Apple’s Quicktime……. still a problem with gamma???

Just Google “Quicktime gamma” for a brief sampling of the frustration that so many people have experienced.
At Springhouse Films, Erik and I have been fighting this issue for awhile and it seems that Apple is oblivious to all these issues.

Here is a post that lays it all out on CreativeCow @ http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/8/1027614

Quicktime gamma issues:Users Revolt!
by Alan Okey on Mar 16, 2009 at 6:59:02 pm

I’ve read that once upon a time, Apple chose a system gamma of 1.8 because they dominated the early graphic design/prepress market, and that a gamma of 1.8 was somehow better for designers working on projects for print.

Years later, this legacy choice is still in effect. Although Apple allows you to change your monitor gamma to 2.2 in Display Preferences, unfortunately there is no intelligence on the part of Quicktime to recognize this. Quicktime assumes that your system gamma is 1.8, and acts accordingly. Just Google “Quicktime gamma” for a brief sampling of the frustration that so many people have experienced.

How is it that angry mobs of video professionals carrying torches have not yet burned Apple to the ground for this transgression? For a company that prides itself on serving the professional video market, Apple has a long way to go before they are truly able to be called “professional” in the way that they serve our industry.

Apple’s notorious secrecy doesn’t help matters, either. There is no open dialogue between Apple and its professional customers. Are they even aware of how big of a problem this is for so many professional film and video artists? Do they even care? I know that people will make flip comments about how they only care about the iPhone/iPod, etc. but seriously – if they’re bothering to even continue to sell and update/improve Final Cut Studio, why don’t they address the major Quicktime issues that we’ve all come to know and hate? Granted, Quicktime is far ahead of any Windows file wrappers, but that’s not saying much.

What can be done to impress upon Apple the seriousness of this situation? Petitions? Email campaigns? Angry mobs with burning torches? Packs of rabid weasels? What?!!!?

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Real time editing….

One thing way different with video is the edit process, perhaps it’s just years of engrained still image editing ala chromes on the lightbox or the virtual Adobe version, but it seems to me that editing video clips is the most laborious part of the process.
I know I’l get faster and more efficient with time.
Final Cut Pro is the killer app for motion pictures but gosh, it’s got more bells and whistles than three copies of CS4 .

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