FCP video out is darker then After Effects video out. Problem?

I just noticed that when viewing the video out on my monitor (Sony Broadcast) that the video is much brighter in After Effects (using the video preview on the broadcast monitor) then it is in FCP5?s video out.

This concerns me as I color corrected the video using FCP (which would mean the darker image). After bring the video into AE and seeing the much brighter image I?m confused as to which one is the ?true? color/brightness.

Anyone have experience with this, or have an idea on which would be the correct color?

Any idea on why they could be different?


Thanks

What is your output device = DV transcoder? Firewire to a deck? Aja IO? Kona2? What are your Output Settings in FCP?

Need a little more information.

- Joey



When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

The FCP timeline/codec is blackmagic 10bit.

It is being output via firewire though a DV deck to the broadcast monitor.

FCP is using "Apple FireWire NTSC (720 x 480)" as its video playback settings.


After Effects is using "Apple FireWire NTSC" 720 x 480 as its output for video previews.


I can guess that it's not the best to be running uncompressed video out via the firewire deck, but at the moment that's all I've got.


Do you think FCP is converting it to a DV codec before showing on the monitor (I.e. maybe the DV codec is darker)?

Or maybe AE doesn't like the blackmagic 10bit over firewire and messing with the colors?


Either way it would be great to know which one is showing the true colors.


Thanks

We need to know how you're getting between digital and analog for the monitor. If you're using a camcorder or small deck for transcoding, virtually all of them get the black level wrong, that is, they don't put the black level boost back in when theyr'e supposed to, or take it out when it's needed.

The much larger decks have a switch to allow management of the 7.5 IRE boost. I believe the AJA I/O does this correctly and there are switches on the bottom of the Canpus ADVC100 that cause it to handle everything right.

None of our Sony Clam Shell decks translate correctly and none of our camcorders work right, either.

You can make a mistake of 7.5 units at white and nobody can tell the difference, but this error is at black and it's very noticable.

Koz

Two messages crossing in the night.

You aren't talking about stills, are you? FCP plays games with still brightness.

The small DV deck is almost certainly distorting the black levels, but that doesn't explain why one program is brighter than the other given a common pathway.

Koz

<<<After bring the video into AE>>>

*How* are you bringing the images into AE and are there preferences for setup removal? (That's what the 7.5 unit black level boost is called.)

Koz

No they aren?t stills, it's good old video footage. I'm exporting from FCP as a QuickTime and importing it into AE. There are import options in AE, but I don't see anything about the 7.5 IRE boost. I also did a quick lookup on Google and didn't see anything for AE regarding an option for that either... doesn't mean there isn't an option... unfortunately I can't seem to find it.

FYI the deck is a Sony DSR-11 DV deck.

It is definitely the blacks/mid tones that are getting affected, so it very well could be the 7.5 IRE thing.

Interestingly enough, the exported QuickTime is darker (same color as FCP) then the version that is imported/shown in the AE window when compared to the original QuickTime. (And no there aren?t any effects on the footage in AE at this moment (That is why I wanted to bring it into AE in the first place)).

So if the footage in the AE window is brighter then the original QuickTime it imported, it's pretty obvious that AE is doing something to the display of the footage both in the app and on the video monitor.

I'm assuming (and hoping) that FCP is probably showing the correct color levels?


PS - thanks for the help so far.

So I've been investigating this more, and I do believe it has to do with the 7.5 IRE issue.

And unfortunately I think After Effects (for whatever reason) is showing the correct colors. (At least as far as US broadcast standards are concerned.)

I know that my deck doesn't compensate for the 7.5 IRE boost, and I'm assuming that FCP isn't adding this to the output... correct?


I dumped the footage to DVD Studio Pro and made a DVD and played it. The colors on the DVD footage look much brighter then the FCP monitor output and much closer to what AE is showing me.


So, if this is the case... what is the best way to get my colors back to what I thought they were? (I.e. before the 7.5 IRE boost)

Do I need to buy a Proc Amp to sit between FCP and my Deck/Monitor? Or is there a setting in FCP that I can see what/how setup would affect the colors on the monitor?

Hopefully I've traveling down the right path with this.

We're talking about digital video here - 7.5IRE should not be an issue.

AE is purely an RGB application.

FCP can work in RGB or preferentially for video Y'CbCr.

What is most probably happening is that there's some kind of error or difference in how AE is converting the RGB date to Y'CbCr to go out via the DV codec.

Why not generate a set of colourbars in FCP, take them to AE and compare what is happening - you'd be best do this with an external waveform monitor, maybe do a render and bring them back into FCP and see what it's waveform monitor is telling you.

Graeme



[www.nattress.com] - Plugins for FCP-X

Could it be one is using 16-235 and the other is using 0-255 colorspace?

I know nothing about After Effects.

Koz

One thing that you mentioned has me scratching my head. You said you have a 10bit uncompressed timeline, but your playback settings are for DV NTSC through the firewire? Something is not right there. Your sequence settings are not matching your playback settings.

You never said if you are using a Kona, or Decklink, or IO for your card.

If your timeline is 10bit uncompressed, so should be your playback. If your timeline is DV, then use the DV NTSC playback. Could this be a configuration issue?

One of my editors claimed of a dark picture once with a Kona card setup. Turned out that they were viewing the composite output from the deck to the monitor instead of the SDI ouput from the Kona to the monitor. That difference, whether from setup not being added or else taken away (I'm not sure as I'm not an engineer) as the signal passed through the deck and then onto the monitor compositely (is that a word?) accounted for the quality difference.

Is it then possible that the means by which AE views previews through the firewire doesn't allow for configuration snafus the way FCP sometimes can?

Andy

I have noticed this as well.
Black magic is a YUV color space as mentioned above and its really likely that this is the reason.

This is also noticable if you render out one file from FCP and then open it up in After effects and render it out without compression.
The After effects file wil be brighter than the FCP file when put next to eachother on the desktop if you open them in Quicktime.

Does *anybody* have a scope that can give us clear measurements?

Koz