Lack of Contrast in Finished Product

[Joe_Hicks]

My normal work load is to create in Premiere Pro 2.0 then transcode and burn in Encore. The thing that I'm dealing with is that the finished piece always lacks the contrast I have in the final AVI from Premiere.

Am I missing a setting? or is there some setting that will restore the original contrast levels? I'm currently using the standard "NTSC DV High Quality 7mb VBR 2 Pass" setting.

Thx,
Joe

[Stevet]

Joe,
NTSC levels (black level through white level) range from 16-235 (8-bit RGB). This is also know as "Studio RGB".

"Computer RGB" levels range from 0- 255.

A lot of MPEG-2 (DVD compliant) encoders will convert to the NTSC levels when encoding your footage.

When this DVD compliant video is viewed on your computer, this may explain why your footage has less contrast. The video black levels should look fine when viewed on a NTSC monitor.

[Matt Grunau]

What he said.

Remember, your tv can handle something on the order of 3+ million colors, something quite far removed from you computer monitor. Anything you do on your computer monitor should look a little lacking in contrast. simply playing it on your tv will increase the contrast due to the 16-235 range tvs are capable of.