Washed Out Video on Export from PremPro CS5

R

rszebras

Well-known member
So I export an h.264 encoded video from PremPro and the result is washed out. Seems like it's changing the color space or something. It makes it kind of hard to do color correction when what I get from the export is washed out. I'm playing the video using Flowplayer 3.2 on our company website. The video looks great in PremPro but sucks on the site. See it here: http://www.vmar.net/email_apr11.htm

Any ideas? The only thing I can think of is to adjust levels and saturation so both are overdone in PremPro, export, and test until I get the look I want. Not too excited about that.
 
Try the x.264 codec. It's a more enhanced version of the h.264 codec and doesn't wash out your footage
 
The problem with judging video quality on a computer monitor is that very few computer monitors will display video correctly. (Very few consumer displays of any type, actually.)

Use a properly calibrated external TV of the highest quality you can afford for your CC work. So long as you're not using QuickTime (which can cause issues), the exported piece should in fact look the same as the edited piece. If it doesn't, chances are excellent it's not the export itself, it's simply the display or the playback software causing the problem.
 
It's not the monitor or calibration, as I'm using the same monitor to view from within PremPro and on the website. It is either Flowplayer using the wrong color space or some other color space related issue. I'm using Canon HDSLR .mov files, editing natively in CS5, and exporting to h.264 files. Perhaps there is a setting in PremPro that I'm missing? Or some other issue.
 
It doesn't look washed out to me

When people use the term "washed out" it's usually from improper luminance Y' levels (e.g. black level too high)

Maybe something wrong with your browser settings? Did you try looking at it from a different setup, different computer ?

You can download the video and look at the levels too - except for some clipping, it's otherwise ok
 
Thanks for looking at it, PDR. Late yesterday I uploaded another version. I went into PremPro and adjusted the levels using the waveform and added saturation. That helped significantly. It did introduce some clipping and crushing, though, as you noted. However, if I open my browser and look at it next to what I see in the program monitor, it just doesn't look as vibrant. And, of course, looking at it on other computers is another story. By the way, I'm using a 24" Dell monitor -- a good one using 1920 x 1200 resolution. Although there really isn't a real way to calibrate these monitors for web-based content.

I guess having another set of eyes review it certainly helps. I've been looking at the footage for so long, perhaps I need a break, especially since you indicate it looks good.
 
ok - so you're saying I looked at a different video than the original one ?

by "washed out" and "vibrant" are you referring to saturation or something else

if you take a screenshot of what you see in the pp program monitor vs. what you see in your browser, that might help to shed some light on what's going on. It should be close, at least the white and black point should be very similar

also try another browser to see if it makes a difference eg. firefox vs. IE vs. opera etc...
 
H264 is ALWAYS going to be washed out compared to a high quality master. That's the point of how H264 saves bandwidth -- it desaturates some colors, etc. You will never have proper color accuracy with an H264 file. I don't have too much experience with exporting .mp4's from Premiere, but I know this is defacto knowledge when exporting H264 quicktimes out of FCP.
 
tfg said:
H264 is ALWAYS going to be washed out compared to a high quality master. That's the point of how H264 saves bandwidth -- it desaturates some colors, etc. You will never have proper color accuracy with an H264 file. I don't have too much experience with exporting .mp4's from Premiere, but I know this is defacto knowledge when exporting H264 quicktimes out of FCP.
Click to expand...

What you're referring to is a quicktime h264 in MOV issue, not an h.264 issue . Search for "quicktime gamma bug" on the internet

This should be fixed in the newest FCPX , QTX and Snow Leopard, where an industry standard 2.2 gamma is used instead of the screwed up 1.8 gamma used for years
 
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