This IS the Avid L2: Re: [Avid-L2] Re: Hey Don't Color Correct That Yellow Snow?

Saturday, September 6, 2014

Re: [Avid-L2] Re: Hey Don't Color Correct That Yellow Snow?

After a Google I guess FCC is part of Net Neutrality:

"Adopted in 2010, the Federal Communications Commission rules said that companies like Verizon Communications Inc. VZ +0.44% and Comcast Corp. CMCSA +1.49% had to treat all similar content on their networks equally, whether it was a YouTube video or a home video posted on a personal..."

---In Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com, <bigfish@...> wrote :

Thanks for the input. So far I see no difference in checking the rgb or 601_709 box on the QT ref when after exporting an H264 from the ref QT using QTPro. I have not forgotten your disdain for QTPro exports. So far it seem Sorenson 8 using the preset "h264_2000Kbps_720p looks pretty good in image and size. It also seems to my eye on the computer monitor that te Sorenson encodes do seem to show a difference between whether the QT ref from Avid was export rgb vs 601_709. I'll have to play as you say. I'm soooo glad the FCC isn't stupid. ;-) Just kidding as I don't the extent of the FCC jurisdiction when it comes to the internet. It is still communication isn't it? Anybody know if the FCC covers things like Net Neutrality? Time for another google

---In Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com, <cutandcover@...> wrote :

Gamma shifts in H.264 encodes are rampant and vary with the encoder. Gotta experiment to see which combinations work best. Oh and then it'll be different if you're viewing the resulting QT on a Mac or PC, or worse, in the QuickTime browser plugin.

I've been somewhat OK using the Apple variant of H.264 with Compressor. MainConcept makes a darker H.264 in my experience. x264 should be the most neutral, but it's a little crazy for me and I shy away from it. I should probably do more tests, but I've been lucky that most of our clients have been reasonably happy with the Compressor encodes.

On Sat, Sep 6, 2014 at 12:30 AM, bigfish@... [Avid-L2] <Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

So we finally had a watch down of the Glacier show and in my bay with a Sony PVM-2541 OLED monitor the director was very pleased with the color correction. We added a smidgen more blue and tweaked one interview. There is clearly a mismatch in color space or overall levels on the viewing end of my reference H264 .movs I've been sending to them for review. My references movies are Avid QT reference exports and then QTPro Export to H264 at the low setting and sometimes the high setting. I set the reference QT export to RGB in the hope it will play better on computer monitors but given it's a reference movie that references Avid 16-235 media I don't know what the setting really does under the hood. Perhaps it's time to use sorenson instead of QT Pro for this. I also add a time code window with QTChange which is one of the reasons I use QTPro 7 to export. After Sorenson 4.5 I could not get it to recognize the time code burn in that QTChange adds. Don't know what changed in Sorenson to make it not recognize the TC burn. It would even show the burn in the sorenson window the the subsequent export would show black video IIRC. I'm experimenting now to see what might make for a reasonable screener that won't take a day to upload.

---In Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com, <paulsulsky@...> wrote :

Hi John,

Blue is probably the right color unless you have a picture of the red ice falls in Antarctica. Type in glacial ice color in google or yahoo. The pictures are beautiful. I believe National geographic had an article about this years ago.

Enjoy the blue,

Paul

From: "John Moore bigfish@... [Avid-L2]" <Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com>
To: "Avid L2" <Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, September 2, 2014 4:49:00 PM
Subject: [Avid-L2] Hey Don't Color Correct That Yellow Snow?

Okay so it really wasn't yellow snow but in this case blue snow. I remember the senior colorist at a place I worked once said when reviewing the work of a freelance colorist, "Hey they got the snow white and that's hard to do so that's a good job." Well in color correcting a recent snow and crevice scene I was told I took all the "Rich Blue" out. I had looked at the shot and found it too look unwhite balanced because it was so blue. I made it nice and basically white like I would expect to see it. The director said oh no I was there and it was blue. I put back in the blue but it really looks unnatural to me. In my mind the brain will tell you something is white if it thinks it's supposed to be white or neutral in color. In this case snow over an ice glazier which I corrected to be white or neutral and the flesh tone looked good. To me the viewer is in their living room and the brain isn't getting the clues that even though it might be blueish it really should be white so that's where my color correction goes to make the brain happy and make it white. I can't imagine even out in the field the scene was as blue as the camera sensor picked up but perhaps I'm too focused on getting blacks black and whites white. Curious how others feel about color correction interpreting things so the brain is happy even if it is not absolutely true to the actual image the camera picked up? I like my original color correction and find the blue tint disturbing and not "Rich and Full." This also speaks to a phenomena I've noticed where people offline for so long with uncorrected footage they begin to believe the camera raw is the way it's supposed to look and when it gets corrected they see it as wrong. I figure this is a good group to get differing views on this.

John Moore
Barking Trout Productions
Studio City, CA
bigfish@...