OT: HELP! Erratic Flash Player levels. Only me?

NickHope wrote on 3/11/2011, 8:09 AM

I am seeing wildly erratic behaviour in the levels that YouTube/Flash Player is delivering. Sometimes it's expanding levels and clipping highlights and shadows. At other times it isn't. It's really random. One constant is that it always expands levels when the video is embedded.

Apologies for starting so many new threads about web video stuff, but I really need to do a survey to see if anyone else is seeing this and if there are any common denominators, or if it's just me and my Dell Precision M6300 laptop going insane.

First find your Flash Player version for each browser here.

Then visit

and play the video at the 4 possible resolutions.

Then let us know whether you see just plain white and black in the video (= clipped), or some shades of very pale grey and very dark grey as well (= not clipped).

Just one result from one computer/browser/Flash Player combination would be very helpful. No need to test every combination like I did. And info about behaviour in other devices such as phones, tablets, Google TV etc. is more than welcome too.

Please follow the same format as me if possible. Thanks!

Here are my freaky results to get the ball rolling...

Device/Graphics Card: Laptop, NVIDIA Quadro FX 1600M
OS: XP SP3
Firefox 3.6.15
Flash Player 10,1,82,76
240p - white/black
240p - white/black
240p - white/black
240p - white/black

Device/Graphics Card: Laptop, NVIDIA Quadro FX 1600M
OS: XP SP3
Firefox 3.6.15
Flash Player 10,2,152,32
240p - some grey at first, later white/black
360p - some grey at first, later white/black
480p - some grey at first, later white/black
720p - some grey at first, later white/black

Device/Graphics Card: Laptop, NVIDIA Quadro FX 1600M
OS: XP SP3
Firefox 3.6.15
Flash Player 10,3,180,42 (BETA)
240p - some grey
360p - some grey
480p - some grey
720p - some grey

Device/Graphics Card: Laptop, NVIDIA Quadro FX 1600M
OS: XP SP3
Internet Explorer 8.0.6001.18702
Flash Player 10,1,82,76
240p - white/black
240p - white/black
240p - white/black
240p - white/black

Device/Graphics Card: Laptop, NVIDIA Quadro FX 1600M
OS: XP SP3
Internet Explorer 8.0.6001.18702
Flash Player 10,2,152,32
240p - white/black
360p - some grey at first, later white/black
480p - some grey at first, later white/black
720p - some grey at first, later white/black

Device/Graphics Card: Laptop, NVIDIA Quadro FX 1600M
OS: XP SP3
Internet Explorer 8.0.6001.18702
Flash Player 10,3,180,42 (BETA)
240p - white/black
360p - some grey
480p - some grey
720p - white/black

Device/Graphics Card: Laptop, NVIDIA Quadro FX 1600M
OS: XP SP3
Opera 11.01
Flash Player 10,1,82,76
240p - white/black
240p - white/black
240p - white/black
240p - white/black

Device/Graphics Card: Laptop, NVIDIA Quadro FX 1600M
OS: XP SP3
Opera 11.01
Flash Player 10,2,152,32
240p - white/black at first, later some grey
360p - some grey
480p - some grey
720p - white/black

Device/Graphics Card: Laptop, NVIDIA Quadro FX 1600M
OS: XP SP3
Opera 11.01
Flash Player 10,3,180,42 (BETA)
240p - white/black
360p - some grey
480p - some grey
720p - some grey

Device/Graphics Card: Laptop, NVIDIA Quadro FX 1600M
OS: XP SP3
Google Chrome 10.0.648.127
Flash Player 10,2,154,18
240p - white/black at first, later some grey, later white/black
360p - some grey
480p - some grey
720p - white/black, later some grey

Device/Graphics Card: Desktop, Intel Q965/Q963 Express Chipset Family
OS: XP SP3
Firefox 3.6.14
Flash Player 10,2,152,32
240p - white/black
360p - white/black
480p - white/black
720p - white/black

Device/Graphics Card: Desktop, Intel Q965/Q963 Express Chipset Family
OS: XP SP3
Firefox 3.6.14
Flash Player 10,0,45,2
240p - white/black
360p - white/black
480p - white/black
720p - white/black

Device/Graphics Card: Desktop, Intel Q965/Q963 Express Chipset Family
OS: XP SP3
Google Chrome 10.0.648.127
Flash Player 10,2,154,18
240p - white/black
360p - white/black
480p - white/black
720p - white/black

Comments

musicvid10 wrote on 3/11/2011, 8:29 AM

Nick, on my Sony notebook with onboard video, all tests look as expected at all resolutions. 16-235 is mapped to 0-255, and <=16, >=235 clip. confirmed with my own upload as well as yours.

[EDIT] I've been meaning to install Google Chrome, and decided this is as good a time as any. No difference in observed levels. Using Flash 10.2

Former user wrote on 3/11/2011, 9:06 AM

Device/Graphics Card: Desktop, NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS
OS: Vista 64bit SP2
Internet Explorer 8.0.6001.19019
Flash Player 10,2,152,32
240p - white/black
360p - white/black
480p - white/black
720p - white/black

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Device/Graphics Card: Desktop, NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS
OS: Vista 64bit SP2
Goggle Chrome 10.0.648.127
Flash Player 10,2,154,18
240p - white/black
360p - white/black
480p - white/black
720p - white/black

TeetimeNC wrote on 3/11/2011, 9:20 AM

Device/Graphics Card: Dell XPS Laptop, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4670
OS: Windows 7
IE 8.0.7600.16385
Flash Player 10,1,102,64
240p - white/black
360p - white/black
480p - white/black
720p - white/black

/jerry

johnmeyer wrote on 3/11/2011, 9:24 AM

Device/Graphics Card: Desktop, NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT
OS: Windows XP Pro 32-bit
Firefox 3.6.12
Flash Player 10,1,102,64
240p - white/black
360p - white/black
480p - white/black
720p - white/black

I should also add, as I did in the similar thread you started a few days ago, that monitor calibration is also a very important part of this puzzle. Mine has been calibrated by a Spyder 2.

amendegw wrote on 3/11/2011, 11:43 AM

Device/Graphics Card: Dell Studio 15, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 845v (Spider 2 Calibrated)
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit SP1

IE 9.0.8080.16413
Flash Player 10,2,152,32
240p - white/black
360p - white/black
480p - white/black
720p - white/black

Firefox 3.6.13
Flash Player 10,2,152,32
240p - white/black
360p - white/black
480p - white/black
720p - white/black

Chrome 10.0.648.127
Flash Player 10,2,154,18
240p - white/black
360p - white/black
480p - white/black
720p - white/black

Nick, Don't dismiss the Cosmic Ray theory! [grin]

...Jerry

farss wrote on 3/11/2011, 12:27 PM

Do you by any chance have Dynamic Contrast Enhancement or anything like that enable in your display driver?

Bob.

johnmeyer wrote on 3/11/2011, 4:38 PM

Just to confuse things (although I may have an idea, as you'll see below), I downloaded a test pattern and encoded it to MP4 in Vegas 10.a, using the Mainconcept AVC codec. I put this back on the timeline and did an A/B test, and the levels were identical.

I then uploaded this to Youtube and viewed it in my browser (see my earlier post for my specs). This looked fine (no white or dark shifts at either end of the chart). I then downloaded an MP4 from YouTube (using Keepvid) and put the resulting MP4 on the timeline in Vegas and did an A/B/C comparison. Everything had identical levels.

I next rendered out using MeGUI and tried to put the MP4 back on the timeline. This is where I ran into trouble because the MP4 created by MeGUI is somehow a different container format than the MP4 created by Vegas and as a result requires Quicktime for it to display in Vegas. I don't have Quicktime installed on my computer (I hate it) and so the MP4 did not display.

[i]Is it possible that the problems you are having is a result of the MP4 that results from MeGUI now is displayed by Quicktime, whereas all other files you are dealing with are not? There were a whole bunch of posts about this about a year ago, and as I remember, it was a real big mess.

As a result of all this, I am not sure that all the levels changes you've been doing, both in Vegas with the Levels fX, as well as the ConverToYxx conversions in AVISynth, are necessary.

Here are a few links to posts about levels issues with Quicktime. I think you are already aware of these, but perhaps it is worth revisiting:

the levels bug in Quicktime for Windows renders is very well documented

Google "Gamma Shift Quicktime"

Youtube/Vimeo/Facebook HD uploads: sRGB or cRGB?

If there is a way to get MeGUI to encode an MP4 that doesn't require Quicktime to play back (like the MainConcept MP4 encoder does), that may be the way to solve this problem.

So, to summarize, I am wondering if, under some circumstances, Quicktime takes over, behind the scenes, and "has its way" with your video before it is displayed in Vegas, the browser, or media player. I don't have Quicktime installed so I don't see that problem.

I do not understand why the MP4s created by Vegas do NOT require Quicktime, whereas the MP4s created by MeGUI (and some other applications) DO require Quicktime. I looked at both types of MP4s using various tools and the only difference I can see is that Vegas encodes these files with the audio as "stream 0" whereas MeGUI encodes them with the video as stream 0 and the audio as stream 1.

NickHope wrote on 3/11/2011, 10:28 PM

Only me then :(

Bob, the haunted machine is a Dell Precision M6300 laptop with an NVIDIA Quadro FX 1600M, driver 6.14.11.7575, which is the latest approved one from the Dell website.

I don't think I have a Dynamic Contrast Enhancement setting in my display driver. This is what I have access to in the Nvidia control panel. I have tried it with both "With the video player settings" checked, and with "With the NVIDIA settings" checked and it makes no difference to YouTube levels.

Except it's actually NOT what I see. On the right I actually see an image of colour bars, but when I print screen or snagit I can't grab it. It seems to me that there is something about my setup in regard to OVERLAY that is different from the rest of you. The same thing that is stopping Snagit from being able to grab stills from videos. I think I need to delve into the world of overlay and see if there are any clues there.

John, I am curious what makes you think that Vegas 10 on your system is wanting to use Quicktime to display a MeGUI mp4 file. Is it calling for qt7plug.dll? Or do you mean Vegas 8? Here on my system, most mp4 files that I've been rendering (with Sony AVC, MC AVC, MeGUI, Handbrake) are showing compoundplug.dll in the properties. A few recent ones show mcmp4plug2.dll. I haven't established what makes them use one over the other. Nothing seems to want to use qt7plug.dll in 10c. I uninstalled Quicktime to check and all mp4 files still open in Vegas 10. I am on 10c and it sounds like you're on 10a. I doubt that would cause a difference(?). In Vegas 8 a MeGUI-rendered mp4 and an mp4 downloaded from Vimeo DO use qt7plug.dll. Others use mcmp4plug.dll.

So I've now reinstalled my display driver, Flash Player 10.2, and Quicktime 7.6.2 and I'm still getting shades of grey. I'll look more into overlays next.

NickHope wrote on 3/11/2011, 11:15 PM

Musicvid said on another thread:

>> Something in me thinks Flash doesn't use the video overlay surface. But I sure could be wrong. In any event, your computer marches to a different drummer. Do you have an older ffdshow installed at the system level by chance? I had to do a cold install to get rid of it. <<

I did have ffdshow installed. A quite new version, "ffdshow tryouts rev3757 Feb 9 2011". I downloaded it alone, not as part of a codec pack. It was set up to decode a couple of things including MPEG-2 and AVC, but the ffdshow logos never popped up bottom right of the screen unless I was playing back in WMP or MPC. Anyway I have now uninstalled it, along with Haali splitter, and there appears to be no trace of it left. Greyness problem still exists.

johnmeyer wrote on 3/11/2011, 11:33 PM

John, I am curious what makes you think that Vegas 10 on your system is wanting to use Quicktime to display a MeGUI mp4 file. That's easy to answer: if you don't have Quicktime installed, then when you grab an MeGUI-encoded MP4 file and drag it onto the timeline, up pops a dialog stating that you need to install Quicktime in order to view the file. If you drag a Vegas-encoded MP4 file (encoded with the MainConcept codec), you don't get that alert, and the file plays just fine.

farss wrote on 3/12/2011, 12:12 AM

"

Probably not, my card is a GT 220 and has an "Advanced" tab unlike yours.

Bob.

NickHope wrote on 3/12/2011, 1:01 AM

Not so for me John. To triple check it I just uninstalled Quicktime again and all of my MeGUI-rendered mp4 files still open just fine in Vegas 10.0c. I wonder if they are somehow accessing an external mp4 codec on my machine that yours doesn't have. Since I uninstalled ffdshow, those files get decoded in WMP11 by the Cyberlink codec that came with the PowerDVD software that came with my Blu-ray burner.

I think I'm starting to get a handle on what's going on. Looks like it's YouTube-specific (meaning videos viewed on YouTube.com and not embedded videos) and is dependant on whether hardware acceleration is enabled in Flash Player. But that setting is greyed out on the YouTube site itself so it has to be accessed from another Flash Player somewhere.

Does anyone else see "Settings..." greyed out on YouTube like I do?

amendegw wrote on 3/12/2011, 2:55 AM

"Does anyone else see "Settings..." greyed out on YouTube like I do?"Me too!

fwiw, on my Laptop, Vimeo allows you to twiddle with the flash settings:

...Jerry

btw, Moogaloop Player??

amendegw wrote on 3/12/2011, 3:12 AM

"I did have ffdshow installed. A quite new version, "ffdshow tryouts rev3757 Feb 9 2011". I downloaded it alone, not as part of a codec pack. It was set up to decode a couple of things including MPEG-2 and AVC, but the ffdshow logos never popped up bottom right of the screen unless I was playing back in WMP or MPC. Anyway I have now uninstalled it, along with Haali splitter, and there appears to be no trace of it left. Greyness problem still exists."
I also have ffdshow 3.3.5.1 & Haali Media Splitter 1.10.175.0 installed (to get Mecalli V2 SAL working), and do not observe the "Greyness problem"

...Jerry

NickHope wrote on 3/12/2011, 4:49 AM

Thanks Jerry, that helps confirm what I'm finding here on my 2 computers.

OK, after much testing and ripping out of hair, here's the deal as I see it. It actually sounds quite straightforward now that I've worked it out...

Quicktime, ffdshow, Haali and overlays all seem to be red herrings. The Flash Player version and type of browser also seem to be irrelevant.

So, Flash Player installs with hardware acceleration turned on by default. It can normally be turned on or off by right clicking on a video and choosing "Settings...".

YouTube embedded videos, Vimeo, Facebook and JW Player all allow you to turn hardware acceleration on or off in Flash Player, but ignore your graphic card settings if hardware acceleration is on. They expand playback levels from [16,235] to [0,255] (in technical terms I guess they are using a Rec.601 or Rec.709 matrix to decode from Y'CbCr in the video stream to RGB on your display).

The player on YouTube.com itself (not embedded) does not allow you to turn hardware acceleration on or off. As soon as you've done your first page refresh since installing Flash Player, "Settings..." is greyed out. However it does respect your graphics card settings if hardware acceleration is on, and it does change behaviour if hardware acceleration is turned on or off from another Flash Player instance.

This is not a problem for a computer like one of these:

a) My NEC desktop. Its on-board Intel Q965/Q963 Express graphics expands video to full range [0,255] levels by default and the setting cannot be changed.
b) Bob's computer. His GT 220 graphics card allows the video decoding range to be set, and it's set to full range [0,255] levels (Bob, can you remember if that was default?).

However, it's a big problem for my Dell Precision M6300 laptop. By default it does not expand levels but plays [16,235] back at [16,235], regardless of whether "make color adjustments with the video player settings" or "with the NVIDIA settings" is chosen in the NVIDIA control panel. So if an AVC video is prepared and uploaded at [16,235], it plays back wishy-washy at [16,235]. There is no switch to change between [16,235] and [0,255]. If you use "With the NVIDIA settings" then color and gamma can be adjusted but just with sliders, and only a tiny proportion of users are going to do that, and none of them are going to adjust them to be a perfect [16,235] to [0,255] conversion.

This has knocked my confidence a bit in prepping everything to [16,235] for YouTube. Some key questions are...

1. How many other computers/GPUs already behave like my laptop, passing levels through without expanding them at playback?

2. Is there any sort of trend in GPUs towards passing or expanding playback levels?

3. Will Vimeo, JW Player, Facebook etc. at some point also start respecting your video card settings the same as YouTube?

4. Will YouTube at some point stop respecting your video card settings and do their own thing?

Any further info to confirm what I've found would be very welcome, and checking

on as many computers/devices as possible will help us build a bit of a database. It might be that my laptop is in a tiny minority. If anyone has any results, please post them to this thread. Cheers!

farss wrote on 3/12/2011, 4:58 AM

"Bob, can you remember if that was default?"

Yes it was / is.

Now here is a thing!
If I make it 16-235 AND enable Dynamic Contrast Enhancement, (drum roll) I can repo your problem. The levels change depending on the resolution of the YT playback I select.

Bob.

NickHope wrote on 3/12/2011, 5:05 AM

Thanks Bob. Please elaborate re. the resolution. I was getting variation according to resolution yesterday, but today all resolutions are behaving the same.

In the meantime I've asked a few hundred Facebook friends to take a look, so hopefully we'll get an idea what a "normal" YouTube viewer sees. Us lot on here aren't normal :P

musicvid10 wrote on 3/12/2011, 9:45 AM

Nick,
I try never to give advice at the system level because I would feel terrible if something got messed up worse as a result of someone following it . . .

So with that disclaimer, now that ffdshow was off my system, my next step would be to do a system rollback to pre-ffdshow, reinstall DirectX, followed by another graphics driver reinstall. After that, I might find it necessary to reinstall my Sony apps.

Maybe these newer ffdshow versions are less parasitic than in the past, and it really did uninstall, but there's no good way to know what's been left in the registry.

NickHope wrote on 3/12/2011, 10:37 AM

But I want to put it back now! I miss AVC/AAC playback in other players besides VLC.

Won't put it back until I've seen consistency for a couple of days in the YT levels behaviour first.

farss wrote on 3/12/2011, 1:44 PM

"Thanks Bob. Please elaborate re. the resolution"

@720p I get 255 white and 0 black, other luma values show as grey.
@360p I can get 245 and 255 as white, inverse for black and others as grey.

I say can because it depends on the order in which I play them out from the get go. At some point the controller decides what the binary values should represent to preserve shadow and highlight detail for the viewer. nVidia do say that if you enable this feature you may need to readjust the brightness and contrast settings to get the best result.

Bob.

NickHope wrote on 3/12/2011, 8:05 PM

Between here and Facebook I've built up a bit of a list of how devices are behaving as typical users have them set up. On the strength of this I think it's safe to say we can continue as we were, with regard to recommending upload to YouTube within [16,235]:

Devices that DO expand YouTube levels
iphone
mac
macbook pro
sony vaio laptop
samsung laptop
dell inspiron laptop
blackberry bold 9000
iphone 4
imac
toshiba laptop
toshiba laptop
motorola android mobile
NEC desktop
NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS
Dell XPS laptop, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4670
NVIDIA Geforce 9800 GT
Dell Studio 15, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 845v
NVIDIA GT 220
Musicvid's computer

Devices that DON'T expand YouTube levels
Dell Precision M6300, NVIDIA Quadro FX1600M (mine)
blackberry curve

NickHope wrote on 3/23/2011, 12:48 AM

I got a Flash Player update today to 10.2.153.1. I don't know whether it's because of this or because of a change at YouTube but now the "Settings..." in YouTube is no longer greyed out, and additionally I'm getting the levels expansion at all resolutions on YouTube itself, even with hardware acceleration enabled. So that's good. Consistent behaviour. For now.

EDIT: This thread now becomes a continuation of

GlennChan wrote on 3/23/2011, 2:19 AM

1- There is the right way of doing things. In my opinion everybody should stick to that.

It's laid out in the article on my website. You have to give the encoding codec the levels it wants to see. Sometimes this is 16-235 RGB (for video formats this is usually the case unless you are doing something funky), for other codecs it is 0-255 RGB.

2- It's possible that something with your player / computer / video overlays is doing something non-standard and/or wrong. So you are chasing your tail trying to make 2 wrongs make a right.

Trying to make 2 wrongs make a right will never work. If some equipment / software combination is wrong, the vendor will probably fix it and suddenly your work will/may be wrong. Also, people on such setups may be used to seeing the wrong behaviour so fixing it may make your work inconsistent.

2b- You can try clipping away all values below legal black and above legal white... perhaps this throws off certain equipment?

Certainly if you are making video for video formats (e.g. DVD) this is a good idea. Some equipment (e.g. CRTs) will show values above legal white level and other equipment will not.

Additional notes:
There is very minor rounding error going on from vegas to avc/mpeg4 (main concept) to Youtube. I can see the difference between a 235 235 235 RGB white generated in vegas and values above that... but this is all due to rounding error making the 235 RGB white slightly darker (by 1).

NickHope wrote on 3/23/2011, 4:16 AM

Thanks for your reply Glenn. I have read your page several times and I must admit I find the phrases like "Decodes to and wants to see studio RGB levels" intensely confusing, but I'm sure the problem is with my brain and not what you wrote.

Can anyone tell me whether this whole issue of uploading [16,235] to YouTube/Vimeo/Facebook/JW Player so that we get [0,255] back in our browser is actually a fudge, or is it what we should be doing anyway in order to conform to what Glenn's site is saying?

In other words are YouTube/Vimeo/Facebook/JW Player/Adobe Flash Player doing something "wrong" in terms of receiving/decoding/encoding/displaying AVC/mp4?

[url=http://www.glennchan.info/articles/vegas/v8color/vegas-9-levels.htm]