Have Apple fixed the FCP/Quicktime gamma bug?

A

andrew00

Well-known member
Hey,

So I always used to get really annoyed that after exporting my perfectly colour corrected videos from FCP they'd always turn up washed out and losing their blacks in Quicktime, which I then had to convert in Compressor to put these back.

But in the videos I've been exporting recently this doesn't appear to happen any longer.

Is this a known change Apple have made? I've just started noticing it because I was working with footage that's a few months old but on the stuff shot in the last month or two it's better.
 
andrew00 said:
So I always used to get really annoyed that after exporting my perfectly colour corrected videos from FCP they'd always turn up washed out and losing their blacks in Quicktime, which I then had to convert in Compressor to put these back.
Click to expand...

I hope you don't mean that you were using Compressor to adjust the image. What you saw in QT had nothing to do with the actual representation of the video. It was all due to QT Player's issues. What you exported from FCP hadn't changed at all.

andrew00 said:
But in the videos I've been exporting recently this doesn't appear to happen any longer.

Is this a known change Apple have made? I've just started noticing it because I was working with footage that's a few months old but on the stuff shot in the last month or two it's better.
Click to expand...

There's a setting in QuickTime Player's preferences to "Enable Final Cut Studio color compatibility." This counteracts the problem you saw. Perhaps, at some point recently, this was selected and you weren't aware of it? It should be on, anyhow.
 
Er yeah I guess maybe I was, I was adding game, blacks and -red to the video in compressor when converting. Although I never noticed it being out of whack online?

I looked in quicktime and can't see the preferences area either.
 
You have to ditch quicktime x and install quicktime 7 from utility disk then go to quicktime prefs and select 'use fcp gamma'
also the snow leopard osx default gamma is 2.2 you need to go to osx display prefs/ color and set gamma to 1.8
AND whenever you use prores 4444 it has an internal 'auto gamma correction' (wtf?) which defaults to ON so switch that off too

Have Apple fixed the FCP/Quicktime gamma bug?
Click to expand...
no its been there for years and it got worse with snow leopard and quicktime x

also there is huge gamma inconsistency with color. Try putting a clip into color then export with no changes and compare them

edit: doing all of the above will help but not fix every gamma issue .... uuuuuurrrrggh, quicktime gamma ...
 
Last edited:
If you were to ask Apple, it's a "feature", not a bug - nothing to fix there. Personally, I disagree, but who am I to argue with Mr. Jobs?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top