested, it is downsized, and resampled for preview to use as little proc power as possible. This is how RT is accomplished in NLEs without hardware.

Even full screen preview will be manipulated.

The only way to check if they are truely changing things is to export still images (Tiffs are best in my experience) and open them useing the same program, hopefully photoshop, calibrated for your monitor(s).

I know Avid can do some REALLY funky things with footage once ingested. In my opinion it is a great "cut and run" editor, but some of the worst, buggiest software in the world. I worked with Boris FX on resolving a bug (which was really AVID's fault but they simply refused to take the brunt of their poor programming; it was a fundemental flaw in the AVX 1.5 framework), and basically the RT engine was being used to EXPORT certian composited images, when it was supposed to be rendered.... differently. Also I know for DV Avid has some options for RGB, versus 601, and that WILL change things. It's nice to have the options but in the real world, FCP's simplicity IMO is nice.

[That said, I've cut in avid for five years, and something are WAY superior to FCP, so I'm not trying to flame here.]
 
Hey Arrestthisman,

Thanks for responding. The first thing I did when I noticed the image difference was to export a sample quicktime from both FCP and Avid of the same shot. Both quicktimes were true, uncompressed, 1080x1920 files that I then imported into Adobe After Effects. In After Effects, both shots looked the same as they did in their respective NLE's, the FCP quicktime still looked terrible, and the Avid quicktime looked much better.

If the Avid Express Pro is the one changing my material, then it is clearly changing it for the better. Notice the vertical line aliasing on the FCP jpeg I attached to this thread. What's up with that?

p.s. I edit for a living on both FCP and Avid. I'm not trying to start an Avid vs. FCP war, I'm just trying to learn how each NLE effects my HVX material and what I can do to offset any negative effects.
 
Hey Jim2000,

when you go to IMPORT P2 from Final Cut Pro, in the previewer, is your footage pretty much how you shot it on set? Or is it darker as well?
 
Kholi said:
when you go to IMPORT P2 from Final Cut Pro, in the previewer, is your footage pretty much how you shot it on set? Or is it darker as well?
Click to expand...

Hey Kholi,

I'm not quite sure what you mean. Because I'm on a Mac, the Panasonic P2 viewer software doesn't work. When I go to Import Panasonic P2 in FCP 5.0.4, I can see a tiny thumbnail clip of the image, but I can't play it until it has been converted into a quicktime (and it is too small to check image quality).

Once I have imported it into FCP, the footage looks darker and more contrasty then on the set. In addition, I'm seeing some nasty alising. See the JPEGs I attached. Each one was exported out of their respective NLE's.
 
Oh dang. Okay well I'm on Final Cut 5.1.4. When you go to Import Pana p2 footage, there's a previewer there for you to play it back before hand.

I noticed just yesterday that the footage was perfect before converting over to Quicktime into FCP, and then it's darker and pretty bad in Final Cut.

I refuse to believe this is my screen playing tricks on me.
 
Here's a high-res screenshot. If you want a TIFF or PNG let me know and I'll email it.

The P2 Viewer is in the right corner, the larger frame is the Final Cut Pro timeline.

1175568616.jpg


You're trying to tell me that's my screen? Check out the red, check out the detail.
 
Interesting. I'd be willing to bet that the image the previewer plays off the MXF file is very similar to what the Avid plays off the MXF file.

I'm beginning to think that FCP definitely crushes the blacks and adds contrast when creating a quicktime out of an MXF file.
 
I'm with you on that. And until you brought this thread up I thought it was all well-and-good. I'm beginning to think not. Cause it sure as heck ain't my monitor turning TWO DIFFERENT WINDOWS into TWO DIFFERENT VERSIONS of the SAME IMAGE.

And for the record: I added NO filters to any of this footage. It's all straight from the p2 import.
 
Okay, I saw the picture. There's definitely more shadow detail in the P2 preview window.

Your images are way better lit than mine, so the effects of the MXF to quicktime conversion don't seem as pronounced as in my shots which were clearly marginal to begin with. Can you redo your screen capture with both windows the same size and parked on the same frame?
 
There is definitely WAY more shadow detail in the raw MXF footage. Even through P2 viewer on a PC it's exaclty how I shot to external monitor. And that's on a laptop screen, not the external screen. HEre are the frames side by side, same size:

1175570177.jpg

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I also rendered out an ANIMATION file at highest settings and it's exactly like it is on the FCP timeline. Dark and innacurate.
 
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