H.264 for the web - washed out color?

HHaynes wrote on 3/14/2006, 7:58 PM
Hey gang - I'm in the process of putting together a bunch of demo video clips for my web site, and producing renders in WMV9 and H.264 formats. I'm using similar settings for each (frame size and rate) with the H.264 being about 2/3 the footprint of the WMV9 encode - not a big surprise. But to my point: The WMV9 encode looks as expected, but the H.264 encode looks washed out - like there's something reducing saturation/contrast. I thought it might have been something to to with the two overlays I have for watermarks - but when I muted them the result was the same.

Comments

Spot|DSE wrote on 3/14/2006, 8:41 PM
I can't look at them due to connection speed, but do you have setup or not? Also, if the watermark is really contrasted, that too, will confuse the encoder.
HHaynes wrote on 3/14/2006, 8:44 PM
Hey Spot - thanks for the ping back so quickly. I don't understand your first question. As for the latter, I muted the overlayed tracks and re-rendered and saw no difference (i.e. the WMV9 has the right saturation/contrast, and the H.264 did not) - I did *not* however, remove the tracks from the project - dunno if that makes a diff.
Coursedesign wrote on 3/14/2006, 9:05 PM
Setup means that you maintain your blacks at 7.5IRE (digital 16) instead of 0.

This is needed for over the air NTSC broadcast so that all those budget vacuum tube televisions (those with fewer tubes to save money) don't lose picture sync.

If your black is at 7.5 when your screen expects 0, the picture looks washed out.
HHaynes wrote on 3/14/2006, 9:08 PM
OK - I'm in over my head. So, in lieu of an intelligent response, I'll ask the obvious question - what difference does it make?

Since this isn't for broadcast, and I'm rendering through two different codecs with precisely the same settings (wherever they are and whatever they do) why would I see a difference?
johnmeyer wrote on 3/14/2006, 9:14 PM
If the codec you are using has a box labeled something like "16-235" or "0-255" change it from checked to un-checked, or vice versa, encode a few seconds of video, and see if it looks better.
HHaynes wrote on 3/14/2006, 9:28 PM
No dice - I'm using the MainConcept AVC/AAC encoder - thanks for the pointer, though.
Spot|DSE wrote on 3/14/2006, 9:37 PM
1. Are the bitrates identical?
2. Try rendering a short segment without the bug/watermark.
3. Resolutions the same?
4. Try dropping the "Black Restore" on the mp4 track. The two encoders aren't identical in how they process media. Use the "020 web" setting.
5. Anything tweaked in the Media encoder?
6. Might try the broadcast filter on the mp4.
None of this except the watermark, bitrate, and resolution should matter much when comparing the two, but they're all things to check.
HHaynes wrote on 3/14/2006, 10:48 PM
1. Are the bitrates identical?
Well - they're close - the WMV is using the the 3MB VBR and the AVC is using 2 MB median and 4 MB max.

2. Try rendering a short segment without the bug/watermark.
I did that - no difference.

3. Resolutions the same?
Yes.

4. Try dropping the "Black Restore" on the mp4 track. The two encoders aren't identical in how they process media. Use the "020 web" setting.
I tried that. It *did* look better. Thanks for the heads-up.

5. Anything tweaked in the Media encoder?
Other than frame rate (23.976 in both - same as the source file), and frame size, no.

6. Might try the broadcast filter on the mp4.
I'll try that next.

Thanks all for the help.
Kenneth wrote on 3/15/2006, 10:28 AM
Hi HHaynes

I had the same issue when exporting to H.264 from QuickTime Pro - colors looked faded, washed out.
They way I solved the problem, was by unchecking the Direct Draw options under Advanced in QuickTime Pro. Made me happy.
Hope you get it sorted.

Regards
Kenneth
GlennChan wrote on 3/15/2006, 5:33 PM
You can also try adding the Color Corrector filter and using the "StudioRGB to computerRGB" preset. Studio RGB and computer RGB are different color spaces... passing one straight through into the other could be causing your problem. WME may/does handle this conversion automatically for you.

2- Setup shouldn't be the issue here. Setup issues occur when converting from digital --> analog.

Coursedesign wrote on 3/15/2006, 6:57 PM
Setup shouldn't be the issue here. Setup issues occur when converting from digital --> analog.

Shouldn't is a big word....

If a digital clip has its black set at 16 when it should be at 0, then you get a washed out look on a digital system that expects black to be at 0.
HHaynes wrote on 3/15/2006, 8:46 PM
You can also try adding the Color Corrector filter and using the "StudioRGB to computerRGB" preset.

DING! DING! DING!

That got me as close as I care to get for a composer's website... OK, that's not really true - I'll probably end up continuing to tweak the rendering process as I post clips to my site. Thanks again, everyone.
Coursedesign wrote on 3/15/2006, 10:16 PM
ComputerRGB uses 0-255 for each color, while StudioRGB uses 16-235.

The idea with StudioRGB was to get a little bit of extra margin, and the 16 number corresponds to a 7.5 IRE setup.

Obviously monitors have to be calibrated for one or the other to give a correct picture rendition.
eyethoughtso wrote on 3/16/2006, 4:21 AM
That was a cool clip. What application did you use to turn the letters in the words from front view to their sides?
HHaynes wrote on 3/16/2006, 7:13 AM
Sorry - not a video guy. The news video logo was done by the director, who used to do that stuff for a living. ;) I did the sound logo, the score, sound design and mix.

Now that I look at them again, I think WMV is either over-saturating, or failing to compensate for the compressed frame size. Now that I've done the setup for rendering H.264, it seems to be closer to quality of the original visual. So - back to tweaking - this time on WMV...
Steve Mann wrote on 3/18/2006, 11:50 PM
Apparently your website doesn't like the Firefox browser, I couldn't see either.
HHaynes wrote on 3/19/2006, 3:55 AM
Actually - I use Firefox as my principal browser. No problems here except for the Firefox bug that autoplays everything embedded in the page regardless of settings.