Mac AVCHD gamma issues

[Joost]

Just saw the treat about the gamma issues happening in the quicktime conversion.
Checked it out and could not make a fair compairising because I can not import AVCHD in FCPX.

So I openend the same frame with difficult lighting (white T-shirt in the sun) both in MplayerX and had the following result.
I added contrast on the first pic to see a better difference. One is imported to QT in FCPX and one is straight from the card as AVCHD.


I found it strange I didn't heard about this problem before.
What are your thoughts about this? And how do you tacle this problem. It seems you loose 10% in the levels.

See the article here: http://www.eoshd.com/content/8612/mac-avchd-gamma-issues-the-fix


EDIT: The image is one frame off.

 

[Gene Sung]

My issue wasn't that drastic, but I did notice a gamma shift immediately when comparing FS700 AVCHD footage imported natively into Premiere as opposed to running it through 5DtoRGB which looked noticeably less crushed.

I have to try the in-premiere method because transcoding is just so slow and eats up so much space.

As for not hearing about it before, I think it's one of those things that you don't notice until someone points it out, then it's plain as day (as in this case)

 

[Joost]

My compairising isn't as huge as the sample on EOSHD either. I was happy with my fs100 footage. But now I know the footage can be a tat better by such a glitch I'm getting unsatisfied
Easy solution??
Export with 5DtoRGB: To much hassle, time and drive-space, expensive in the end.
Using a Ninja: Is also goin to be quicktime but is skipping the compression so it should hold up right? Not that expensive.
Sell for mark III, t4i: meh, it like the FS' real camera controles and XLR.
Sell for BMCC: Not out and proven right for me yet.
Buying Premiere: same pricepoin't as the Ninja.

First World problems

 

[olof]

I work in FCPX quite a bit now.

I always edit my AVCHD and XDcam footage without converting to ProRes. When you grade/CC and it gets rendered I have never noticed a problem with gamma.

 

[Joost]

Interesting. Can you please tell me about your workflow? Because I can't import the raw MTS files.
I import from camera. That mean's it is converting to Quicktime H.264 (AVCHD).

I did not understand it is only Proress wich caused the problem but just the conversion to quicktime.
Like I said I was happy with my footage but after hearing this I thought I saw the black less black and the white more bitten (little less smoothing) than the original MTS.
Maybe I just seeing things because of the article.

I don't know. Would be a shame to miss any quality you can get.

 

[Nirv]

That EOSHD article is the most ill informed article I've read in recent memory.

If you're having problems you should learn about video levels and what a legal video level is.

Modern cameras give you the ability to record greater than legal video levels and if you have super whites or super blacks or both you should know what to do with them.

Stop blaming the software or the FS100. They aren't the cause of the issues.

 

[olof]

Joost, in FCPX use import from Camera and then point the import to the card inserted in the card reader in your Mac. My Imac has one on the side.

I then pick the clips I want and click import. I do not check the optimized media or proxy media buttons.

FCPX will then copy the clips as H.264's with a .mov extension into the event folder you specify.

Then just edit away. it works very well for me.

Now with XDcam footage you have to use the Sony XDcam transfer or XDcam Browser to convert the BPAV folders content to .movs, I understand soon FCPX will be able to read the BPAV folders.