FCP Display Gamma Problem (Everything Dark)

I recently let system update do it's thing and went from 10.6.4 to 10.6.6 including updating pro-apps (FCS 3).
Suddenly FCP, DVDSP, & Motion show all of my video files extremely dark (STP & Color are show them fine).
It's as if the gamma those programs are using to display the image has changed. (Quicktime & other non-Apple apps show it fine).
I've messed with FCS Maintenance Pack, and also used FCS Remover to remove and re-install, but that hasn't fixed the issue.
I'm sure there is a setting, or corrupted file somewhere that's causing video to be displayed wrong, but I'm not sure where to look, what to change at this point.
Any help, thoughts, ideas? Thanks in advance.

Not familiar with FCE. Did you try the other advice offered in this thread and go to the Apple Menu > System Preferences and click on the Displays Icon.
When that opens click on the Color Tab.
Verify that your setting is correct for your display.
Also, what are the properties of your source video?
MtD
Message was edited by: Meg The Dog to fix typo

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FCP Display Gamma and brightness shiftsng a broadcast

I am well aware of the standard recommendations for using a video monitor for critical evaluation of color and density.
Having said that, however, I have been working on using a well calibrated Sony Trinitron computer monitor, and I have found a way, both with FCP and Color, to get visually fine results output to DVD via Compressor. My solution is to use the Trinitron calibrated with a Spyder 2 to a normal 6500K color temperature, and a gamma of 1.45. This yields very good matches using instrumentation, and visually between a calibrated HD Sony SXBR, Photoshop on the computer monitor, and FCP with monitor gamma of 1.45.
My question is why the monitor gamma needs to be tweaked this much to get good results with FCP. This seems to be the cause of what folks refer to as a "dark" shift when images are displayed by FCP.
I am hoping that some of those folks that have delved into the innards of FCP can enlighten me. I have detailed data as well, if anyone cares.

Not familiar with FCE. Did you try the other advice offered in this thread and go to the Apple Menu > System Preferences and click on the Displays Icon.
When that opens click on the Color Tab.
Verify that your setting is correct for your display.
Also, what are the properties of your source video?
MtD
Message was edited by: Meg The Dog to fix typo

My early 2011 MacBook Pro 15" non-glare display has developed a dark band at the edges of the screen approximately the same width as the aluminum surround. This wasn't present when the MBP was new. Am near an Apple Store, but anyone else had this problem

My early 2011 MacBook Pro 15" non-glare display has developed a dark band at the edges of the screen approximately the same width as the aluminum surround. This wasn't present when the MBP was new. I'm near an Apple Store and can take the laptop in, but has anyone else had this problem?

Thanks for your input. I didn't completely flesh out what I'm seeing visually. The resolution settings are all correct for my screen. The problem is if, say, looking at the gray startup screens or a completely white full-screen image, there is a perimeter of graying, almost as if the LEDs are somehow not as bright as the rest. It's also curious that the thickness of this phenomenon is almost exactly the same as the metal bezel around the display. I will be taking it to an Apple Store for a look, as I'm also having several minor hardware problems that need to be addressed and remedied.

Thumbnail view crashing FCP -- Kona3 the problem?

For larger projects, running bins in thumbnail view crashes FCP.
Most of the time, I'm editing 6 to 8 min. stories for a news magazine format show. We shoot on Sony XDCAM, so usually 2 or 3 disks per project (roughly 44 mins of HD viddy per disk, with anywhere from 20 to 120 individual clips on the disk).
However, for our documentaries (either 26 mins or 56mins) we shoot between 30 to 45 disks full of content. When importing the disks into FCP7, we use a bin per disc, translating into an average of 80 clips per bin. Whenever a project is this big, I can only open 3 or so bins in thumbnail view. After that, the system crashes. Even if I only keep one bin open at a time, by that fourth bin, the system crashes.
We are using a KONA3 card configuration.
Anyone else seen this?

PROBLEM IDENTIFIED (NOT SOLVED):
I've had this problem with thumbnail images crashing FCP after opening bins for over a year now and when going back using footage from old projects it happens more frequently. I can open 2-4 bins before it will crash FCP completely.
TROUBLESHOOTING IN THE PAST:
- Dumped Prefs
- Re-installed FCP
- Formatted & Re-installed EVERYTHING (OSX included)
- Increased thumbnail cache size
- Created new projects & bins, etc.
CONCLUSION:
None of the above troubleshooting strategies worked. Increasing the thumbnail cache size may appear to work a little but problem persists with little improvement.
HOW I IDENTIFIED THE PROBLEM:
Only recently have I been working with other formats aside from XDCAM. I've recently incorporated more ProRes files into my most recent project of T2i footage from the Canon DSLR camera. If I open a bin and display thumbnails of the ProRes video clips everything works without a problem. Loading thumbnail bins with the raw .mp4 files also works fine. Only loading XDCAM files will cause FCP to crash. The problem has nothing to do with the Kona card. If you read the posts carefully here and elsewhere you will see the common denominator is the XDCAM encoded video files being displayed as thumbnail icons.
I am using XDCAM EX files at 1080p 30fps. To further isolate this problem as something having to do with the XDCAM files, another user posted on another thread:
*"I am having similar issues with two separate projects. The only commonality between them is XDCam.*
*To possibly isolate it I reinstalled FCP on one system, and installed latest Blackmagic driver on the the same. Both systems are up to date visa vi OS, FCP, and QT.*
*Both still crash with the same regularity as described here."*
Apple, this problem has persisted for more than two years and is a major problem. Just search the forums including this one. Any further upgrades of Final Cut Studio or OS X are worthless until this problem is fixed. A brand new body and interior won't fix a car with a broken engine. Please help!! Please solve this issue with the XDCAM footage in FCP!
If anyone has any solutions or work arounds please notify me. I need it!
[email protected]
/\/\ichael
Message was edited by: MichaelRev1412
Message was edited by: MichaelRev1412

Gamma problems

Hi there . . . . .
When I export stuff from AE in most formats (H.264, MPEG4 etc) the render is pale, washed out and much lighter than my AE project.
I know there is a gamma issue with H.264 and quicktime, but MPEG4 (in a Quicktime wrapper) now also seems to suffer the same problem, whereas it didn't pre-Snow Leopard ?
Anyone got any clues as to the root of the mismatch between AE and Quicktime player ?
P.S. If I render out as ProRes the problem disappears ?
Cheers
Lee.

Thanks for putting in hours of time, this whole area is a pain. I need to point out that while I understand the technical issues, the guy who knows the practical issues is out due to a family emergency so I will be a poor balm.
Where to start?
After Effects uses RGB internally to represent color. Using the export menu has Quicktime drive the whole export process, which includes having quicktime call back into AE to render an RGB frame for quicktime to go compress. When using the render queue, AE is master, it renders a frame and then pushes it to quicktime. When we do the pushing, we get the opportunity to set some setting that sometimes help with gamma and color shifts. I'll call out what we do in the render queue path that we can't do in the Export menu path due to the underlying architecture.
The problem with gamma and color shift almost exclusively occurs with Codecs that run in YCrCb. This includes all ProRes (I'm lumping in ProRes 4444 even though it can do RGBA) and even PhotoJPEG if you aren't at highest quality (I think above 75%). These codecs are often defined to be in either the Rec601 or Rec709 color space (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rec._709). My guess is PhotoJPEG is sRGB, but that is a wild guess. Quicktime makes certain assumptions about the RGB color buffers it gets. These assumptions are different in Snow Leopard, Leopard, and Windows.
Since the codec is expecting color to be represented a certain way, the assumptions and associated color conversions when going from RGB to YCrCb is where things go awry.
By default Quicktime assumes RGB buffers are in a monitor color space. I believe this means sRGB (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SRGB) with a 1.8 gamma on Leopard (technically not sRGB, but what can you do), sRGB with 2.2 on Leopard, and sRGB with 2.2 on Windows. Since Rec709 and sRGB have the same color primaries, any incorrect assumptions here only appear as brightness/gamma changes.
The idealized black box export path for the Export Menu is:
AE->RGB (untagged)---Color Conversion in Quicktime--->YCrCb--->compressor.
In CS4 (maybe CS3?) we added the ability to tag the RGB buffer with the gamma. AE also will request RGB frames from Quicktime with the GAMA tag applied when importing. This is controlled with the "Legacy Quicktime Gamma" preference. I believe the export half of this will only affect the Render Queue and not the Export menu.
The intent behind using the gama tag was to make the RGB to YCrCb conversion more predictable. Alas, the tag ends up in the resultant movie and can influence other consumers of the file (like FCP). Further confounding things. This is why we added the Legacy Quicktime Gamma checkbox, we could not make every single test workflow work. The Legacy workflow does not add the tag.
Lastly, not only does each product on the market talk to Quicktime differently (i.e. some use RGB, some use YCrCb buffers directly, some obey the gama tag for color conversions, some don't), but some codecs themselves implement color conversions. Also, some 3rd party codecs install their own color conversion routines that compete with the Apple defined ones and will cause different RGB to YCrCb conversions even when NOT using their codec. Also, Quicktime makes different guesses based on which OS you are running.
Since a couple of ProRes codecs were shipped after CS4, they don't work correctly out of the box. They need some custom settings (http://blogs.adobe.com/toddkopriva/2009/12/prores-4444-colors-and-gamma-s.html).
Also, pixel dimension will also affect the color conversions as some codec use non-HD stuff as Rec601, not Rec709 which leads to another source of shifts.
In the end the RGB to YCrCb color conversions are influenced by:
1) Your export path (Export Menu, vs Render Queue)
2) The operating system you are running
3) Which codecs are installed on the system (even if you aren't using them)
4) The setting of the Legacy Quicktime Gamma Setting
5) The particular destination application.
6) The pixel dimension of the footage.
I also feel the need to point out that while ProRes may be in Rec709 (which nominally has a gamma of 2.2), Final Cut Pro will correctly convert YCrCb Rec709 to Monitor RGB (Gamma of 1.8 on Pre Snow Leopard) for display. By default After Effects does no display color correction. When importing a file that starts in YCrCb Rec709 we convert it to RGB Rec709 (Gamma 2.2) if AE does the decoding. This means something like a DV file will look different in AE and FCP on a mac with 1.8 display gamma. If you use an external preview device, I do not believe you will see any difference, but things will look different on the mac monitor.
I'm hungry enough now that I'm just going to make more errors than I already have.
I hope this helps someone.
--chris

QuickTime Respond To Display Gamma Changes?

Is QuickTime supposed to respond to or reflect changes you make to the gamma of your display in System Preferences > Displays > Color > Display Profile?
If I change my Display Profile back and forth between gamma 1.8 and and gamma 2.2, everything on the screen changes, accept for the video inside QuickTime Player. The video stays at exactly the same gamma, while everything else switches between light and dark.
What is the gamma of QuickTime fixed at? I have a feeling it's fixed at 1.8, which is weird 'cos the gamma of TVs is 2.2

Not familiar with FCE. Did you try the other advice offered in this thread and go to the Apple Menu > System Preferences and click on the Displays Icon.
When that opens click on the Color Tab.
Verify that your setting is correct for your display.
Also, what are the properties of your source video?
MtD
Message was edited by: Meg The Dog to fix typo

My Macbook displays photographies often quite dark, so that some details are not visible at all. Is it possible that the LED-light is defective or could there be other causes?

My Macbook displays photographies often very dark, so that some details are not visible at all. Can there be a problem with the LED light?

You could turn up the brightness of your display. It's also possible the backlighting has gone bad.

Jerky Export - FCP or Compressor Problem?

I have a 20-second sequence using the maximum zoom in. The background trees swaying in the breeze are "bumpy" or seem to be dropping frames once exported and burned to DVD. It seems the video in full zoom can't keep up with them. Yet the scene looks fine when played in Final Cut Pro, which does not display any dropped frames or struggling to produce smooth video in this sequence. But once exported to Compression it gets rough in spots and gives the jumpy illusion of dropping frames.
Not sure if it's a FCP or Compressor problem. Any suggestions?

Translation problem on your end or ours?
Burn to DVD? You mean you encoded to MPEF2 for playback on a set top DVD or you burned your QT to a DVD? H-U-G-E difference.
MPEG2 hates that kind of detail and fine motion. Of course it's going to skip and jump unless you very carefully tweak the encoding settings. Very carefully. There are entire books written on how to do that, how to get the best possible compression. The defaults in Compressor just don't do it for you, they are strictly generic but totally applicable to 90% of what you throw at it.
bogiesan

Facing "Display Flickering" problem with my 15" macbook pro(A1286)while swapping the desktops and closing the tabs.....need help...reply soon

Suggest Solution for this Display Flickering problem ....

Hi, I read the post about calibration and I probably do that a little too often TBH! As I get so little time out the battery and mainly use my MBP on my lap, usually with the power supply near by, it gets charged to full, run to empty to the point of sleep, or sometimes it even cuts out and then is recharged to full again, so I really think it's new battery time. I've seen non Apple Official ones for between £35 and £65 that have 3 year warranties and state they are around 5200mh but am unsure due to reviews.
Later...
Anyway's I have now ordered a non Apple replacement from Amazon for about £35 and it has several good reviews and 4.5 out of 5 stars so I'll see if it works and report back. If it doesn't I'll send it back and get the Official Apple one.
Message was edited by: Missy Steph

Macbook display color problems

macbook, mac os 10.5.8 updated, display color problem. when i try to fix it by color sync. it says:
/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Color/Profiles/DCDM_X'Y'Z'.icc
Tag 'A2B1': Requiredtag is not present.
Tag 'B2A1': Requiredtag is not present.
Tag 'A2B2': Requiredtag is not present.
Tag 'B2A2': Requiredtag is not present.
Tag 'gamt': Requiredtag is not present.
The file is locked. could not be fixed.
/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Color/Profiles/DCI_P3.icc
Tag 'A2B1': Requiredtag is not present.
Tag 'B2A1': Requiredtag is not present.
Tag 'A2B2': Requiredtag is not present.
Tag 'B2A2': Requiredtag is not present.
Tag 'gamt': Requiredtag is not present.
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Repair done - 0 out of 2 profiles fixed.
Kindly assist what to do.

Welcome to Apple Discussions!
Pictures would help. A good way to do this is to post them to a free photo sharing site like Flickr and then post a link.
Also, you are in the original MBP section, and I think you need to post your question in the newer MBP section:
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=1294
Good luck!

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Dear Sir,
I'm in a big ****. I've directed and edited 1h documentary for Finnish television, also, the technical specs requested by the TV Channel is all production Broadcast masters must be encoded with Apple ProRES codec or MJPEG A or B.
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Sent from my iPad.
Le 31 mai 2013 à 15:20, Fuzzy Barsik <[email protected]> a écrit :
Re: PREMIERE PRO CS5.5 Gamma problem while exporting project to mjpeg A or B
created by Fuzzy Barsik in Premiere Pro - View the full discussion
If it were me, I wouldn't encode to MJPEG.
So as to encode to ProRes on Windows you can utilise any solution based on ffmpeg/ffmbc or better yet find a Mac with Final Cut or Compressor installed for delivering critical work.
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Message Edited by Pitini on 07-20-2009 12:43 AM
Message Edited by Pitini on 07-20-2009 12:49 AM

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