What's with Vimeo's changing black levels?

[DPStewart]

I can't be the only one seeing this. Black levels not only taking a huge shift, but changing during playback.

I'm getting it in both Chrome and Internet Explorer, and a friend says he's seeing the same thing with Firefox on Mac.

I upload a piece, and at 720p and 1080p it plays back with a massively raised black pedestal. (and washed out colors) The whole thing goes milky.
But then if I switch it to 360p or 540p it snaps back to black levels that are very close to the original material. So it's NOT like Vimeo can't stream back something that looks damn close to the original.
But then at these two lower resolutions, the black level will often start to pop back up like the HD stream...and then maybe back down once or twice over a couple minutes.
WTH?

But ALL downloads at all resolutions show the lifted milky black level, again NOT reflected in the lower resolution streams.

As I've seen it - Vimeo used to be 'reliable' for what it was, up until the beginning of this year when they rolled out their "auto" bit-rate scheme, etc..

I even tacked on a modified SMPTE color bars chart at the end of a piece to see if it would have any effect on their system - it didn't.

Anyone have any tricks to get Vimeo to at least lock down its own black level?
Or have we all just given up on streaming being as good as it was in 2014?

 

[DPStewart]

Someone suggested I try uploading an h.264 file instead of DNxHD, so I did.

It made absolutely no difference.

So if Vimeo is gone to ****, and I want to avoid YouTube's commercials, what's a high-quality hosting service I can use that works well with embedding the videos on customer's websites etc?

Any good recommendations?

 

[Andrius Simutis]

Their auto bitrate bs was at least understandable as a way for them to save money, but if this is the new normal than they're just f---ing with us for the hell of it.

 

[Milan O.]

I've had this problem for a long time with Vimeo, at least since 2012. It has something to do with Quicktime and Apple computers if I remember correctly. Try viewing the same material on a Windows computer.

 

[DPStewart]

I've had this problem for a long time with Vimeo, at least since 2012. It has something to do with Quicktime and Apple computers if I remember correctly. Try viewing the same material on a Windows computer.

Yeah, I am on Windows. Tried it through Chrome and Internet Explorer and the results are identical.

 

[Milan O.]

Yeah, I am on Windows. Tried it through Chrome and Internet Explorer and the results are identical.

Can you post a link please? Then I can see if the problem is there on my PC. The thing is that the films I've been viewing on my Mac computers have had this issue, but not my PC, and then I've looked at the same films just to compare.

 

[DPStewart]

Here's a screen capture of the Original h.264 file on the right, and the 1080p Vimeo stream seen through Internet Explorer on the left.

Last year Vimeo was NOT this drastically off. And strangely, the streams of SD 540p and 320p look MUCH more like the original on the right - just in lower resolution.

I'm done with Vimeo. NEVER AGAIN. This is utterly useless for any purpose whatsoever.

.

 

[Andrius Simutis]

I've had this problem for a long time with Vimeo, at least since 2012. It has something to do with Quicktime and Apple computers if I remember correctly. Try viewing the same material on a Windows computer.

Different issue. That's the Gamma correction not being the same on Quicktime vs monitor. Vimeo's issue might be similar in that they have a different gamma setting on the full HD encode vs the SD encodes. They shouldn't.

 

[Andrius Simutis]

Here's a screen capture of the Original h.264 file on the right, and the 1080p Vimeo stream seen through Internet Explorer on the left.

Last year Vimeo was NOT this drastically off. And strangely, the streams of SD 540p and 320p look MUCH more like the original on the right - just in lower resolution.

I'm done with Vimeo. NEVER AGAIN. This is utterly useless for any purpose whatsoever.

Have you reached out to Vimeo? I've found they do respond to specific complaints. I'd love to hear what they say on this.

 

[DPStewart]

Vimeo's issue might be similar in that they have a different gamma setting on the full HD encode vs the SD encodes. They shouldn't.

Exactly. It sure does seem that this is what's going on. I can stream a video, and then sit there and switch between 540p and 720p and watch the gamma change back and forth.

Have you reached out to Vimeo? I've found they do respond to specific complaints. I'd love to hear what they say on this.

No, I haven't.
Earlier in the year when they switched to auto-bit rates a bunch of us emailed them about it and all received basically a "sorry, but this is were we're going" response, so I'm not too inclined to think my communication would make any difference.
But I suppose I should give it a shot before I totally bail on them.

I'm checking out the Vzaar.com encoding engine tonight to see if it's better. They are more expensive ($25 per month) but have none of the limitations of Vimeo library size, and a FAR more professional service and interface for bringing your videos to customers and clients.
Vzaar.com has a 1-month free trial thing.

I was all set to switch to Vzaar a few months ago - but I never did. Can't remember why. I think I just hit a patch of time where I didn't need to bounce a lot of videos off of clients.