Colour balance an MP4 video

Question

Colour balance an MP4 video

I have an mpeg2 movie from a client which was scanned from film several years ago, but is very "yellow" in it's color balance.

Is there a quick (free?) way to do a photoshop-type "Levels" on the video ?

( Note: the "built-in" QT filters & adjustment do not give any blue-channel gamma control... I tried that first )

I do own Final Cut Express HD v3.0, but that only works with DV video...

Thanks

G4 dual 1.25GHz, Mac OS X (10.4.11), ( London, UK )

Posted on Feb 9, 2008 5:17 AM

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Answer 1

Feb 12, 2008 7:57 AM in response to kdengs

kdengs wrote:
Mpeg Streamclip is a free program you can download to convert your video to the correct file type in order to import it into FCE and adjust the colors.

http://www.squared5.com/

Does it re-encode the video before you can import to FCE ?

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Answer 2

kdengs

Level 1

60 points

Feb 12, 2008 12:32 PM in response to William Donelson

I don't think it re-encodes it, it just converts it into the format that you would need, or into many other formats and codecs.

Is this what you meant?

It's a free download and very easy to use. You just drag your source in there and go file/export then chose your settings. Try it out and you'll get your video to correctly play in FC.

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Answer 3

Feb 13, 2008 9:00 AM in response to David M Brewer

I did use Streamclip to convert the video to DV format, but when I tried doing Levels in FCE, I could not see any results in real time.

I tried to find out how to do this quickly in the FCE forum, but they tell me I need a new computer and lots of time to read the manual, etc etc.

Isn't there a simple 3rd party app that allows you to appy Photoshop "Levels" to each frame of a video during output?

Or a better "Levels" plug-in for QT Player, etc?

Thanks

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Answer 4

kdengs

Level 1

60 points

Feb 13, 2008 9:58 AM in response to William Donelson

Select your clip in FCE that you wish to adjust levels and apply the color correction filter to it. You can adjust your levels using that. FCE isn't as complex as FCP so I'm not totally sure of any other methods to go about this.

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Answer 5

kdengs

Level 1

60 points

Feb 9, 2008 3:08 PM in response to William Donelson

Mpeg Streamclip is a free program you can download to convert your video to the correct file type in order to import it into FCE and adjust the colors.

http://www.squared5.com/

Reply

Answer 6

Feb 12, 2008 3:56 PM in response to kdengs

Yes it re-encodes the video. You need to encode to a format that FCE understands, Apple Intermediate codec will work.

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