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H.264 Gamma Missmatch - please Help

Kim Frank

Kim Frank

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I don't know if this was stated elsewhere, if so, please point me in the direction.
I just recently switched from Mac to PC and am using the ADOBE workflow.
I'm really satisfied with my System, the RED Workflow and even the OS, but I'm getting in the good old GAMMA MISSMATCH Problem again.
On Mac, I solved it by highlighting MATCH QUICKTIME GAMMA LEGACY in the Project settings of After Effects. Then I rendered out in ANIMATION Codec and transcoded to H.264 in MPEG STREAMCLIP. Everything looked great on any OS and APPLICATION.
Now on WINDOWS 7 my render out of AE in Animation codec looks great, but the transcode to H.264 is washed out. I tried many different ways but got the same result.
Than I found a fix, that seemed to work:
After rendering into a QuickTime/h.264 file, open it up in QuickTime and select “Show Movie Properties.” Highlight the video track then click on the “Visual Settings” tab. Towards the bottom left you should see “Transparency” with a drop-down box next to it. Select “Blend” from the menu then move the “Transparency Level” slider to 100%. Choose “Straight Alpha” from the same drop-down and close the properties window and finally “Save.”
But on my system the final Qucktime, that now has the right gamma, stutters while Playback in Quicktimeplayer.
Any thoughts, how I can make my H.264 Clips for Client preview look as good as possible?
 
Kim Frank said:
I don't know if this was stated elsewhere, if so, please point me in the direction.
I just recently switched from Mac to PC and am using the ADOBE workflow.
I'm really satisfied with my System, the RED Workflow and even the OS, but I'm getting in the good old GAMMA MISSMATCH Problem again.
On Mac, I solved it by highlighting MATCH QUICKTIME GAMMA LEGACY in the Project settings of After Effects. Then I rendered out in ANIMATION Codec and transcoded to H.264 in MPEG STREAMCLIP. Everything looked great on any OS and APPLICATION.
Now on WINDOWS 7 my render out of AE in Animation codec looks great, but the transcode to H.264 is washed out. I tried many different ways but got the same result.
Than I found a fix, that seemed to work:
After rendering into a QuickTime/h.264 file, open it up in QuickTime and select “Show Movie Properties.” Highlight the video track then click on the “Visual Settings” tab. Towards the bottom left you should see “Transparency” with a drop-down box next to it. Select “Blend” from the menu then move the “Transparency Level” slider to 100%. Choose “Straight Alpha” from the same drop-down and close the properties window and finally “Save.”
But on my system the final Qucktime, that now has the right gamma, stutters while Playback in Quicktimeplayer.
Any thoughts, how I can make my H.264 Clips for Client preview look as good as possible?
Click to expand...

Don't do that blend stuff in QT it will come to me as a bug at some point. Why not just go directly from PPro to QT h.264? We make sure there isn't any gamma shift. Skip the Animation step.

Cheers

Dave
 
Thanks David...
I tried to render straight out of PP and still got the Gamma missmatch in Quicktime.
BUT Windows Media Player plays the file with the right gamma and the Upload on VIMEO has the correct gamma too. So what is this up to? Any Ideas?
Regards
KIM
 
Kim Frank said:
Thanks David...
I tried to render straight out of PP and still got the Gamma missmatch in Quicktime.
BUT Windows Media Player plays the file with the right gamma and the Upload on VIMEO has the correct gamma too. So what is this up to? Any Ideas?
Regards
KIM
Click to expand...

can I see the file?

Dave
 
Kim Frank said:
Thanks David...
I tried to render straight out of PP and still got the Gamma missmatch in Quicktime.
BUT Windows Media Player plays the file with the right gamma and the Upload on VIMEO has the correct gamma too. So what is this up to? Any Ideas?
Regards
KIM
Click to expand...

Kim, we have the same workflow like you and the same problems. I think it's due to QT on Windows. QT on Windows has more sever gamma shifts than on the Mac. We avoid QT on Windows.

FYI, try CineForm. On the Windows platform they use AVI as the container. AVI hardly shifts any gamma, you can only tell the difference with a histogram, never by eye. CineForm also has a 4444 codec that includes alpha. The quality is in the realm of HDCAM-SR or better.

Hans
 
Kim Frank,

Everything you've done is fine and correct. The problem is, and always has been, QuickTime on Windows. It applies a lower gamma on video playback.

Most media players that support QuickTime movies should render the video with the correct output gamma. (For instance, I believe WMP12 and MPC-HC have no problems.)

My advice, now that you're on Windows, is to avoid any workflow or intermediary files that involve QuickTime. Once you've imported, edited and finished your RED shots, export to a standard video file format like WMV9 (for Windows systems) or H.264 (universally accepted), but wrapped in .wmv and .mp4 containers, respectively.
 
Thank you for your Responses...
Glad you liked it Hans! I shot it on my 5DII.
I'll try your advices, but my main concern is that the client sees the Preview Clips I send before finishing have the correct gamma on any system and Player, because its quiet a hussle to have to explain something technical when it's about the art.
Does any of your advises accomplish that?
 
Kim Frank said:
...my main concern is that the client sees the Preview Clips I send before finishing have the correct gamma on any system and Player, because its quiet a hussle to have to explain something technical when it's about the art.
Click to expand...

That's the reason why there are systems that provide colour accurate playback. Iridas FrameCycler is one of them. Such systems are build to close the pipeline between post production and director when the director is not available and somewhere else around. But that's expensive and needs special hardware.

I think http://www.inmethod.com/air-video/index.html;jsessionid=E2E164E7893F17398FD5A382E62EABCF may help to solve these problems. We are going to implement it for our clients. I'm not sure how this behaves regarding colour shifts.

Avoid QT. That's what we do. And tell all those clients that use a Mac to set their monitor gamma to 2.2 (OSX legacy gamma is 1.8...)

We have less problems with clients that use Windows. Apple messed this up.

Sorry to be not really helpful,

Hans
 
Hans von Sonntag said:
That's the reason why there are systems that provide colour accurate playback. Iridas FrameCycler is one of them. Such systems are build to close the pipeline between post production and director when the director is not available and somewhere else around. But that's expensive and needs special hardware.

I think http://www.inmethod.com/air-video/index.html;jsessionid=E2E164E7893F17398FD5A382E62EABCF may help to solve these problems. We are going to implement it for our clients. I'm not sure how this behaves regarding colour shifts.

Avoid QT. That's what we do. And tell all those clients that use a Mac to set their monitor gamma to 2.2 (OSX legacy gamma is 1.8...)

We have less problems with clients that use Windows. Apple messed this up.

Sorry to be not really helpful,

Hans
Click to expand...

h.264 in an mp4 wrapper is a great format for us. We don't have this issue reported but I will dig a bit and get back to you.

Cheers

Dave
 
This happens only in windows and not Mac right?

In the past I corrected this annoying bug with a turnaround and saving (no texporting) the quicktime file again (described below)

But now I just disable Direct3d video acceleration in quicktime player advanced preferences (the last of the 3 checkboxes)

This is good to see colors correctly, but will return in slow playback performance maybe.

There is no gurantee that your client is going to see the colors in the correct manner unless you force the quicktime player to always turn off direct3d and I personally discovered that another tip does exactly that, like maging (beware because it fixes gamma, but will play more jerky)

Open the QT
Go to "Window/Show Movie Properties"
Select "Video Track", then click the "Visual Settings" tab
At the bottom left, change the transparency to "Blend" then move the slider to 100
Change the transparency to "Straight Alpha"
Close the Movie Properties window, then play or scrub the QT. Your black levels should now look correct
Save over old .mov
 
I use the Adobe workflow to render out to H.264. I start with the YouTube Widescreen Preset then build my own custom preset off of that one. I always make sure I'm using the Main Concept as the codec provider rather than QuickTime as the gamma issue is just not acceptable.

There is a Main Concept upgrade that will allow CUDA enabled rendering to H.264 along with many other Broadcast / Film codecs.

http://www.mainconcept.com/products/apps-plug-ins/plug-ins-for-adobe/codec-suite-cs-5/broadcast.html
 
Everything David said (surprise) is the best solution:

1- Export to Media Encoder directly from Premiere, not AE.
2- Do not export to H.264 Quicktime, instead to H.264, which will render an mp4 instead of a MOV file, and should fix this problem.
3- If you don't have to, don't use QT at all, whatever people say, QT is an old codec full of flaws, so work directly on your AVCHD files or whatever other format you have, which is one of the reasons, I assume, you switched to PC and PP in the first place.
 
While QT is not a codec, but a container, everything else is true. It sucks with it's gamma issues, and even the man himself recently complained about that.
That said, Adobe is doing a pretty good job on their side to handle it's flaws. I can't see any problems here using ProRes, for example. H.264 MOVs are a different thing…
 
Hans von Sonntag said:
Avoid QT.
Click to expand...

+1

When I go to h264 I have been avoiding QT and using the mp4 container

Is there any advantage in this? I have read on wikipedia that the mp4 container is based on the QT container but I have been hoping it would be more free from the apple gamma curse?
 
Going straight to Mp4 from a QuickTime export seems to avoid the main problems with gamma changes .mov introduce for me, especially when going on to YouTube etc.
 
Chuck Z said:
Kim Frank,

Everything you've done is fine and correct. The problem is, and always has been, QuickTime on Windows. It applies a lower gamma on video playback.

Most media players that support QuickTime movies should render the video with the correct output gamma. (For instance, I believe WMP12 and MPC-HC have no problems.)

My advice, now that you're on Windows, is to avoid any workflow or intermediary files that involve QuickTime. Once you've imported, edited and finished your RED shots, export to a standard video file format like WMV9 (for Windows systems) or H.264 (universally accepted), but wrapped in .wmv and .mp4 containers, respectively.
Click to expand...

Dear Kim,

May I ask a very newbie question?

I have a very similar problem: when I make a movie in Premiere Pro (CS5 / Windows Vista 64bits) and export it in Quicktime (H264 level 5.1), I get washed out colors. I tried the trick highlighted above (Go to Movie Properties , Blend >100% , Straight gamma) in QP.. but it seems I cannot save these setting. Works when I just do it but as soon as I close the file, even if I save it, it comes back to its previous setting...useless.

You advised to use H264 but wrap it in .mp4 rather than .mov... but when I export my file in PPro, I usually choose H264 as XX and then level 5.1 (because my file is unsually large in pixels) and it does automatically build a mp4 file .. with the famous washed out colors.

Do I do something wrong?
Should I open it in something else than Quicktime (but what? Windows Media Player refuses to open the file)
Should I convert it to mov in Quicktime Pro?

Ultimately, although I work on Windows PC, the file is going to be used on a Mac (hence with Quicktime)

Your ideas and advice are most welcomed!!

Thank you very much
 
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