Workflow to Bluray (Encoder Issues)

[kupchenpo]

Our workflow is as follows:

Premiere Pro CS4 4.01:
Timeline Edit R3D files

After Effect CS4 9.01:
Color Correct with Synthetic Aperture Color Finesse 2.17 (broadcast limiting to rec709)
Export 4k DPX (Full Range, linear)

Autodesk Toxiq 2009sp1:
DeGrain (The Foundry Furnace OFX Plugin)
Resize to HD (Lanczos3)
DeBlur (The Foundry Furnace OFX Plugin)
Export HD DPX

Sonic Cinevision 2.6.1:
...
Here's where things fall apart. When encoded, our beautiful HD DPXs lose all of their color range. The encodes look flat and lack contrast. We've tried every possible setting in Cinevision with no success. We've also tried other encoders with similiar results.
It looks like Cinevision is truncating the upper and lower 16 colors for broadcast safety. But maybe not. It could also be a Lin/Log issue.
The conclusion is that our DPXs are in the wrong format or wrong range.
Any ideas why this is happening or what to do about it?
When exporting DPX files from R3Ds, what range should be used? Log or Lin? Etc

[Kaku Ito]

With Encore workflow that I suggested last year (http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=16478&highlight=bluray+encore+compressor), didn't have much color or gamma issue, but my workflow is on Mac.

[Paul Leeming]

Thanks for the detailed post info kupchenpo, it makes guessing your issue much easier.

From what you've written, it looks like your issue is in exporting Linear DPX instead of log DPX from After Effects.

DPX is traditionally a log format so if you begin your workspace colour in log format then your colour corrections will look right once you export in log format DPX when viewed in other programs.

Try that and see if it fixes your issue.

HTH!

Paul

[kupchenpo]

Thanks guys. Good thinking Paul, I too had considered that as a possible issue. My comp is in the middle of a 2-3 day render, so I'll try it out on some frames when that is complete and post the results.

[Alexander Mejia]

You may want to see if you can load that DPX sequence into a program that supports DPX sequences, and transcode your Blu-Ray H.264 or Mpeg-2 file from that program. Do the lin to log conversion in the software and you should be good.

I've never tried to author discs without having all of my assets transcoded into the correct format first. You'll save yourself a lot of headaches that way.

[Kaku Ito]

I was thinking to suggest what Paul mentioned but I wasn't sure what was done in Sonic.

If you are working with DPX/LOG with LUT applied then you would see the picture washed out, but the data would looked washed out in regular gamma space.

Come to think about it, Sonic is just authoring, so you would have to finish this DPX/Log data in REC 709 in Toxiq for Blu-ray authoring.

You would want Toxiq to export DPX as log when you give the footage to online editing, but to go to authoring, you have to export as some kind of REC709 factor.