Pale colours using wmv

ritsmer wrote on 12/4/2008, 1:49 AM

Have been experimenting which format to use for showing video through a PC connected to a plasma via RGB.
Quite sure this is a "dumb" question - but: is it my eyesight or are the colours much less bright when I render to wmv format compared to i.e. m2t or mp4?
To me it seems that the whole colour space in wmv is kind of "compressed" so that i.e. clear white is shown as grey and clear orange is shown much too pale - compared to the other formats and also compared to the original footage from the cameras memorystick (mp4 720p).
Are there any possibilities to adjust this for rendering to wmv?

Of course I can adjust the PC connected to the plasma - but it seems wrong to do this in order to cover/hide a failure (??) in the wmv file or format...

Comments

farss wrote on 12/4/2008, 3:11 AM

The WMV codec seems to 'expect' Computer RGB.
You can use the Levels FX which already has a Studio RGB to Computer RGB Preset to handle the conversion.

Bob.

fldave wrote on 12/4/2008, 4:35 AM

Be sure to check your player settings, Windows Media Player and others have visual tweaks turned on by default, you need to make sure that they are not "coloring" your image as the file is played.

musicvid10 wrote on 12/4/2008, 1:58 PM

As has been mentioned before, compression is the biggest single factor in retaining color integrity. A .wmv encoded at higher bitrates will look very good alongside .mp2 or .mp4

That being said, .mp4 h.264 handles higher compression ratios better than either .mp2 or .wmv, and many will say it looks better than either of those at lower bitrates.

GlennChan wrote on 12/4/2008, 7:29 PM

To add onto what Bob/farss is saying, it could be a levels problem. You have to manually wrangle your levels.
http://www.glennchan.info/articles/vegas/colorspaces/colorspaces.html

If that doesn't fix it... as fldave pointed out, check the visual settings in Windows Media Player and also the video overlay settings on your video card.

goodtimej wrote on 12/4/2008, 7:34 PM

Go .mp4. I've been a long time .wmv advocate and have found that anymore it just doesn't hold a candle to .mp4 in any way, shape or form

musicvid10 wrote on 12/4/2008, 9:26 PM

goodtimej,
I agree with you 99%, the 1% is that like many extensions, .mp4 is a wrapper, and could cover mpeg-2 or any of several other encodings . . .

It is important to specify h.264 or AVC in addition to the .mp4 wrapper, in order to justify your advocacy, with which I happen to agree.

goodtimej wrote on 12/5/2008, 9:08 AM

i use main concept AVC. It seems to play in just about everything, which is the exact reason I used .wmv so much. Ubiquity.

musicvid10 wrote on 12/5/2008, 9:46 AM

.mp4 doesn't play natively in Windows Media Player.
.wmv doesn't play natively in Quicktime or Itunes.
Ubiquity? Not until these two bad boys decide to play nicely together . . .

goodtimej wrote on 12/5/2008, 8:11 PM

I suppose ubiquity in this situation is relative. They are very widely used formats.

ritsmer wrote on 12/6/2008, 8:13 AM

Have been playing with this since I started this thread and got all your input.

Evaluating the way from 1)camera (AVCHD 720p) through 2)Converted files through 3)Rendering through the PC feeding our 50" plasma to 4) the picture on the plasma I have found that, with this setup, I get the best result converting the AVCHD to m2t 720p's and then render the final project to the same (m2t 720p) and then let Windows Media Player play the video in the end.
Writing m2t I mean Main Concept MPEG-2 720p 30fps quality Good (25)

Just some findings: choosing mp4 for the 2) conversion gives a bad and stuttering preview - and seems to give more jerky ghost movements on the plasma.
Choosing the Windows Media Player for playing the m2t video in 4) gives the most calm impression of movements and good colors.
Using wmv gives problems as it significantly and noticeably narrows the colour space. You can use the Level FX - but a percentage of the color space is then (noticeably) lost.
Using m2t makes it possible to de/recompress only once in the whole process as the converted and edited video is simply copied undisturbed to the output file during the (actually very fast) rendering process while Vegas writes "No recompression needed" in the preview screen) - only true for simple length editing - I apply color correction, NEAT ironing of low light clips etc. in the conversion 2).
I have tried all available formats in Vegas 8.
I have tried several players (Windows media classic, VLC, Windows media player and 2-3 more) - but chosen MS's WMP as the best - IN MY SETUP - i must add :-))