Premiere Notes

How To Fix Quicktime H264 Gamma, Color Levels, and Washed Out Colors

Quicktime has a bug when showing most h264 video, and it artificially brightens and washes out the color.

If you have encoded h264 video, into either a mov or a mp4 container format, you will likely have encountered this issue.

In order to really understand the problem, you can try watching your animation in several different player applications. In some other software, the colors will actually be fine. Unfortunately, some other software, such as VLC, will show the same problems.

The problem comes from particular settings that probably shouldn’t even exist, and the fact that these settings are generally not correct.

In order to apply the solution below, you need to have Quicktime Pro. (In my opinion: I’m pretty sure that Apple causes this problem on purpose so that you have to buy Quicktime Pro in order to fix the problem. They are a bunch of assholes at Apple.)

Solution:

You can correct the problem in mov files by doing the following:

Open your video in Quicktime pro.
From the menu, choose: Window > Show Movie Properties
In the window that appears, choose “Video Track”, and then click the tab that says “Visual Settings”
In the bottom left you will see several options. Use the transparency dropdown and change the transparency to “Blend”, then set the slider to 100.
Use the same transparency dropdown again and set it to “straight alpha”.
Close the window.
Watch your movie, the color levels should now look correct.
Resave your video. You can save right over the old version, or save to a new filename using the same format.

Windows Key + R
press enter
type text:
cmd
press enter


To switch drives, type drive letter then a colon


Change directory using the cd command
To go to a GAD_19 folder in the current folder:
type:
cd GAD_19
press enter

to go back up a directory:
type:
cd ..
press enter

To list contents of a folder:
type:
dir
press enter
(the dir stands for "directory listing")


Binary means machine language compiled programs.
Folders call bin or binaries usually contain programs you can run.
Usually these end in .exe (for executable)

To run the program, just type the name:
in the maya bin folder, type:
maya.exe
and press enter






For each major project (eg.  Your demo reel,  an contract for a client, etc...)
have a folder, and have an "editing" folder inside it.
inside your editing folder, have a footage folder.
The footage folder will hold all the media you will be editing with.




             
             
             
             
             
Start premiere
new project
Choose the location of your editing folder
give your project a name, something like:
demo_reel__editing

Hit OK

The new sequence window appears
We will choose something close to what we want, and then edit settings

Start with:
AVCHD
  1080p
    AVCHD 1080p24   -- chose this
             
Click the "general" tab at the top

For editing mode, Choose "Destop" or "Custom" 
This will free up your other options for working.

Timebase is wrong, it's at 23.976 frames per second             
Set timebase to 24 frames per second

At the bottom, turn on the options:
  Maximum bit depth
  Maximum render quality
  
  
Push save preset

Other settings should be ok             
             
         

To bring in images to your project:
In the project pane on upper left		 
RMB in background
Find your image sequence, click on the first image,
check the "numbered stills" option

To fix the frame rate of imported footage:
RMB on footage, modify, interpret footage
  Frame rate, assume this frame rate,  24fps


To fix this permanantly
In preferences, choose the media section
change "indeterminate media timebase" to 24fps


Drag your footage (from the filmstrip) on to the timeline (video 1)
  put it at the very begining

Press backslash to zoom in

RMB click your footage
  Choose scale to frame size
    (this will scale the images to the size of your sequence, making them 1920x1080)


To export the sequence to a lossless video:
File,  export,  media
(be careful not to push enter in the next dialog, you can push TAB instead)
Change
  format:  quicktime
  preset:  ntsc dv widescreen 24p
    (none are correct but we can get close)  
  
  export audio:  off (or if you need audio, on, but check audio settings)
  
  Goto the video tab:
    Video codec:   PNG
	Quality:       100
	Width:        1920
	Height:       1080
	Frame rate:   24fps
	Aspect:        Square pixels  (pixel aspect of 1)
	Render at maximum depth:  on
	Depth:  24bit  (32bit  if you need to keep your alpha)
	
	Optimize stills:   on  (makes file size smaller on image holds)
	Use maximum render quality:   on
	Use frame blending:   off   *** this really needs to be off ***

	
	If you want audio, go to the audio tab:
	  Audio codec:  Apple lossless
	  Sample rate: 48000
	  Bit depth: 16
	  Channels: Stereo
	  
	  
	
	back near the top, beside preset, click save
	  call it:   master_reel__no_audio
	  
	  
	Click output name, and choose where to save the file and what it will be called
	  put it somewhere inside your footage folder
	  
	Click Export
	
	
	The resulting footage, may be too high quality to play back on your computer smoothly
	  it may skip when you hit play
	  it will work great for editing though, and when you eventually encode to a compressed
	    format it will play fine.
      Ultimately we will encode to h264 for playback, and optionally other formats like webm
	
             

Editing hotkeys:
  Press spacebar for play/pause
  Alt+shit+MMW zoom in/out
  Ctrl click on yellow line to create keys(it's called the rubber band)
    these control opacity by default
	drag key down to fade out
	drag key up all the way to be completely faded in
	
	You can fade other video tracks too, not just track 1
	  click the small arrow near the video tracks name to expand it
	    then you will be able to edit it's rubber band