INTERACT FORUM

Devices => Video Cards, Monitors, Televisions, and Projectors => Topic started by: maxxsid on June 24, 2016, 01:34:54 am

Title: Video too dark
Post by: maxxsid on June 24, 2016, 01:34:54 am

Hello,
I just noticed that MC plays videos too dark.
-- Intel on-board HD4000
-- Enhanced Video Renderer
Well, not only MC - MPC and WMP are the same as MC.
VLC is a bit brighter and looks better.

It looks as if auto-contrast/auto-brightness was applied.

The video is a time-lapse sequence shot on a camera which produces MJPG avi files. If I extract jpg frames with ffmpeg (no re-compression, no re-encoding), the resulting jpg's are less contrasty, more natural and less processed...

If I drop this file to Corel VideoStudio - it looks unprocessed! (as raw jpg extracted with ffmpeg).

MC screen grab (same in MPC, etc)
(http://brokenfile.com/frame-jrmc.jpg)

Extracted raw jpg
(http://brokenfile.com/frame-raw.jpg)

Can anyone explain what might be going on?

Thanks!

max

Title: Re: Video too dark
Post by: Hendrik on June 24, 2016, 09:42:13 am

You could try ROHQ, it deals better with videos with non-standard brightness ranges (ie. MJPG camcorder videos)

Title: Re: Video too dark
Post by: maxxsid on June 24, 2016, 03:07:51 pm

Hendrik,
Thanks!
I tried madVR - it indeed made a difference. (CPU usage went up from 7% to 40%, though).
So, it's all because of the renderer?

Interesting thing:
Before I started messing with settings, VLC Player was different (and better) than others (MC, MPC and WMP). Now, however, it looks exactly the same as MC (without madVR), MPC and WMP. And I didn't change any of the VLC settings!
?
--max

Title: Re: Video too dark
Post by: bhampster on September 09, 2016, 05:01:56 am

My guess is now VLC "sees" a different directx path.

The only way to sort out calibration issues is with a full calibration.

At the very least you want to grab a black level test pattern and adjust so that there is no clipping. I would consider that the most significant and important aspect and that's usually done "by eye."

I use a few inexpensive devices (i1pro spectrometer that I bought used, and i1d3 colormeter) to first calibrate my projector (using the free HCFR) and then take things further by making a 3DLUT file for my HTPC which goes beyond the calibation abilities of my projector's on board controls.

-Brian

Title: Re: Video too dark
Post by: BryanC on September 22, 2016, 02:52:57 pm

Your "dark" screenshots are indicative of running full RGB on a limited RGB monitor. It's possible that your video driver is changing bit-depth or color space on-the-fly based on how each program reports itself to the driver. MadVR reports itself as a game, not a video player like EVR does, which may be triggering a different default setting.