The saga has been continuing for me.  I've been editing on AVID for 12 years now, and don't WANT to use FCP.  But I must say, Color is just a fantastic program...enough to make me really think about this...

BUT HERE'S MY REAL QUESTION:

Why when I bring my P2 footage into MC 3.0 (OSX 10.5.5) does it look muddy (blacks seem washy, like the setup is too high)?  When I import into FCP, it's nice and contrasty.  Am I just missing something?

A few months ago, I found that imported P2 footage into FCP had resulted in clips with the wrong gamma. It may have been that the project setup had been wrong, but then it probably was by default. When I imported the same footage in Avid, everything was just right.

So  your footage may look nice and contrasty in FCP, but at the same time it may in fact very well be mistreated by the import, and needing repair in color correction. If you like having your footage gamma altered, that's up to you. I prefer a straight unchanged import, and will adjust contrast in CC.

Also, assuming your P2 is HD footage, you should probably be importing your P2 footage in 601 and not RGB. 

Blkdog, when you import P2 there is no option for 709 or RGB.  It justs imports (as it should)...

In my experience the difference that the original poster is noticing is most likely to be due to the (rather annoying) fact that whereas in full screen preview mode, Avid can be set so that black will appear as R,G,B=(0,0,0) and not (16,16,16), this is not, and is never, the case for the source and record monitors, where blacks will always be (16,16,16) i.e. dark grey and whites (235,235,235) i.e. not quite white.  And there is nothing you can do about it with LCD monitors.  With CRTs you could twiddle the brightness and contrast to correct this.  This is easily verified with the Digital Colour Meter (in Applications/Utilities) (see attachment)

Incidentally FCP will automatically stretch the luminance which accounts for the difference.

Why this option exists (thanks Avid) for Full screen mode, and not for the Src/Rec monitors defeats me..... [feature request...:) ].

This concerns uniquely the preview on the computer displays and not the client monitor.

Janusz

BLKDOG:

Also, assuming your P2 is HD footage, you should probably be importing your P2 footage in 601 and not RGB. 

I'll post my question here, even though it doesn't relate to P2 footage, because it does have to do with "muddy" blacks.  When I read your note above, BLKDOG, it made me check my import settings for my EX-1 (1080p/23.976) footage, and in that first "Image" pane, I see I've been importing with the "Computer RGB (0-255) checked.

Should I instead have the "601 SD or 709 HD (16-235) checked?

Thanks, Malcolm

 If it's HD footage you are importing, yes.

Sorry about the P2 gaff. I saw importing and skipped over the P2 part completely.