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FCPx is the "house" app. You're working from the get-go in their odd CM setup, and not according to the video Rec.709 standards. So of course it's the same inside/outside FCPx on a Mac ... as long as you're using an app or service that uses the Mac color management.

However ... take that file into a system that is fully Rec.709, and ... it will be dark and over-saturated. Why? Because when you're working, you're shown an image that is using a "brighter" gamma and doesn't apply the second part of the Rec.709 tranforms, Bt.1886.

But ... on a Mac I'm told ... play that file in say VLC or within Firefox, neither of which allows the ColorSync "control" ... and you'll see what say a PC user might see. Or closer to what a broadcast compliant Rec.709 system would show.

It's a mess, really. And no way around it. My colorist buds are beyond furious about it, but ... no one at Apple is apparently even willing to talk about changing their behavior. And no one working color professionally can work according to Mac color management.

They're beautiful screens, really. No question. But choosing to be "uniquely Apple" in this manner isn't a good thing for their users.

I wish there was a real fix ... but it's just something to be aware of.

But you also need to realize this: no one will ever see exactly what you see on your screen. Ever.

Colorists work on systems where the monitor costs more than your full computer/monitor setup. That's if their only working SDR. If they're doing HDR, the monitor alone will cost as much as your car ... very literally. If you've got a nice car.

They pay more for their color management devices ... spectroradiometers and the apps that work with them ... than you've paid for that computer.

And they can't "make" one person ever see what they saw on their screen. Because every screen out there is a bit to a lot different in capablities and native 'view' than every other, the user settings and apps are all over the place, and the viewing environment is all over the place.

Watching something on a phone in a park at noon versus in a dark bedroom at night on the same phone is a major difference in how the contrast & saturation and color will appear.

Not even the folks I know doing major "long-form" of the movies you see in the theater can totally get what they see in their suite "on-screen". Each of the three different major movie theater projectors is a bit different, and depending on how recentlly (and how well) they've been calibrated, the image varies a ton from room to room.

So ... colorists say get a good setup, close to standards. Grade to the setup. And let it go, as out in the Wild, you have no control. And just realize that if you do grade to a standard setup, "out there" ... your work will look relatively like all other professionally produced material.

Because, guaranteed, no movie or TV you watch on that computer from Chrome/Safari/YouTube is showing you the same image that was on the colorist's screen while grading.

Has that bothered you? Have you even realized that?

Neil