More with the Mac Gamma Shift and tagging video with the 2.4 gamma in DaVinci, following my post on color correction in Premiere Pro

So yesterday I had a post how Adobe’s new color correction feature in Premiere Pro 2022 didn’t do anything to fix the gamma shift issue on Mac on exports, and I posted a link to my post in a facebook group on Premiere Pro for Pro users.

Responses included finishing everything in DaVinci, which does nothing about Premiere’s handling of the issue, and people saying just work on a PC which will fix the issue, though it won’t if you have people viewing on Mac, because the gamma shift will happen then.

And then there were the responses about putting the Gamma 2.4 tag in DaVinci in fact tagging the clip wrongly to display correctly on Mac, and I decided to do a little test with Parallels to see how the clips show up in Windows. And I know that putting the Gamma 2.4 tag on your footage is ignored by YouTube, which ignores a 121 tag on footage and in fact forces 111 which will then have the gamma shift.

So to start this is short film I am working on, and the first part are the clip set with the DaVinci Gamma tag set to Gamma 2.4 on export.

This is the Gamma Tag I am talking about.

So I exported the show with this tag.

So the left is the 111 tag and the right side is the 121 tag on mac in quicktime. The 121 is much closer to what I am seeing on my external monitor
So this is the 111 on left and 121 tag on right, these look the same, and actually look better than the 121 tag in Quicktime,
So the left is the clip with 121 tag in quicktime and the same clip in VLC on the right, VLC looks like the correct look, so VLC is still the best solution.

Now I wanted to see about the tags and how they would look in Windows, so I have Windows 11 installed in Parallels, and I used both just Windows viewer and VLC in Windows, now I just used whatever size they opened at so I will scale down the other images to match framing. And the frame might be slightly different as I couldn’t figure out how to go frame by frame in Windows player. This is all on my iMac Pro, though screen shotting form mac, find it interesting that the 121 Gamma 2.4 tag matches on Windows to Mac, but VLC on Mac and WIndows doesn’t and VLC on Mac looks closest to what is on my external monitor.

So the 111 on the left and the 121 on the right tag look the same in windows.
So this is the 111 tag on the left and the 121 tag on the right in VLC in windows.
And this is the 111 tag on the left and the 121 tag on the right and to me the color correct looks the same.
On the left is the 111 tagged clip in Quicktime on Mac and on the left the 121 tag in VLC in windows to see the gamma shift.

And this one I don’t get at all, but here it is, VLC on the Mac vs VLC on windows, the mac version seems correct, and closest to what I am getting on my external monitor. If anyone can explain it, please contact me about what is going on here. Windows 11 is on the same display as the mac, though I am taking the screenshots from the Mac into the parallels Window.

On the left we have the 111 clip on Mac in VLC, and on the right the

I am very confused about this last one, I think the VLC on the mac looks most like what the image looks like on my external monitor, but on the mac at least the clips exported from DaVinci with the 121 Gamma 2.4 tag look closer to the image than ones exported with the 111 tag which completely show the weird gamma shift.

So for exporting from Premiere Pro, I guess if you can get people to use VLC is the best option, but if you can’t I would love if Premiere was able to add the 121 Gamma 2.4 tag to exported movies because it will look better on client machines.

I have also read the YouTube ignores the 121 tag and plays video at 111, so they will look blown out on YouTube. Does Vimeo do the same? I might have to do some tests and see what the results are when I have a chance.

If anyone has any thoughts please let me know.

EDIT:

So since there is such a difference in VLC, I decided to try another app that doesn’t do ColorSync on Mac and that is Firefox in Windows 11 and Mac.

The left is 111 on Firefox Mac and the right is 111 on Firefox Windows. The Windows one looks better to me, but the mac is better than quicktime

So strangely Firefox looks different on Mac and Windows. Better on Windows, but not as bad as Mac Quicktime for sure.

OK so I have posted about this at Adobe Uservoice to ask Adobe to add the ability to change the gamma of a clip on export. I know you don’t want to do this for final export, but for clients viewing copies, it would be nice to guarantee that those on Mac and those on Windows see something approximating what I see on my external monitor.

Adobe updated After Effects to 2022, October 2021 version 22 at Adobe Max

So at Adobe Max yesterday Adobe upgraded After Effects to version 22, October 2021 release, of course this is now the unified version number of the video suite, so after effects 22 works with Premiere Pro 22.

New Features are

•Fast Previews and Renders with Multi-Frame Rendering which has moved over from the beta

•Reimagined Render Queue with Remote Notifications via the crative cloud app on your phone, tablet or even watch

•Composition Profiler, which will help you see which layers and effects take the most time

•Speculative Previews, After Effects will now render when you have been idle for a set period of time

•Export faster with Adobe Media Encoder using mult-frame rendering, and you can continue working

•Improved 10 Bit HEVC playback

•Enable LUT Interpolation method selection, either Triliner or Tetrahedral

CURRENTLY IN BETA

•Scene Edit Detection using Adobe Sensei

Adobe Premiere Pro 2020 Color Management for H.264 and HEVC does not solve Apple’s Gamma Shift Issue like I was hoping

So Adobe new update of Premiere Pro says it includes Color Management for H.264 and HEVC as a new features. The feature describes itself as the following:

With new color management for H.264 and HEVC formats, Premiere Pro interprets the correct color space when importing these formats, including 10-bit and HDR files. For exports, Premiere Pro includes the correct color space metadata with your output files, ensuring that your colors will display correctly on the destination platform. When creating new sequences, you can choose to Match Source or apply the color space you want to use, depending on your working media.

https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/using/whats-new/2022.html#color-management

I was hoping this would add the ability to add tags to exported H.254 videos so that they would display correctly anyplace, but especially on Macs. Macs of course have the weird gamma shift issue because of how they handle color, so Apple’s apps work correctly, but everything else has the wrong tags, so you have to watch your video in an un-color managed app to see what the clips will actually look like.

Now DaVinci Resolve has the ability to change the gamma tag in an exported H.264 clip.

Here is I change the Gamma tag to Gamma 2.4, which is what I am working in to get correct Rec.709 video

If I set the Gamma tag to Gamma 2.4, the exported H.264 video plays back correctly both in Quicktime as well as in VLC. I was hoping this is what Premiere was doing.

Unfortunately I immediately opened my current Premiere Pro 2021 project in Premiere Pro 2022 and did an H.264 export matching the export i did yesterday, and as far as I can tell it is exactly the same as the clip I exported yesterday with the gamma shift and all in Premiere Pro.

I checked out the video info in Quicktime on the clips, and the clip from 2021 and 2022 match exactly like this:

Interestingly a video exported from DaVinci with the Gamma 2.4 tag does show up with different info in Quicktime. It looks like this.

Unless I am completely missing something in Premiere Pro, I am not sure what they actually changed here.

I have posted about this at the Adobe Support community to see if anyone there knows what is going on, or if I have done something wrong, and if I get any responses I will update you.

Adobe Updated Media Encoder to 2022, October 2021 Release version 22.0 at Adobe Max Today

So Adobe Updated Media Encoder to October 2021 release version 22 today, and unifed version numbers of the video apps, so you can tell the version it works with by the version number (if only each version number had it’s own icon or color to tell them apart).

It’s new features tie into the new features of After Effects and Premiere Pro, most excitingly with COLOR MANAGEMENT FOR H.264 and HEVC on Import and Export! WOOHOO FInally working around Apple’s fucked up color on the mac, and like DaVinci before it, letting you export compressed video with proper metadata tags so that it will display correctly whoever is looking at it! I literally have problems with this every single day, so I can’t wait to give it a try. This is game-changing if it works!

Also included is Color Management for Sony XAVC-L-HDR and Faster Rendering for After Effects with multi-frame rendering, should be 3x as fast! Woohoo!

Adobe updated Premiere Pro to 2022, October 2021 or version 22 at Adobe Max this morning

Adobe has updated Premiere Pro as they go into the onine Adobe Max this morning. I have to say I much enjoy being able to see all of the classes online.

As for Adobe’s new features.

*We get unified version numbers across the video suite, so all compatible versions will now be version 22 (should’t they have just gone back to 1?)

*Speach to Text Improvements with improved accuracy for pop culture terminology and better formatting of dates and numbers

*Simplify Sequences has moved from Beta, I still think this could have been a great spot to add in unmerge, since merging audio clips is totally broken.

*Color management for H.264 and HEVC H.265, WHICH IS HUGE! You can now include correct color space metadata on exports, like DaVinci has allowed you to do for a while. So people on Macs should actually see what your show will look like correctly.

*Improved 10 bit HEVC playback and improved M1 support (lets hope it includes M1 Pro and Max support)

•Color management for Sony XAVC-L-HDR

•A new colorized vectorscope

•Improved Histogram

•Lumetri curve refinements

•Restore trim selection in the timeline

•Improved Media relinking for Team Projects

•Improved Bars and Tone for both HDR and SDR.

•New GPU Acceleration for effects, Alpha Glow, Mirror, Reduce Interlace Flicker and strobe are GPU accelerated.

AND IN BETA

•REMIX powered by Adobe Sensei, to intelligently re-arrange songs so that music matches your video, instead of cuts and crossfades let it do it itself. I can’t wait to try this out.

•Auto Tone, better auto color in Lumetri, a good start point.

*Speech to Text on-device without the internet for faster results.

*Improvements for new Import Mode, which is good because it needs a whole lot of work.

Awesome, looking forward to trying it out.

Appleinser on M1 Pro and M1 Max theoretical GPU Performance VS. AMD and NVIDIA

Malcolm Own at Apple Insider has an article on M1 Pro and M1 Max GPU performance versus Nvidia and AMD.

Now it uses teraflops to compare it to what the equivalent processor is, meaning the top of the line is equivalent to a Radeon RX Vega 56 or GeForce RTX 2080.

Which also means my Radeon Pro Vega 64x, which can do a bout 13.5 teraflops (12.5 teraflows for the 64) is still better, but still slower than a RTX 3060 Ti or above processor.

Updated version of Sofi Marshall’s Ultimate Real-Time Workflow for those with a video output box

So I have written about Sofi Marhsall’s Ultimate Rea-Time Editing Workflow (That Won’t Break the Bank) and just wanted to give a little Update on how i have updated that workflow because of my setup, and the difference for me is that I run a older Blackmagic UltraStudio 4k as my video out, which I run to a Samsung HDTV.

I followed her instructions and got a BlackMagic Web Presenter, but got the UltraHD version so I can do 4K video, and it does seem to work just fine with either the front or back USB C unlike the older version she used.

And because I am not using USB-C to HDMI cable for my setup, which is also going to eat up a more of your video ram (displaying as a second monitor. Instead I ran a BNC Cable from my UltraStudio 4k into my BlackMagic Web Presenter, while my Samsung is running out of the HDMI out of the UlraStudio 4k. Sofi’s version is setting up the web presenter as a second monitor, but I am already using a second monitor on my computer, and would rather run the direct output from my UltraStudio from Premiere (or DaVinci or AVID) into my Web Presenter, and you don’t need to setup the web presenter as a second monitor.

My Web Presenter lives on top of my UltraStudio 4K (the Emotive is a DAC I use for listening to music off my computer) someday I will get a rack mount to put them in.

Whatever you are playing back shows up on both monitors for me, and I can see on my TV, which is the black line at top with the power cable running down the wall, and the usb cable to the computer allows the web presenter to act as a USB web cam.

Premier Video Output Settings

Premiere Pro Menu > Preferences > Playback
My playback settings set to Blackmagic Playback with Disable Video Output when in background disabled!
And the Blackmagic playback setup settings for my UltraStudio 4K

So in Premiere I am playing back through Blackmagic playback via my UltraStudio 4K, and I have disable video output when in background (which I usually have checked, disabled, so the signal keeps going to the webcam constantly.

Now again differing from Sofi Marshall here I have the audio setup differently, as she is using Loopback to send the audio to the Web Presenter, but I am using Premiere Pro directly. I am still using Loopback, but differently as I will show.

So for Premiere Pro I go to Premiere Pro > Preferences > Audio Hardware to setup direct audio to the UltraStudio 4K.

Premiere Pro Menu > Preferences > Audio Hardware
Audio Hardware Preferences, default output to Blackmagic Ultrastudio 4k and Map Output to Blackmagic Playback
Default Output selections, I actually usually use Edirol UA-1D which I have an optical cable coming out of to my Edirol and an Emotica AMP for my Speakers as well as a FireStone Audio Headphone amp, and use blackmagic to show sound sync on my TV, but I can live with the sync being the same as the computer monitor most of the time, but for this I use send the audio to the Blackmagic UltraStudio 4k.

I then follow Sofi Marshall’s directions on creating Loopback Device 2, which combines the iMac Microphone (her external microphone) and the audio from the Web Presenter.

I have created my mic for zoom, the “Mic & web Presenter” with the External Microphone and the audio from the Web Presenter 4K combined.

So here is my loopback microphone setup so my cut can be shown with audio and they can here the microphone.

Now since I am running the audio directly to monitor my audio for me it would be coming out of my TV which would then show up in my microphone, so I can’t have that, so I must mute my HDTV, and I want to hear my edit through my headphones. My headphones are running through my Edirol though could be just the headphone jack, so I have made a loopback to send Premiere to my Edirol.

I have also made a setting for DaVinci exactly the same but with DaVinci.

These send my audio from Premiere or DaVinci to my headphones. Now we need to setup zoom.

Zoom Menu > Preferences
Zoom Preferences ? Video for Camera I have selected my Web Presenter 4K as the video, with original ratio and HD.
And Zoom Preferences for Speaker I send the audio to my Edirol (which could be headphone jack) and for the microphone I select Mic & Web Presenter which I created in Loopback.
And make sure to turn on High-Fidelity Music Mode and Stereo Audio.

Now you can do a zoom using my video out from Premiere and Web Presenter. Thanks to Sofi Marshall, as I would have never done this without her.

DJI Releases 4 Axis Stabilized Cinema Camera the DJI Ronin 4D

DJI has created a 4 Axis stabilized Cinema Camera the DJI RONIN 4D, with a 6K version starting at $7199 or an 8K version starting at $11449.

The camera includes built in LiDAR focusing, which can be used with all the compatible lenses, autofocus and manual that work with the camera, and built in Wireless Transmission to multiple receivers at 20,000 ft, including a full wheel system. Both cameras have dual native iso, the 8K is 800/4000 and the 6K is 800/5000 and both have 113+ stops or more of Dynamic Range. And built in 9 stop ND filters! The lens work with interchangeable lens mounts, from DJI’s propriety DL mount, to Leica M mount.

With the built in LiDAR it can do ActiveTrack Pro for autofocus subject tracking and shows a LiDAR waveform for enhanced manual focus. The remote receives can also have full control of the camera for an operator. It can also shoot to CFexpress type b, external USB 3 or an internal DJI ProSSD. And it has built in microphones, plug 3.5mm and XLR microphone inputs. Also impressive are sensors on the bottom that help with balancing, though someone will have to make plates that have holes fro the sensors. And it can record in H.264 or ProRES or ProRES RAW.

Now the lenses are where I think this will be more of a purposeful camera vs a camera you shoot full features on, because it has limited lenses it is compatible with (and impressively you don’t have to do much to balance the cameras with these lenses). Here is the list of lenses in pdf form, there are currently 3 DJI DL lenses, 8 M Mount Leica lenses, 38 E mount with lenses from Sony, Tamron, Zeiss, Sigma, Voigtlander and Sirui. These are all pretty small lenses and not the lenses that pro cinematographers are going to want to use, but for certain situations this will be an impressive camera.

It is a beastly looking camera and a strange body. I am guessing you mostly use it with handles on both sides, but it can also work shoulder mounted.

It does seem expensive, but wait until we see how well this thing shoots. Actually I would like to see something much more in between this and the awesome DJI Pocket.

Apple adds another free update to Final Cut Pro and Logic for the M1 Pro and M1 Max

Yesterday Apple updated both Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro to take advantage of the new MacBook Pro with M1 Pro and M1 Max.

Final Cut Pro has hit version 10.6.

It includes the ability to edit cinematic mode videos. And on the M1 Pro and Max it can not support 7 streams of 8K ProRES at full resolution (they do have a ProRES playback module!) and export ProRES up to 5x faster. And it now has a built in Object tracker

Motion can render 2x faster and cvan play 2 streams of 8K video at 5x the frame rate.

And on the MacBook Pro Compressor can transcode HEVC Video up to 2x faster and transcode ProRES up to 10x faster.

Logic Pro hits version 10.7

And this one focuses on Spacial Audio, with Dolby Atmos Music files.

Always love Apple giving new free upgrades to their software. Now I just hope Adobe gets support for Cinematic Mode soon in Premiere Pro.