Color Is Not Optional: Inside Neyra's Three-Tier Pipeline — Web Pro, Filmmaker Pro, and Studio · ACES

Why the same file looks different on every screen

You export a video. It looks perfect in your editor. You drop it into Safari and the protagonist's face goes red. You send it to your colorist and they ask for a re-encode. You send it to a finishing house and they ask for an EXR sequence.

This is not a render bug. This is the missing color metadata problem — and it is the single most underestimated failure mode in AI cinema today.

A video file is just a stream of numbers. The numbers only mean something when the file declares what they mean:

• Which color primaries did the colors come from? (sRGB? Rec.709? P3? Rec.2020? ACEScg?)
• Which transfer function encodes the brightness? (Linear? sRGB? Log-C? PQ?)
• Which matrix turns the YUV back into RGB?

Without these tags, every player on every device makes a guess. Safari guesses one way. Chrome guesses another. Resolve guesses a third. The guesses do not agree. Your film looks like five different films.

Neyra's Color Pipeline removes the guessing.

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Three tiers — pick the one your deliverable actually needs

The COLOR tab in the Video Editor opens with a three-row card. Each row is a tier. Pick the row your deliverable needs, and Neyra stamps the correct color science, metadata, and — when relevant — sidecar files like ASC CDL or OCIO configs.

Tier 1 — Web Pro · Rec.709 baked in

Default. Ships on every plan.

• Codec: H.264 MP4
• Color: BT.709 primaries, transfer, matrix — explicitly stamped
• Audio: Loudness-targeted (−14 LUFS streaming, −23 LUFS broadcast)

This is what fixes the “Safari washed-out” problem. 99% of TikTok, Reels, YouTube and web embeds end here. And that is correct. Don't overpay for tiers you do not need.

Tier 2 — Filmmaker Pro · ProRes + Log + CDL

Agency tier and above.

• Codec: Apple ProRes 422 HQ
• Space: Your chosen Log (S-Log3, V-Log, LogC3, LogC4)
• Bit depth: 10-bit 4:2:2
• Sidecar: ASC CDL auto-generated from your Camera DNA + film stock

This is the colorist's bread and butter. They re-grade in Resolve or Premiere without losing dynamic range. The CDL hands them your starting look as a portable, industry-standard file. Their work day starts ten steps ahead.

Tier 3 — Studio · ACES · ACEScg EXR + OCIO

Short Film and Film tier.

• Format: ACEScg or ACEScct EXR sequence (16-bit half-float or 32-bit full-float)
• Sidecar: OCIO config (1.3 or 2.1)
• Templates: Nuke template wired to your project, optional Resolve .drp, AE template

This is the format DI suites finishing for Netflix, Apple TV+, A24 and theatrical actually run on. Neyra emits the same scene-referred linear EXR chain a senior colorist would set up by hand — except automated.

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Picking the right tier

The mistake is not picking too low. The mistake is picking too high.

• Social creator: Web Pro. Stay there. Anything more is wasted credits and longer renders.
• Brand director / agency: Filmmaker Pro for the master, Web Pro for social cutdowns. Same project, two exports.
• Indie film going to festivals: Studio · ACES for the DCP / streaming master. Filmmaker Pro for online cuts. Web Pro for the trailer drop.
• C-Dance / partner studio: Studio · ACES from day one. The pipeline includes the Nuke template their VFX team plugs into directly.

The receipt strip in the Export panel is the honest summary. It shows the exact codec, colorspace, LUFS target, and sidecar files that will ship. No marketing. Just the facts.

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The preflight gate — saving you from broken exports

Picking Studio · ACES on the Free tier would fail at the encode step and waste five minutes of your render. So Neyra runs a preflight check the moment you open the Export panel.

The check is local. It is instant. It reads three things:

1. Your subscription tier
2. Your timeline state
3. Your tier choice

And it returns three buckets of feedback:

• Errors — block export (red)
• Warnings — proceed at your own risk (amber)
• Info — FYI only (slate)

Mixed frame rates? Warning — the player will resample and lose frames. Empty timeline? Hard error. Studio · ACES on a free plan? Hard error — the export button greys out. DWA EXR compression on a finishing master? Warning — lossy, wrong for DI.

The frontend gate is honest but defeatable in DevTools. Server-side enforcement lands with the L2/L3 encoders — part of Phase I.

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Cross-device persistence

Pick Studio · ACES on your laptop. Open the same project on a desktop. Invite a colorist as a collaborator. They all see the same tier, the same sub-options, the same receipt.

The Color Pipeline state is stored on the EditorSession entity, not just localStorage. localStorage is the fast path so the picker is instant on reload; the cloud session is the source of truth for collaboration.

Project-level fields act as defaults for new sessions in that project, but any session can override. The system trusts you.

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What ships today — the honest status board

Neyra ships an honest status board. From the engineering source-of-truth doc:

• Phase A — L1 helpers ✅ Shipped. BT.709 metadata, LUFS targets, FFmpeg argument builder. 18 unit tests.
• Phase B — L2 helpers ✅ Shipped. ProRes 422 HQ spec, Log format mapping, ASC CDL generator. 22 unit tests.
• Phase C — L3 helpers ✅ Shipped. ACEScg / ACEScct EXR spec, OCIO 1.3 and 2.1 emission, Nuke/Resolve/AE templates. 30 unit tests.
• Phase D — UI wire-up ✅ Shipped.
• Phase E — Preflight gate ✅ Shipped. 22 unit tests.
• Phase F — Preflight surface ✅ Shipped.
• Phase G — Cross-device persistence ✅ Shipped.
• Phase H — Docs & Academy sync ✅ Shipped.
• Phase I — L2/L3 encode runtime — next milestone. The math is done; the encoder runtime is what remains.

“Shipped” means tested and live, not a Notion ticket. The receipt is honest about Phase I: pick Filmmaker Pro or Studio · ACES today and the Export panel will tell you the actual render still falls back to Web Pro until Phase I ships. We do not pretend.

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Why color is the new continuity

The AI film community has spent two years arguing about character continuity — keeping a face stable across shots. Color continuity is the same problem on a different axis. A face that stays still while the color science drifts is just as broken as a face that warps.

Neyra treats color the way it treats character: as a first-class, scene-graph property that follows the production from intent to master. Web Pro for the web. Filmmaker Pro for the agency. Studio · ACES for the cinema. Same project, same source, three deliverables, zero re-encoding chaos.

Color, like sound, is not optional.

— Neyra Engineering