Video Quality mismatch between Pro Tools and QuickTime

[Goombot]

So I was doing a review today and imported the colorist's latest version. The video was a .mov H.264 1920x1080. I imported and played back at Full Quality and 1920 x 1080. We were commenting on how it looked blown out. So I tried to open it in Quicktime and the differences are pretty huge. I never noticed a difference before but is something different now with the video engine?

I've included a picture comparing the two. Both the exact same file. On top is the file played in QT. Below is the file played in my PT session at Full Quality.

If anyone knows why this is please chime in.

[BScout]

Gamma

This is an Apple issue. Depending on how things are opened, the gamma is read/corrected from the file. In essence, there are two different colour spaces. Quicktime applies a gamma setting.

Color correcting software should have its own LUT/gamma set ups.
Pro Tools is just reading the file (no gamma correction)

(BTW, this is not new -- I've dealt with this for a long, long time with multiple applications. You can read about it from all kinds of colour correcting groups. Certain video codecs are more accurate across all apps. h264 isn't one of them)

[Goombot]

I'm going back and comparing older colored videos as well and finding the same issue like you're saying. I guess I never noticed but it's quite a difference. All the PT videos look worse than the QTs. It's not just a matter of the color but the contrast is off. The PT videos are all less sharp. Is this something Avid is aware of and is actively trying to fix?

[BScout]

I doubt they are working on it. It’s not important to audio.
One thing odd is Media Composer is color-aware and the ProTools video engine is supposed to have been lifted from that. But that program has software LUT tables available (and can work with hardware LUT.) Which of course, Pro Tools doesn’t.

DNxHD/HR is pretty colour accurate no matter the playback
ProRes has a hard shift (I think it is 1.8 vs 2.2 gamma)

H264 has the additional complication of clean aperture and field ordering. That’s the fuzzyness you are seeing.

In the end, ProTools isn’t finishing for color. Most playback environments aren’t checked for color accuracy. The ones that are have a separate playback system (like virtual VTR) or in projector processing. They aren’t going to make ProTools color aware — it’d actually be a lot of work.

[BScout]

One of the benefits of using video satellite with a Media Composer system was using it as a color-aware playback engine.

[Goombot]

Right. Yeah I tried it with and another video from a different colorist that had a different codec and still the same. That all makes sense. Still seems silly since now a days everyone wants the best quality at all times. Thanks for the info.