Solution to Gamma/Color Shift Problems with Apple Codecs - Adobe BUG

Question

Hi....
In AfterEffects when choosing an output module and that module be ProRes or 10 Bit Uncompressed,
when trying to color manage the file, there is a fine line called
'This Codec Does Not Support Output Profile'
You can find it int he Color Management Pane of the output module....
Funny thing is - That Profile Embedding IS support by:#
Apple's Compressor and THE CODEC 4444 AND UnCompressed
Episodes Encoder
See following Screen Shots:
First one from Apple's Compressor...
Look at that little beautiful Color Option... Adobe did you MISS that one, perhaps...
You must have - because your APPS are NOT including that when encoding or should I say
butchering movie files....
Here adobes famous but wrong dialog!!!!
And in this next screen shot you can easily see that adobe just strips the color profile out of the file...
AND THAT IS WHY THERE IS A COLOR SHIFT...........
left image = Apple's Compressor Encoding (Colors match of course) - Right Adobe's BRUTAL encoding (Colors WONT match...)
Now, in after effects you wont notice the shift. But ALL mac and PC users using quicktime to watch YOUR movies
are going to be looking at a movie with a different look than you thought it WOULD be... Courtesy of adobe ;-)
Jokes aside, Adobe.... It seems as if this one is on you to fix... Apple's Compressor has NO problems. And other encoders are also preserving those values.
Now... Let us assume that I encode in compressor... Looks are matching 100% that of the original source. All it takes to mess that up is ONE
roundtrip to after effects, premiere pro or Media Encoder. That is if I wanna maintain my initial choice of transcodec - in my case 4444 or 10bit Uncomp.
I could of course export to animation and then use compressor AGAIN to transcode to my format of choice... But in the long run I think that will become tedious.
Perhaps you could assign a few engineers on this one and in the future spend MORE time on living up to the name PRO(The most misused word in the software business) instead of wasting time generating new Application icons for your apps....
Thanks for reading and for a PROMPT and near-future BUG FIX

Answer 1

Mylenium wrote:
It's not really "embedding" anything, it merely sets the QT color space flags which have been there forever, but are mostly unused. Specific to ProRes it also toggles different internal optimizations in the encoding. That's also documented somewhere on the QT developer pages. I'm not sure I share your views otherwise. The point really is, that Apple developed ProRes just as much as a closed workflow within their products as Avid did with their CoDecs. Therefore the widespread use of the CoDecs is merely a byproduct of the use of the products, but not per se an intended workflow outside of those and, which is the more important part, also not explicable as a causal circumstance of the quality. If I may be so bold: What you are saying sounds like everyone would be using the Animation CoDec because it is so good, when the simple fact is that there are no decent free cross-platform alternatives and people are willing to accept limitations because of that. Don't get me wrong, ProRes is well designed and pretty robust, but the world doesn't come to an end without it and outside the Mac world it is difficult to deal with. Hell, it's even difficult to deal with between different versions of FCP occasionally...
Mylenium
I have been testing codecs for a long long looooooong time. My criterion(s) are:
1) Image Quality and that through multiple encoding generations and color grading
THEEEN
a looooong way down the road
2) Performance
BTW - I find that working with files less compressed and thus HUGE is much better. Hard drives are so cheap that one can build himself an 8 Disk RAID0 and that takes care of everything. In PPRO I can cut real time in FulRes with an uncompressed codec with the processors maxing at 3%  while the H264 editing sequence will stutter like a drunken wasp and maxing the CPUs at 63%.... Go figure...
ProRes 4444's impeccable imageQuality:performance ratio, is unbeaten.
Especially on H264 material like that of the Canon5D. You might say if the source is 4:2:0 why bother upping it to 4444... Well in theory perhaps
it is overkill. But rather than reading in theoretical white papers I conduct my own tests. And the end results are (REALITY) and way different from what theory states. TO anyone reading this. DONT believe ANYTHING you read about codec nor what I am saying.... DO YOUR OWN TESTING and judge for yourself. Problem is that you have to do 100's and 100's of transcodings with ONE source to various destinations with lost of grading and transcoding generation. THEN you have to keep track of your tests and THEN compare them. It takes WEEKs. But it is well worth while it. In my case... I start with a Canon5DMKII H264 movies. Transcode it to PRORES4444 then I do LOTS of compositing and re-encoding then lots of color grading etc etc etc. Then I export back to H264 - and the end result is STUNNING has NO artifacts and is adorable to look at. Not so with at least 6 other codecs claiming to be top-notch....
Sure Mylenium, the world would NOT end with PR4444 not in it... BUT the WORLD has ALREADY decided that it WANTED ProRes4444 in it. It is growing and that every day..........
Had the codec not been so darn excellent - it would NOT have been used. Period.