Decreased Saturation and Contrast on Export from PremPro

[rszebras]

I'm having a problem when exporting from PremPro CS3. No matter what format or settings I use, the exported file has decreased saturation and contrast. The image is washed out. I've tried dozens of different formats and settings (h.264, mpeg 2, mp4, and on and on). Even uncompressed formats are washed out.

I thought maybe it's the YUV color space to RGB color space conversion. So then I tried exporting from After Effects CS3 and I have the same problem. I've tried multiple players (WMP, VLC, QT, FLV Player, etc.) to see if that was the problem. But that didn't solve it.

No here's the kicker. I imported the exported file back into PremPro. So this is now a compressed file. I drop it on the timeline and the saturation and contrast is almost identical to the original file. So it seems to me it's not the file but how it's being interpreted. I can't figure out what setting I'm missing. I don't use CS3 too frequently but I'm trying to complete this project for our company (which will be a web video) and can't figure out what I'm missing.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I've attached two images so everyone can see the problem.

 

[PDR]

Sounds like a playback or configuration issue if you re-import the exported footage back into PP and it looks fine.

1) What renderer are you using for that media player (e.g. overlay mixer, vmr9, evr , etc...)? You will find the levels compressed and image washed out if you use vmr9 (renderless)

2) How did you take screenshots?

3) What format is your original footage / what camera?

4) How does the original footage look in that media player with the same settings?


For most media players that rely on the overlay mixer and graphics card, you would adjust your graphics card settings for the overlay.

If this is for web, flash doesn't rely on the graphics card overlay settings - it relies on graphics card desktop settings or GDI interface. Eitherway, if you want accuracy you should preview it with a flash player locally on your pc instead of the players you listed (or embedded in a website), since your end goal is web

 

[rszebras]

As soon as you suggested that I try playing the original file in the various media players, I realized that was one thing I had not done. Well, I tried the original m2t HDV files and they too are washed out. In media player classic the renderer is overlay mixer. In VLC it is set to OpenGL video output with hardware YUV->RGB conversion checked. I couldn't tell what it was in WMP. So that means PremPro CS3 is using some other method for interpreting the m2t file. I'm curious what that is.

Anyway, I will be using the JW Flash Player on the site. So I guess the proper workflow is to export a small clip and play it on JW. Then go back and forth tweaking color and contrast settings to get the output I desire. I have to say that workflow for color correction doesn't sound fun. I take it this is what everyone is stuck with. There's no workaround that's easier?

 

[PDR]

As soon as you suggested that I try playing the original file in the various media players, I realized that was one thing I had not done. Well, I tried the original m2t HDV files and they too are washed out. In media player classic the renderer is overlay mixer. In VLC it is set to OpenGL video output with hardware YUV->RGB conversion checked. I couldn't tell what it was in WMP. So that means PremPro CS3 is using some other method for interpreting the m2t file. I'm curious what that is.

WMP by default uses overlay mixer , PP CS4 uses GDI (desktop settings) , like flash, and I suspect CS3 would use the same as CS4. But MPC and WMP use directshow for decoding, so the effect of your system installed decoder/filters with higher merit can confuse the issue (whatever you have set for decoding might to a different Y'CbCr=>RGB conversion), in addition to the effect of choice of renderer

Anyway, I will be using the JW Flash Player on the site. So I guess the proper workflow is to export a small clip and play it on JW. Then go back and forth tweaking color and contrast settings to get the output I desire. I have to say that workflow for color correction doesn't sound fun. I take it this is what everyone is stuck with. There's no workaround that's easier?

There should be strong correlation with what you see in PP Program monitor and flash on the same computer, because they are both using Rec. 601 for their RGB conversion (and they both use the wrong coefficients for HD material), and they both use GDI (graphics desktop settings) , instead of overlay mixer.

The one big difference is flash uses a lower quality chroma upsampling algorithm (you can see whenever red is displayed, you will see blocky colors in flash) , but the levels should be comparable

I think where you were misled , is the effect of the graphics card overlay settings & overlay mixer in various players. You can use this to your advantage: adjust the graphics card overlay settings (not desktop settings) until they match those of flash, then whenever you use a player that relies on overlay mixer this should give you representative preview of that in flash. But be aware that most software players decode using Rec.709 automatically if source is HD (width > 720), and Rec.601 if SD, but flash always uses Rec.601.

 

[rszebras]

The JW Player can also accept h.264/mp4 files. I was planning to use h.264 instead of flv since the former yields better results (at least to my eyes). And this also tells me that what others see can be far from what I see. The desktop settings can be quite different from computer to computer. This is the inherent nature of web video, I guess.

 

[PDR]

The JW Player can also accept h.264/mp4 files. I was planning to use h.264 instead of flv since the former yields better results (at least to my eyes). And this also tells me that what others see can be far from what I see. The desktop settings can be quite different from computer to computer. This is the inherent nature of web video, I guess.

Yes , you have zero control over end user settings such as desktop settings, monitor calibration etc...

flv is just a container. It's what's inside that counts (the type of compression used.) Think of it as a box that holds video & audio +/- metadata, just like .mp4 container.

For example you can use the exact same h.264/aac elementary stream and just remux in .flv container

.flv container seems to work better for psuedostreaming for big files if you are using jw player front end with lightppd. (there seems to be higher latency and studdering for some reason with the exact same stream in .mp4 container). However, if you are using progressive download, there is no difference, and actually .mp4 is usually preferred

 

[Demistate]

Also keep in mind that Premiere Pro will only output 0-255 sRGB. The encoders have to have a proper conversion of that material to 16-253 Rec.601.

I know for a FACT Quicktime assumes your footage is 16-253 Rec.709 Which creates all kinds of problems. Windows Media Encoder, and the Mainconcept encoders do a proper conversion in CS4. CS3 had some color space issues.

To get around the Quicktime Export problem, you'll need to bring your footage into After Effects, apply color management, and tell the footage to translate it to (in your case) REC.601 16-235 and encode. You will not be able to do a 2-pass encode from AFX.

Color space is really confusing.

 

[rszebras]

Color space is really confusing.

That's an understatement. I looked in After Effects CS3 help for color management. Here's what I found:

"You turn color management on for a project by choosing a working color space (Working Space) in the Project Settings dialog box. You control color management for each footage item with the Interpret Footage dialog box or interpretation rules file. You control color management for each output item in the Output Module Settings dialog box."

Which of these three methods are you referring to get around the QT export problem? Choosing a working color space, Interpret Footage, or Output Module Settings?

Do you think it would be easier to simply export a few seconds of the project from PremPro to h.264 and look at the colors. Then go back to PremPro and adjust until I obtain satisfactory results.

 

[PDR]

Why are you using quicktime at all? You can avoid the gamma issues completely by not using it

My understanding from your previous comments was that this is for web based flash player, using JW as the front end ? If so , you should avoid .mov container (i.e. quicktime). You would only use .mov if your embedded player was a quicktime player

As I stated earlier there is strong correlation in terms of levels from what you see in the program monitor, exporting from AME (as long as it's NOT quicktime, but rather something like h.264/aac/mp4), and what you see in JW or any other flash front end , on the same computer. It will take you 1 minute to see this for yourself

Just to clarify , Premiere clamps outputs to 16-235 (clamps levels <16, >235) using Rec.601 - only if you import some Y'CbCr format that it doesn't have a preset for (e.g. you might be using intermediates like lagarith, or uncompressed 8-bit. 10-bit 4:2:2 or v210 seems unaffected by this behaviour and you can retain Rec.709.) If you import native HDV, which it has a preset for, you are immune from this behaviour (e.g. your highlights & shadows should be preserved all the way through to export). Rec.709 preservation is less important in your case, because Adobe Flash (and all front ends like JW) do their RGB conversion using Rec.601

Demistate above mentioned some differences in CS3, I skipped CS3 , so I can't comment on that.

 

[rszebras]

I didn't realize Demistate's comment only applies to using a QT player (i.e., a .mov container). I mistakenly concluded it applied to exporting in the h.264/mp4 format. I will only be using the JW Player so none of these issues apparently apply in my situtation. Thanks for the clarification.

I will do a test for myself and export a clip to flv and h.264/mp4. Then I'll test it in the JW Player and compare it to what I see in PremPro. Then I can make decisions on color, contrast, etc., at that time.

 

[Demistate]

If you're trying to export HD to SD DVD in CS3, you will have colorspace conversion issues.

If you are going to output to the web, you will have no issues, since Premiere Pro works in sRGB, which is the standard we all use on our PC monitors.

Now on a mac, there might be a difference in Gamma if the media player in the web browser doesn't support a gamma space conversion.

OS X 10.6 changed the default gamma to 2.2 to be on the same standard as everybody else, but anything before that will have gamma issues.