When I fired up After Effects, and patched in the new plug-in, I was momentarily confused. In the old versions, all of the parameters would pop up in AE’s Effects Controls window, as they do with most plug-ins. You could then open a Preset Manager which would show you the preset Looks applied to a stock photo (a guy standing in the grass looking at a row of houses). However, in this version all you see is an “edit” button in your effects dropdown. Once you click the “edit” button an entirely new window opens and that’s where all of the parameter editing is done. It’s a little clunky, but given the amount of tools now included I can’t really see a better way to do it, as the Effects Controls window would be unmanageably cluttered with all of the available options.
However, I believe it is this new external window, separate from the host application that creates the fatal flaw in the software. A little background: most editing or compositing programs are set up so that you can send your output to an external monitor via firewire, so that each change you make to an effects parameter can be viewed on this monitor in real time. It’s nearly impossible to get accurate color information on a computer monitor, which makes it necessary to use a properly calibrated external broadcast monitor for any color correction work. This monitor allows you to know that your video Looks the way it is supposed to, so that there aren’t any surprises when you show it in other environments. Your computer screen will always look a little different than everyone else’s screen (especially in the case of flat panels, which look different just depending on the angle you view them at), but two properly calibrated broadcast monitors will always look nearly identical. Having a calibrated monitor lets you know that your changes are accurate and not influenced by any quirks with your computer monitor setup.
After doing some research, I’ve confirmed that there is no way to preview your output on a calibrated broadcast monitor in real time with Magic Bullet Looks. You have to make your changes in the external window using the computer monitor as your guide. It’s not until you accept the changes that you can see the results within After Effects on an external monitor. So, if the results weren’t what you were expecting (and they never are, since the computer monitor display Looks totally different than what shows up on the broadcast monitor), you have to go back into the program, blindly change parameters, and hope that you lucked into the correct result when it shows back up on your calibrated broadcast monitor. It’s nearly impossible to work like this.
We decided to contact Red Giant about this flaw, hoping that they were already working on a fix. Here is the response we received:
The current version of Looks only offers on-screen preview. We do have basic color management in the app that transforms a video format frame into sRGB color space so that what you are viewing is a much better approximation of what you are looking at than in Premiere Pro or Final Cut's unmanaged preview window.
We are going to address the issue of video out in the next major version and plan to offer support for users on both Mac and Windows to direct video out preview for the Looks user interface. This is a major undertaking to support a wide variety of video output options and just not something we could tackle in the first version.
The only other "workaround" for accurate viewing today is HD LCD monitor with DVI input as your main display for your system. While this is unconventional, it will provide very accurate previews for Looks on a monitor like the JVC DT-V24L1U which is a broadcast calibrated LCD with DVI input.
It’s good to know that they’re aware of the problem and are actively working on a solution, but to be honest, I don’t think that a product line whose name is as synonymous with professionalism as Magic Bullet should have released a title lacking the industry standard broadcast monitor preview. This limitation feels more prosumer than anything else, which means that professionals who do not have an HD LCD monitor with DVI input as their main monitor will probably not choose to use this software in its current state.
