Some clips tinted red in exported movie

Question

Level 1

60 points

Some clips tinted red in exported movie

Hi gang,

So, I'm not really a noob at this and think I've found a bug, but maybe I've missed something. I created a new FCP X project with it configured to set sequence settings based on the first clip I fed it, which was an AIC 1920 x 1200 clip. I then added a couple H264 clips, same size. These clips were tinted red while editing, presumably to indicate that they do not match the sequence settings. Fine, I'm all good with that.

After exporting, however, the clips still have the red tint *in the exported movie*. I exported by doing Share --> Export Movie, then choosing H264 in the Export popup menu. Thinking this must be a fluke, I tried again and got the same results. Tried a third time using "Current Settings", but the clips are still tinted red.

Any idea what's going on? I'm pretty sure I've mixed clip types in FCP X before this project, but I could be wrong... I'm fine with being scolded about mixed clip types while editing, but the exported file should never, ever have the red tint.

Thanks!

-dre

Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.7), rune is a baller

Posted on Aug 14, 2011 8:42 PM

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Answer 1

Tom Wolsky

Level 10

152,887 points

Aug 15, 2011 12:34 AM in response to dreness

Clips don't get tinted red when they don't conform to the project properties.

Did you really mean 1920x1200? Because that might be a problem.

Can you post a screenshit of something that show this red tint in FCP?

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Answer 2

dreness Author

Level 1

60 points

Aug 15, 2011 7:03 PM in response to Tom Wolsky

Hi Tom,

It seems that FCP X doesn't like something about my h264 clips. The only thing that stands out to me is that there appears to be some color profile applied to the the h264 clips, which my AIC clips don't have.

Here's a short video comparing an affected clip with a normal one.

http://dreness.com/bits/tech/fcpx-tinted-h264.mov (1920 x 1200, 26 MB)

I choose two clips from the same 'scene' so the colors should be roughly the same. The video scopes are visible and indicate to me that FCP X really believes the reds are jacked out. At the end I show the 'affected' video playing normally in QT7 Player.

Thanks for your time!

Cheers,

-dre

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Answer 3

dreness Author

Level 1

60 points

Aug 15, 2011 7:15 PM in response to Tom Wolsky

Huh. I can verify that it works from several locations:

# dallas

{1} dre@vps3 [~] % curl -i -X HEAD http://dreness.com/bits/tech/fcpx-tinted-h264.mov

HTTP/1.1 200 OK

Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2011 02:10:57 GMT

Server: Apache

Last-Modified: Tue, 16 Aug 2011 01:47:19 GMT

ETag: "dee4a01-1a4dc7a-4aa958f5e17c0"

Accept-Ranges: bytes

Content-Length: 27581562

Content-Type: video/quicktime

curl: (18) transfer closed with 27581562 bytes remaining to read

# cupertino (work pipe, in this case... looks like out over paix.net)

andre@xomg[~]curl -i -X HEAD http://dreness.com/bits/tech/fcpx-tinted-h264.mov

HTTP/1.1 200 OK

Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2011 02:10:41 GMT

Server: Apache

Last-Modified: Tue, 16 Aug 2011 01:47:19 GMT

ETag: "dee4a01-1a4dc7a-4aa958f5e17c0"

Accept-Ranges: bytes

Content-Length: 27581562

Content-Type: video/quicktime

curl: (18) transfer closed with 27581562 bytes remaining to read

# san jose (home pipe, comcast)

{5} andre@rune [~] % curl -i -X HEAD http://dreness.com/bits/tech/fcpx-tinted-h264.mov

HTTP/1.1 200 OK

Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2011 02:10:01 GMT

Server: Apache

Last-Modified: Tue, 16 Aug 2011 01:47:19 GMT

ETag: "dee4a01-1a4dc7a-4aa958f5e17c0"

Accept-Ranges: bytes

Content-Length: 27581562

Content-Type: video/quicktime

curl: (18) transfer closed with 27581562 bytes remaining to read

I could retry using each of the dozens of witopia vpn servers, but I think I've made my point 🙂 Maybe just wait a bit and retry.

Thx,

-dre

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Answer 4

Eric333

Level 1

19 points

Aug 16, 2011 1:29 AM in response to dreness

Where did the H.264 clips come from? I've had very strange things happen with h.264 sometimes. Especially if it was downloaded somewhere. usually my issues were converting it to pro res. It could be a similar issue.

also, double check to make sure the red tint is from final cut, or quicktime, or both.

Since FCP X is still a bit buggy, it could just be a fluke with the program. If FCP X conversion doesn't work, try using mpeg streamclip and convert it from h.264 to pro res from there instead of within FCP X and then import it.

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Answer 5

hafken

Level 4

1,225 points

Aug 16, 2011 3:49 AM in response to dreness

I was able to view the movie.

Does the red tint still appear when you play the clip directly from the Event Browser (e.g., not adding it to a project?) That would eliminiate it having to do with project settings.

What do the clips look like in quicktime player (or any other player)? I'm assuming no red tint, but just wanted to confirm.

I second the suggestion to use MPEG Streamclip (or quicktime pro, or compressor) to convert them outside of FCPX to prores. But first confirm you can view the clip outside of FCPX without the red tint. It could be part of the clip itself, and was just poorly encoded in the first place.

Finally, I see you are on Lion. Do you have access to a snow leopard machine? It's possible this has something to do with Lion as well.

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Answer 6

dreness Author

Level 1

60 points

Aug 16, 2011 10:49 PM in response to Eric333

Hi Eric333,

The clips all came from World of Warcraft, which has a built-in screen recording feature that captures in-game activity.

The red tint only appears in FCP X; all other views of this file that I've tested appear fine.

I'm sure I could work around this by converting it to something else before handing it to FCP X; this is mostly an attempt to gather data for a bug report if it looks like I'm not doing something obviously wrong.

Thx,

-dre

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Answer 7

dreness Author

Level 1

60 points

Aug 16, 2011 10:50 PM in response to hafken

Hello halfken,

The red tint appears in the event browser, without having to add the video to a project (in fact this is what's shown in my screen recording). The affected clips do appear normal in all other players. I have also not tested in Snow but that's a reasonable suggestion 🙂

Thx,

-dre

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Answer 8

Eric333

Level 1

19 points

Aug 17, 2011 1:13 AM in response to dreness

If you haven't done so already, try converting it beforehand and importing. Also, try another recording the same way you did this one, and see if that comes in as red as well. It could have been a freak thing, like a corrupt file (again with strange h.264 files, ive been able to play a bad/corrupt h.264 file in anything, but I wasn't able to convert/edit it).

Also, if you have another editor, see if that editor can import it or work with it (FCP 7, premiere, imovie).

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Answer 9

dreness Author

Level 1

60 points

Aug 17, 2011 2:52 PM in response to James Cude

Hi James,

I'm using the ATI 5870 which is a pretty nice card, though a little old at this point. I drive this card very hard and I'm as sure as I could be that there are no hardware issues with it.

I really think the root cause here has something to do with Color Sync; note that the affected h264 clips I show in the video and screenshot have a color profile attacehd: (1-2-1) - whatever that means - while the other clips have no color profile information.

It's not clear where or how to set this color profile info. Also worth noting is that I have been messing with the system-wide color profile lately for other reasons, so perhaps it's messing stuff up somehow.

I'll try creating some new h264s to see if they are similarly affected. Perhaps the issue is a mismatch of the active system-wide color profile at the time the h264 is created vs the time that I try to use it in FCP X.

Thx,

-dre

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Answer 10

dreness Author

Level 1

60 points

Aug 17, 2011 4:36 PM in response to dreness

I've reproduced this issue on a different machine, using a different clip produced in the same way (h264 exported from World of Warcraft). The issue also reproduces for somebody else using a sample clip I provided. This does seem to be a legit bug of some kind, and I've filed a bug report with Apple about it.

-dre

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Answer 11

Nov 25, 2013 11:49 AM in response to dreness

I'm having the same problems as well. Used quicktime to screen record a session. When I imported the footage, the red tint appeared on the footage and don't know why. It views fine in any other player, just in FCPX it gets that ugly red tint.

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Answer 12

dreness Author

Level 1

60 points

Nov 25, 2013 3:14 PM in response to Tom Wolsky

I followed up with Apple on my original issue, and a fix was made for FCP X that addressed my problem. As it was explained to me, FCP X is strict about color profiles, and when media comes in with a damaged or otherwise incorrect color profile, you're more likely to see that damage in FCP X compared to other tools which apparently aren't as strict.

I would recommend filing a bug with Apple at http://bugreporter.apple.com, and include a short sample clip that reproduces the problem.

I don't think the frame rate of the clip has any bearing on this particular issue - although you're right that screen recordings are almost always variable frame rate. QTP X will record up to 60 FPS, although it can't always sustain that rate at a large size, or with lots of motion, or on a slower machine.

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