need help from color correction experts

[Dafne]

Hi, i need some help about a color correction workflow.
This is the situation:

20 second TV spot, captured in HD uncompressed 10bits in Final Cut.
Edited in final cut in the same color space.
Postproduced in After Effects, for some effects (a window chromakey, a "post" digital LCD) and color corrected in After Effects too.

Then, rendered again uncompressed and took it to Final to add sound and mastering for broadcast. And, surprise... The color is not the same I see in After Effects...

So as I was mastering from Final Cut to a tape I decided to slight re-color correct in Final. In the vectorscope the signal was out of range in the white, i assume it was the bigger dinamic range of the uncompressed footage. It automatically set to the right level when I put the timeline in Prores.

Finally, as the spot was for broadcast SD PAL, I change the settings to a PAL timeline... and of course... the color changed again (rec709 to rec601 I assume...)

So, what is the right way to color correct for broadcast with these tools and don´t get mad with all these color changes? Which is the best and safe way to be sure that what you see is what you´ll get?


Thanks!!

[Lukasz Omasta]

Probably the Quicktime you exported from AE has gamma/colorspace information somewhere that do not match the original that you imported.
A good idea would be to prepare frame sequence out of AE already resized to Pal (if it needs reformatting always do it in a compositing app like AE/Nuke/Shake rather than in FCP, the result will be much better) and than convert them to uncompressed 8 bit PAL Quicktime using Motion, if you have it.
Avoid switching between formats as much as possible and try not to use compressed formats.

[beaker]

Which codec did you use at each step of the way? Which 10 bit uncompressed codec did you capture with?

[Navaneeth]

A good idea would be to prepare frame sequence out of AE already resized to Pal (if it needs reformatting always do it in a compositing app like AE/Nuke/Shake rather than in FCP, the result will be much better) and than convert them to uncompressed 8 bit PAL Quicktime using Motion, if you have it.
Avoid switching between formats as much as possible and try not to use compressed formats.

That absolutely makes sense but small budget studios must have a workflow that woks around this problem, with much less software licenses to worry about.
Isn't there an alternative??

[The diROOM]

Hi,

My advice would be to streamline your workflow. Going back to FCP for the mastering is adding another level of complexity and allowing QuickTime to have an extra opportunity to add a gamma shift to the footage. After Effects is capable of being used for the master as well as the colour correction. I would recommend that you add the sound and perform any resizing/format changes in there.

The diROOM.
diroom@diroom.com
www.diroom.com