Quicktime Gamma Toggle Added in 7.2 Update at FreshDV

Quicktime Gamma Toggle Added in 7.2 Update

Published by Matthew Jeppsen September 17th, 2007 in NLE, News, Post-Production

For as long as recent memory serves, there has been a gamma-shift issue with Quicktime for Mac editors. It’s one of those “why wasn’t this fixed 4 versions ago” problems, and has been discussed fairly widely (here is one such discussion over at HD For Indies). To put it in very simple terms, Final Cut Pro “assumes” that source files have been created with a RGB gamma of 1.8 (the Apple display standard). This is not always the case, as the technical sRGB standard (and most PC displays) is a gamma of 2.2. So when exporting via QT there is a gamma (brightness) shift. To make matters worse, this behavior is NOT consistent across all codecs and formats…there are many caveats. As you can imagine, mayhem and gnashing of teeth ensues.

But it looks as though there is now a system-wide fix. In the 7.2 update, Apple has added a new tickbox in the Quicktime Preferences labeled “Enable Final Cut Studio color compatibility”, with the description “When enabled, video is not displayed using ColorSync. Source colors are read with the 2.2 gamma and are displayed in a color space with 1.8 gamma.” Which, I am assuming, should be ticked if you are a FCP editor. Is this The Big Toggle Switch users have been begging for?

6 Responses to “Quicktime Gamma Toggle Added in 7.2 Update”

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1 Martin Baker Sep 19th, 2007 at 4:10 am

This preference just changes the display of movies in QuickTime Player so they match the appearance in FCP’s Viewer or Canvas. In FCP6, Apple extended the import gamma preference (User Preferences > Editing tab) to affect movies as well as stills and you can also change the gamma of a clip individually in the Browser.
2 Joseph Moore Sep 19th, 2007 at 5:39 pm

I have the most recent Quicktime on a 17″ Macbook Pro and a Dual 2.0 G5 … neither shows this option.
3 Martin Baker Sep 19th, 2007 at 5:41 pm

It’s in QuickTime Player > Preferences rather than System Preferences > QuickTime
4 Joseph Moore Sep 19th, 2007 at 5:48 pm

Thanks, Martin, but no, I don’t have that option and I’m definitely running 7.2.0. :-(
5 Matthew Jeppsen Sep 19th, 2007 at 6:54 pm

QT 7.2 on a PPC G5 2.7DP, and I see the option.

Thanks for the clarification, Martin!

-MJ