Quicktime Gamma Issue… Solution for Mac Users?

[Rami Mustakim]

Ok everyone, I’ll try to expose here what I understand about gamma issues in Quicktime. Don’t know if what I do is correct so please feel free to tell me if you think I’m wrong.

1- Everybody seems to agree that when you work on Mac you should calibrate your monitor and set gamma to 2.2.

Hey all, Just a reminder (in the mac world) to set your monitors to 2.2 gamma.

Once you’ve done that, the monitor of your Mac has the same gamma setting as a PC so you can safely grade your Red footage knowing that it’ll look the same on a PC as it does on your Mac. But…

2- There’s another gamma issue. When you export your Red footage (In RedAlert for example from R3D to Apple ProRes 422 HQ). What you grade in RedAlert and looks good to your eyes becomes suddenly completely washed out in Quicktime.
Solution seems to be that if you have a Mac and have FCP2, then check the QT pref Color Compatibility so you can see what it should look like.
It works fine but then it’s only a way to see it right on your Mac. Your file will still look washed out on a PC or a Mac without FCP2…

3- I read a lot about this. I’ve tried many things. And I’ve found that:

- In RedAlert when you export your R3D file to a Quicktime File with QT codec set to “None” then you get a file with no gamma issue! It means that your file looks the same whatever you check the QT pref Color Compatibility or not. Gamma won’t change. Best of all you can export your file to whatever you want (Apple ProRes 422 HQ for example) and your file will still look good. Gamma won’t change even if you you check the QT pref Color Compatibility or not.
Question is why can’t we do it directly from RedAlert?

- If you exported your R3D file to a Quicktime File and have this Gamma problem you still can get rid of that issue. How? Well, you’ll have to export your file (command E).
Then click Options… Check Settings and Size so that your file remains the same.
Click on Filter > Settings > ColorSync
Go to “Source Profile” and select your Calibrated Monitor’s name (for example “Display Monitor Calibrated”) which Gamma setting is 2.2.
Then go to “Destination Profile” and select your Native Monitor’s name (for example “Display Monitor”) which Gamma setting is 1.8.
Now you can export your file.
What you’ll get is a file (same size and settings) with no Gamma issue. Gamma won’t change even if you you check the QT pref Color Compatibility or not. Your File will look good as well on your Mac or your PC.

That’s it.

Rami

P.S: Sorry for my bad English I’m French.

 

[XiaoSu Han]

Great findings, thanks. Had the same issues.

 

[Brice Ansel]

Merci Rami, I'll try that one, seems weird so.
Brice

 

[Michele Gavazzeni]

be happy SNOW LEOPARD will solve this dilemma since OSX will leave 1.8 gamma to history adopting finally the 2.2 standard.

end of gamma problems

 

[Jonas Rejman]

I also found out, that changing QT to "full screen" and windowed changes the look a little. We were testing some 2K ProResHQ via DVI on a Barco. So 1:1 in a window seemed to have a different gamma than 1:1 full screen.

I had the "Enable Final Cut compatibility' set to on.

Also, I got slightly different renders from 16bit TIFF 2K to ProResHQ 2k with different Quicktime versions.


Are there any more obervations, according QT?


I really hope, that snowleopard and QT X will solve that.

 

[Pat]

Thanks for the tips. What I don't like, however, is that changing the monitor gamma to 2.2 changes the whole UI - all the window controls, widgets etc become darker.

 

[Spike Baumann]

Seems footage in the edit windows are much darker too.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

be happy SNOW LEOPARD will solve this dilemma since OSX will leave 1.8 gamma to history adopting finally the 2.2 standard.

end of gamma problems

This rumor has been circulating for a while now, but is there any definitive proof? Like everyone else, I want it to be so...

 

[Mikael Lubtchansky]

This rumor has been circulating for a while now, but is there any definitive proof? Like everyone else, I want it to be so...

From the Snow Leopard seed notes (10a190) :

Default Gamma Changes
To better meet the needs of digital content producers and consumers, the default display gamma has been changed from 1.8 to 2.2 in Snow Leopard. Applications that override the deftault and assume a gamma 1.8 setting may have different onscreen and printed output than they did in previous releases of Mac OS X. Please report any visual differences that you encounter.

found here :
http://news.worldofapple.com/archiv...eopard-build-10a190-now-available-seed-notes/

 

[Charles Angus]

Too bad the "None" codec is a terrible waste of space...

Is this issue constant across RGB and YCbCr codecs?

 

[Luca Immesi]

http://www.videocopilot.net/blog/2008/06/fix-quicktime-gamma-shift/
This method is also interesting but I think only it only works with mpg4/h264. You don't have to export the file, just modify the movie properties. If you enable or disable "enable fina cut studio compatibility" the gamma change but if you leave unchecked "enable gamma shift compatibility" and switch between 1.8 and 2.2 on display profile the quicktime video gamma doesn't change.