Nikon Z7 clips have crushed blacks in Premiere - but not in FCPX or Resolve

Question

Hi all.I'm having a strange problem with clips from a Nikon Z7 (H264 MOVs, not log) The levels - most notably the blacks are crushed when importing the clips to Prem (or AE or AME), viewing in Quicktime Player or VLC.You can see this in the first screenshot. I flagged this with the client who uses FCPX, and they didn't have this issue.So I tried the same clips in Resolve, and WTF... the levels are correct!You can see this in the second screenshot. Any idea what's going on here? Thanks in advance.

R Neil Haugen · Accepted Answer

That looks like the files were tagged/written as Full Range, not Legal ... could you check by using the free utility MediaInfo app, then dragging/dropping one of the files onto that applet's desktop icon?

Then go into the "Tree View" and check for the range.

If they are Full, then ... there's a Lumetri preset that is Full to Legal ... use that on the clips, you won't lose any data, they'll just be displayed correctly.

"Full" and "legal" are a legacy thing, by the way. It does NOT affect how many levels are written to the file, only how they are coded in the file. Same data in both, no advantage to recording in full. Both files will display correctly 0-255 (8 bit values) or the similar 10-bit values, on properly setup systems.

And several camera makers are allowing people to set the range which then simply mucks up the post processing. As the apps and displays expect that YUV (Y/Cb-Cr) video is encoded 'legal' and only 12-bit RGB files are recorded full.

As someone who works both in Resolve and Pr, Resolve should be set to "auto" and will work with either file arrangement. It can also be set to one or the other among the many options.

Neil

R Neil Haugen · Answer

The entire full/legal thing is a "legacy" issue, but it's been in the standards for the full time of digital media. Like fractional framerates and interlaced formats, it would be nice to see it ended. Not expecting so.

It shouldn't make any difference whatever as to the data encoded ... you can encode the same number of levels in both full and legal, it's just how theyre written/encoded. And marketers have found that they can sound like THEIR camera can give you more data! ... by using "Full" ... when it actually doesn't.

As someone who works for/with/teaches pro colorists, this gets a lot of eyerolling by those really tech-savvy people ...

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.