2022.1.
What’s everyone doing for exports for both approvals and delivery?
Our usual for approvals is a ProRes422HQ out of Flame that gets converted via MediaEncoder into a YouTube spec mp4 that gets uploaded to frame.io.
Delivery is a ProRes422HQ for Broadcast then various other conversions of that file for social platforms, again via MediaEncoder.
Specifically thinking about the ColorSyncCompatible button.
1 Like
I use Apple’s Compressor for approvals conversion because Adobe’s Media Encoder produced some strange gamma shifts for me.
3 Likes
Similar workflow here, although I’ve started exporting out Prores4444 masters since I’ve gotten all fancy using aces…probably unnecessary, but I want to believe it’s beneficial. 
I’ve started using compressor again as it seems quicker after Big Sur and droplets are a huge timesaver.
1 Like
I don’t do a ton of exporting for approvals, but when I do, I’ve been using Flame’s built in presets. And, I have not been using the ColorSync button. That’s a great option to have, but it solves some problems and creates others.
2 Likes
What’s your opinion on Compressor, is it worth buying and fast to use? Does it keep the 1-2-1 colour profile tag that Flame’s ColorSync button adds, unlike Media Encoder which ignores it.
I have been using Resolve to encode to MP4 from Prores which works okay, it’s a bit clunky, but I keep an empty project with timeline colour space set to Rec 709 Gamma 2.4 and it passes through the 1-2-1 tag onto MP4’s for client viewing.
2 Likes
It seems just as fast or faster then ME to me, but I’ve never really measured it. Is it worth $50? Sure, hopefully one job should pay for it.
I know I had one job where I had to embed caption files into an mpeg2 and ME couldn’t do it, Compressor had the capability though.
Anyway, if you want me to run a test file I’d be happy to…but ColorSync, what’s that? lol.
I tried to convert prores to h264 and couldn’t get it to retain the 1.2.1 tags in Compressor.
Thanks for testing.
That’s annoying though, guess I’ll be sticking to Resolve for Viewing MP4’s for now.
So far I’ve been keeping the “ColorSyncCompatible” button off…Seems to have too many issues after export and viewing QTs correctly…Not sure what the solution is for it to always be on or off or what variables warrant it to be kept on versus off and haven’t noticed a pattern on what is best just yet!
I haven’t had any issues using ColorSyncCompatible button.
For me when I turn it on, the prores output looks the same in quicktime as it does in VLC.
The ColorSyncCompatible button only changes the colour profile to 1-2-1 as far as I know, so it only changes the way Quicktime displays it, or that’s what I’m lead to believe at the moment.
What issues are you experiencing when using it?
1 Like
If you run the ProRes through media encoder it strips the 1-2-1 off so the YouTube spec mp4 looks different to the ProRes when viewed in QuickTime. Solution intimately would be to export mp4 of h264 out of flame directly, but we have a huge number of specific encodes to make at the end of each job and MediaEncoder handles these really well.
I got really excited when I started having a look into JES Extensifier. The ability to change the colour profile in the metadata. But the latest version 2.2 doesn’t work on the latest operating systems and I believe that the project has stopped.
Even so I heard that even if your youTube clip was tagged correctly it would depend on which browser you used. Not all browsers handle the colour policy the same way.
1 Like
Different browsers, different players, different operating systems, mobile, desktop…everyone does it differently. You’d have to make custom deliverables for every conceivable combination.
No thanks. It’s not a game worth playing.
3 Likes