Quicktime Gamma Tip

[Gavin Greenwalt]

For those with Quicktime Pro (who doesn't?) I was just shown a trick last week that fixes the infamous gamma problems.

1) Open Quicktime.
2) Go to Window -> Show Movie Properties.
3) Click on the Video Track.
4) Go to the Visual Settings Tab.
5) Set "Transparency:" to 'Straight Alpha'.

File -> Save. Now the Quicktime will display correctly without milky blacks and incorrect gamma/saturation of the color.

 

[Florian Stadler]

Transparency to 100, then straight alpha, no?

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Where do you set Transparency to 100? I just have a drop down (PC) maybe that's an additional step on OSX?

 

[Florian Stadler]

Yes Mac OSX

 

[Mel Matsuoka]

Please do not follow this advice. It's a misguided band-aid to a problem that is still without a rock solid solution.

Read this for details why this is a bad workaround:

http://provideocoalition.com/index....ghtness_issues_with_h264_quicktime_movies/P1/

 

[Matt Ryan]

Please do not follow this advice. It's a misguided band-aid to a problem that is still without a rock solid solution.

Read this for details why this is a bad workaround:

http://provideocoalition.com/index....ghtness_issues_with_h264_quicktime_movies/P1/

that article is from Dec. 1, 2008. Not saying its wrong but hasn't there been quicktime updates since then? Just curious if apple already fixed the problem...

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Please do not follow this advice. It's a misguided band-aid to a problem that is still without a rock solid solution.

Read this for details why this is a bad workaround:

http://provideocoalition.com/index....ghtness_issues_with_h264_quicktime_movies/P1/

It's not a misguided bandaid. It's an imperfect bandaid to apple's incredible incompetence. And so far on all the OSX and Windows machines I've tested it on it's fixed the problem.

Bandaid which works on 90% of machines tested but breaks in 10% or... status quo which is broken on 100% of machines. Hmmm... tough choice.

This bug has been around in Quicktime for 5 years. It's obvious apple doesn't care. Meanwhile clients still want quicktimes emailed to them... I can either send them files which are almost certainly wrong or files which are probably right. That's not a choice at all. All I know is that I no longer get creative directors following up with "Is it going to be that washed out in the finals?"

 

[Imran Farouk]

didn't quicktime X solve the issue partially?

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Hoping the person on the other end of the line has Snow Leopard also isn't a good work around.

 

[Dominique Grenier]

Does this setting get saved with the file? That is, if you send the file to your client, does he/she see the changed file?

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

If you go File -> Save. Yes.

 

[Emi Stefanach]

I am sorry to bring and old post back to life (well the bug is pretty old and still kicking).
I have been using using this workaround for a couple of years now and yes it works.

However I found that in some PCs the saved quicktime with the straight alpha setting plays more jerky than the original. Beeing in size such a small bytes in diference I don´t know what to think. (edited: in My Mac plays nice always, in a powerhorse PC plays jerky)

Anyway, does anybody know any news about it ?
Is really annoying!

Thank you
Emi
animalada.com