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Working in Final Cut Pro X with iPhone Pro 12 HDR video

I currently own an iPhone Pro 12, I'm using the HDR video setting for my videos and when I upload them to my computer and to Final Cut Pro X, they all show extremely bright and overexposed. What could be the reason for that and an immediate solution to this problem?

iPhone 12 Pro, iOS 14

Posted on Oct 24, 2020 10:22 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Oct 25, 2020 3:11 AM

friesh wrote:

When I create the video project, do I select Wide Gamut HDR rec. 2020 PQ or HLG?

I'd use HLG, it has a wider compatibility for the end user.


If you use regular Mac use the Tone Mapped option in the View Menu:


Al

15 replies

Oct 25, 2020 2:08 PM in response to Alchroma

Good grief.

So you're telling me I need to create a whole different library to even use the output from the iPhone 12?

10-bit HDR, yay, cool... but what if I just want to use footage I just took on my 12 in an existing project, in an existing library, today, knowing that I have zero desire to ultimately have this project output to an HDR format.


So can I either:

  • convert these blown-out videos, either from within FCPX or some other way, to a standard color gamut output, or
  • export a non-HDR version out of my phone, or, preferably
  • just change some setting, within the already-imported clip or my already-started project, that will allow me to uses these clips from the 12 in a standard-gamut project?


Oct 25, 2020 4:28 PM in response to Meg The Dog

Meg, thank you so much for your reply.

That certainly seems to be the correct solution... however applying that HDR Tools effect only seemed to take my videos from absurdly overexposed to just very, very overexposed. Not sure what that is, but...


What seems to be working for me, here, now is simply waiting for the videos to upload from my phone to iCloud and then exporting them to the Finder out of Photos (and then bringing those into FCPX). Photos seems to make the conversion automatically, similar to when it exports an HEIC photo as a JPEG. (What I had done earlier, to minimize the hit on my data cap from the above uploading/downloading steps while traveling, was to pull the (obviously unconverted HDR) files straight off my phone using Image Capture.)


But thank you again for being so willing to help.


Oct 25, 2020 4:39 PM in response to Alchroma

Al, well that would have been nice if I KNEW in advance of shooting my footage that the HDR video files coming out of the 12 would not work with in existing project library. Maybe every video professional knew this; but approximately 0% of non-professional would know this in advance. And yes, many non-professionals use FCPX, a terrific application that's infinitely better than iMovie.

Oct 25, 2020 5:04 PM in response to Tom Wolsky

Thanks Tom.

Yes, still way too "hot" after the conversion, and I couldn't even remotely come close to resuscitating it in the color correction process, nothing like to what the original video looked like (and the Luma video scope seemed to indicate the converted video was correctly exposed, when it was nothing of the sort. I'm sure there is a reason for all this, but keep in mind, I'm an amateur, just winging it in a program that I otherwise really dig.)


I'm not sure why the FCPX HDR Tool couldn't use the same conversion of HDR video that Photos uses - Photos outputs a converted SDR video that is highly accurate to what I actually shot.

Working in Final Cut Pro X with iPhone Pro 12 HDR video

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