Topic: Workflow / Euphonix MC Color

It’s an interesting move by Avid. I doubt this will mean much for Apple users, especially in the short-run. The market Euphonix targets isn’t that big so it’s unlikely that they are going to stop supporting Apple applications. It just makes little sense for them to cut off a very active audio and video community like that.

Besides, a lot of it rests in the hands of developers in the first place (Apple in the case of Logic, Color, etc.) to keep implementing the Eucon protocol in the future. It’s Euphonix’s job to make sure developers stay happy and keep supporting the protocol and continue the integration in their applications. So in that respect Apple has a lot of power in the relationship.

Anyway, let’s not forget that there is the Tangent Wave and maybe we’ll see more controllers for Color in particular in the future. I wouldn’t be surprised if this move to Avid will hurt Euphonix’s sales and push more people to consider the Wave instead.

Topic: Workflow / tracking...

The Pro Applications Update 2010-01 supposedly addresses the tracking problems. I haven’t installed it yet, but maybe others who have can comment.

Topic: Workflow / COLOR bars to align Panasonic monitor

Forgot to mention: make sure that you are using a YCbCr codec for your bars, don’t use an RGB-based codec.

Topic: Workflow / COLOR bars to align Panasonic monitor

What are your settings? What codec? Is this HD or SD?

Try turning the Broadcast Safe option off (it’s on by default and clamps blacks) in the Prjct Settings. Also, disable the Deinterlace Previews option (since it affects image quality). If you are doing HD, check the Force RGB setting in User Prefs. Make sure that your video output is appropriately set in Video Output so your DeckLink doesn’t have to do any extra conversions.

Hope this helps.

Topic: Workflow / tracking...

Tracking doesn’t work for me either. I use Shake instead when I need it.

Topic: Workflow / LUT workflow question

You’d need to get a custom LUT for the projector. You can create a LUT for it by using a hardware probe that measures the output (similar to how you calibrate computer screens) from the projector. I’m guessing neither you or your client can do that, in which case the best option would be to create a test clip and see the result through the project to get an idea of how the images changes so you can try to compensate in Color.

Topic: Workflow / Calibration: Gamma for Color/FCP?

What’s your target output? If it’s anything broadcast (TV/DVD, etc.) then you really need to use a broadcast monitor for critical color correction. Then it won’t matter how your actual computer screen is calibrated. WIthout a broadcast monitor, you can only vaguely try to approximate a TV with screen calibration, but it’ll never be entirely the same. I believe for HD, you can do a pretty decent job by using a Matrox box to turn a computer LCD into a broadcast monitor. I never tried it myself since I don’t do much HD.

If your destination is web, then your best bet is to go with 2.2 (since that’s what Windows uses) and test your final videos on as many different target computers as possible and using whatever target player and codec you intend on using. There are just too many variations between computers (remember most people never bother to calibrate their monitors). Even H.264 videos in Apple’s own Quicktime will not look identical on different computers (Mac or Windows).

Having said that, it used to be recommended that you stick to 1.8 for Final Cut Studio because Mac OS X was 1.8 default, but with Snow Leopard, 2.2 is now the default gamma for Mac. Personally, I’ve always used 2.2 and never had major problems or at least nothing that couldn’t get solved by changing a setting (usually problems only happen with RGB codecs – like Animation when going from Motion since they defaulted to 1.8 gamma and would get shifted when you brought them to Final Cut Pro – which you can deal with now by changing the clip gamma in Final Cut Pro for the clip).

The whole thing is a bit of a mess and not well documented by Apple. I’ve pretty much stopped trying to understand all the details and resort to doing regular testing to make sure that my workflow stays sounds and that I don’t see any unexpected shifts when going between applications and making sure the final result looks appropriate on the target destination.

Hope this helps.

Topic: Workflow / So... anyone running 1.5 yet?

Yeah, I am. And it’s still buggy.

It still freezes FCP on some occasions when I use Send to Final Cut Pro. Not a biggy, I just use Export > XML, that works fine.

The huge problem I have now is that when I restart the app, my tracking data is lost! Create a tacker, apply it to a vignette, save, restart, the tracker status turns to red and I have to redo it. Heck, when I re-process, it sometimes starts tracking on some other piece of content.

Further more, the monitor preview out of Color is still not as good of quality as what I get from the other apps (I’m guessing it’s a proxy, even though I have proxies disabled) and it’s not even the proper ratio (slightly thinner) for the SD footage I work with. Again, not a huge issue, but annoying.

Yes, I’m ranting, but I really, really, really want to use this app for production but there’s always something that prevents me (like the tracking issue now). Guess, I’ll be sticking to using Shake 4 when I need to do tracking. Funny how they finally discontinued Shake, yet it’s still by far the best option for tracking and even color, even though it takes a lot more time to do it.