Snow Leopard, FCP, AFX & Gamma

Question

Hi all. First of all I'd like to say that I've already googled about this for hours and that I wouldn't post a question on the subject if wasn't on a tight deadline and had already pulled out whatever hair I had left.
We are finishing a project using FCP 7.0.1 running on Leopard on a 2 x 2.66 Dual Xeon.
At the last minute we decided to rent a second Mac Pro to help us with some After Effects rendering. The new Mac is a 2.66 Quad Xeon, newer model (no FW 400 connector). And of course it runs Snow Leopard.
After Effects CS3 has been causing us problems with gamma shifts when rendering on the same (Dual Xeon) machine that runs FCP, but we've sorted them out (activating the "Legacy" option in Project Settings dialog of AFX, a tip from Creative Cow). However, on the new machine the nightmare has begun again, only this time I can't find any solution to the gamma shift.
Footage exported from Leopard FCP (both from the timeline and from the original .mov file using Quicktime Player), after the round trip to the After Effects installation on Snow Leopard (without any effects added), is always darker, whether using ProRes or DVCPRO HD 1080i50 (which is our timeline's codec).
I know Adobe doesn't offer support for CS3 on SL. I also know that the switch from 1.8 to 2.2 might be involved, but I can't figure out how (Apple says the ColorSync utility should make this an invisible, but I've also tried changing to 1.8. in the Display Settings - however this is for display only and obviously doesn't affect the pixel processing in After Effects).
I would like to know if there is ANY solution available or whether we should return the SL machine, install Leopard on it, or buy CS4 (which seems to have its own issues in this area). Needless to say, all the above options except the first one would be a major pain (we're editing nights here...)
Thanks for any help.

Answer 1

I don't know if this is the solution, but it is a solution and I'm jotting this down in case someone bumps into this post while searching.
Do a search for "Adjusting Gamma" in the FCP 7 documentation. Read the whole page.
The workflow using the Animation codec works for me :
1. Export your footage (either from FCP or directly from QT) as DVCPRPO HD 1080i50 (or whatever your native footage is).
2. In Snow Leopard, process the clip in After Effects and make sure you use the Animation codec in the Output Settings (and Upper Field first in the Render Settings). Don't use a color corrected workflow (use "Preserve RGB" everywhere).
3. Still in Snow Leopard, add the clip to a FCP project, right-click on it and export a DVCPRO HD 1080i50 sequence (not using quicktime conversion). You don't need to create a sequence to do this and you don't even have to modify the Gamma value in the clip's properties (although you now can do it, since Animation is an RGB codec).
4. Import the clip back in FCP on Leopard.
You can easily setup a batch process for all this.
Disadvantage: on your SL AFX machine you can't have a precise idea of how the result would look, color-wise, in FCP. I can live with that because I'm only using it for calculations.
But I would be interested in any alternative solution.