FCE red color artifacts

[Warthog]

So I have started to play with my new DVX and I have a problem with Final Cut Express 4. The red color is very bright and there are significant artifacts at the edges of red areas. Strange thing is that other colors are fine and when I open the DVX footage in QuickTime player or iMovie, the red is more or less OK as well. The behaviour is the same for 4:3 and squeeze 16:9 as well as for 60i and 30p.

What am I doing wrong in FCE?

An example screenshot can be found here: http://gallery.me.com/jirka.jirout#100008/Picture 2&bgcolor=black

 

[Cools]

Make sure you are viewing at 100%. This should get rid of some artifacts due to the resampling that FCE will do if it's set to some other size. Also, make sure that you are viewing at High Quality in Quicktime (cmd+J, Visual Settings > High Quality), otherwise you are seeing a 50% version that will look softer (and the artifacts you'll see will be less obvious then in FCE at 100% Viewer).

Red (and a lot of other bright colors) will "bleed" and cause problems if it's too high in saturation. Apply a color corrector filter and reduce the reds slightly. Use the Vectroscope in the Scopes window to judge how much to reduce the saturation. Use the Broadcast Safe filter as a last resort to reduce limit the chroma (saturation).

For best results, you want to use a broadcast monitor though.

 

[Warthog]

Make sure you are viewing at 100%.

I am (and always was).

Also, make sure that you are viewing at High Quality in Quicktime (cmd+J, Visual Settings > High Quality), otherwise you are seeing a 50% version that will look softer (and the artifacts you'll see will be less obvious then in FCE at 100% Viewer).

I was indeed viewing the clips using the 50%. There are some artifacts visible while using "high quality", but the red color does not "bleed" the way it does in FCE.

http://idisk.mac.com/jirka.jirout//Public/QTwithHQ.png

Red (and a lot of other bright colors) will "bleed" and cause problems if it's too high in saturation.

I have some scenes with very saturated blue and other colors, but it is just the red, that is causing the problems :-( I have tried the filters suggested - it kind of works, but the rest of the image suffers as well. I know I can limit the effects to selected color range in FCP, but I would like to stick to FCE if possible (the work is for a non-profit organization and the price is an issue).

http://idisk.mac.com/jirka.jirout//Public/RedAndBlue.png

For best results, you want to use a broadcast monitor though.

My primary target is web, portable devices like iPhone or mediacenter PCs with normal LCD screens. So I need to make the movie look good on these, not on a hi-end broadcast monitor :-(

 

[Cools]

I'm not sure how much you can do without targeted adjustments in FCP (I don't use FCE) or without affecting the rest of the image. Your best bet would be to test the clips on your target devices and see if it's causing a problem.

Try using Desaturate Highlights (if FCE has it), this might help.

The problem overall is that a lot of cameras record very high luma levels (Super White) in order to help preserve highlight details and when you have very high saturation (chroma) as well, you run into problems. You have to deal with this using the color correction filters.

The Broadcast Safe filter, for example, tries to do this for you and if you have a lot of high levels (luma or chroma) you will notice a change across the whole image (which is the point).