Compressor: possible to specify gamma of Source?

Hi Robert,

The RGB codec is the problem. Encoding to m2v happens in YUV color space which adjusts colors to broadcast specifications, hence the gamma shift. Many people have gamma problems with the Sheer RGB codec and RGB codecs in general, also in AE and on Avid, the boards are full of it. So you're not alone.

But you can solve this easily by changing the gamma of your m2v setting in Compressor (Filters > Video > Gamma Correction) until it matches the gamma of your RGB video.

By the way: there is absolutely no benefit in exporting to RGB from an FCP timeline unless your original footage was RGB, you have edited and rendered in RGB all the way and you are sending your final comp to an external application that works natively in RGB. In all other cases, and especially for m2v, exporting straight from the timeline or via an Uncompressed or ProRes intermediary file will offer you the best transcoding quality. Sheer and Animation used to be excellent intermediary codecs as well, but on the Mac platform ProRes have made them abundant.

Best wishes,

Ronny

Hi Robert,

This is a very interesting workflow you are using, I see you really care about quality and you know what your're doing, and that is definitely a good thing.

As to the solution you are proposing: I really don't know, I should try this myself before giving my opinion. But it certainly seems logical to me that if you should export from FCP in YUV instead of RGB and bring this to Compressor there should not be any gamma shift due to color space conversion anymore. So yes, it's certainly worth trying. If you try this, please keep me posted on your results.

Best wishes,

Ronny

Hi Robert,

It's a full time job just keeping up with all of this.

--ken