AE color space setup for Varicam YUV422 uncompressed 8bit?

[beenyweenies]

I'm working on effects shots for a movie that was filmed with the Varicam and captured on a Kona card 8bit uncompressed into Final Cut Pro. When I load that footage into After Effects it shows "YUV422 codec" - the footage is uncompressed, but I'm guessing that its just showing the color space information there.

How should I setup my color space (file -> project setttings -> working space) so that I'm working in the correct color space and not changing the colors in my comps? Do I use Adobe RGB, sRGB, ... etc?

Others may have a different opinion on how to proceed, but here's something you may try. In After Effects, create an adjustment layer with Levels applied. Set the Black Output to 16 and White Output to 235. This will bring the Gamma in line. From there go to the "Interpret Footage" Dialog for your imported YUV footage and check the box for "601 Color" (not at my AE station so not sure if this is exactly what it's called). This will ensure AE knows how to interpret the YUV color. Doing this SHOULD prevent most problems. You would then output from After Effects to any RGBA format and let FCP do the conversion back to YUV.

YUV>RGB>YUV conversions almost always result in quality loss. The best way around this that I have found is to use the Microcosm Codec throughout the entire pipeline. Microcosm features lossless compression, 32 or 64-bit RGBA files, and WAY smaller file sizes than the Animation codec.

[Mylenium]

I'm working on effects shots for a movie that was filmed with the Varicam and captured on a Kona card 8bit uncompressed into Final Cut Pro. When I load that footage into After Effects it shows "YUV422 codec" - the footage is uncompressed, but I'm guessing that its just showing the color space information there.

How should I setup my color space (file -> project setttings -> working space) so that I'm working in the correct color space and not changing the colors in my comps? Do I use Adobe RGB, sRGB, ... etc?

Like Brendan suggested, use a 601 setup throughout. There is no 709 preset in AE 7, but there will be one in CS 3. If you are sure you cam operator and the editor didn't do any strange things to the footage and introduce illegal levels somewhere, it should also be safe to simply turn off color management.

Mylenium

[dhenion]

Thanks for the posts.

Not sure what you mean by turning color management off? You mean don't set a working space?

The only thing FCP was used for was to capture the footage - so pretty sure nothing was done there to modify the footage.

Thanks again!

[Mylenium]

Not sure what you mean by turning color management off? You mean don't set a working space?

Yes. Sorry, my bad, I'm already thinking CS3. ;O)

Mylenium

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