Hi Liam,


I used media player , BS player , Vlan player , they all show the same result.

Yes this is for computer viewing

The thing is that this issue wasn't there from the start , my first projects were all fine as far as i could tell.

I don't understand , I look at the preview window in vegas and put a BSplayer window next to it and it is DRASTICALLY different. I've read countless tutorials and they never said something liek : "Hey by the way , on every project you will have to push your brightness level to +10 because the rendered file will be darker no matter how you render it"

Isn't there any setting that I might be overlooking here ?

Thanks

Phil

Nope... there is no setting you are overlooking. This is a common question that comes up a lot. I guarantee you that when you render your project to AVI and output for display on a TV the video will be the same brightness as when you captured it (assuming you did nothing to adjust the brightness in Vegas). Vegas is not reducing the brightness.

Now... as this video IS for display on a PC monitor... I would recommend you increase the brightness using the color curves FX in Vegas.

You will have to render the project (or at least a short segment) to your final format (WMV or whatever) and then review what it looks like to make sure the player displays it adequately.

HI,


Ok so I just fooled around a bit with it and here are some very strange results.

I took one of my project and rendered it uncompressed and played it in all 3 players previously mentionned , same results.

I took a screenshot in BSplayer , the screenshot look EXACTLY the same as the preview window in vegas and I didn't play with any brightness level of any of my players.

So it looks like the core data has the brightness right but none of the player can show it right when it comes to playback time ???

And Liam how could you explain that this issue didn't occur for at least the first 6 months I started editing stuff... I just started one day without warnings

Any thoughts on these two things

Thanks

Phil

And Liam how could you explain that this issue didn't occur for at least the first 6 months I started editing stuff... I just started one day without warnings

No idea... you tell me.

Ok ... and how about that screenshot thing , that the screeshot show the same brightness value as it is in Vegas

Thanks

No idea. I give up.

What happens if you compare your original capture files between Vegas and the other viewers, is there any difference?

Is there a chance you have some filter defaulted to the final output?

Dave T2

Hi Dave ,


No , that's the thing , I capture , render a small portion right away and the result is darker when played on 3 different media players and I didn't change any settings in any of those

Thanks for asking

But if you open the original capture, with no rendering, in Vegas and a different player, then they look the same?

Dave T

Sounds like the "brightness" levels of the several playback devices are not set the same. Since the 3 players all seem dark on the computer monitor, it might be worth looking at the "brightness" level of the TV itself. Frequently TV sets are set to blast the color out of sight (too bright) from the factory, and many people either never set it correctly or think that it is correct with too bright a picture.

Course, the opposite could be true. The computer monitor may be set too dark. Hard to say.

Good luck deciding which is wrong.

If its a new problem and you didn't have it before and if you're only viewing off the same computer monitor as before, and it shows fine in Vegas, then something probably has changed with the players you are using to view the videos.

Remember... when viewing in Vegas it will use its preferred CODEC, that comes with Vegas, when viewing with Media Player it can't use the same CODEC, so it uses another. Could you have changed or picked up some other graphic software that could have added yet another CODEC to the mix?

Try rendering to Microsoft's WMV format or a Real Media format and see if the brightness issue goes away, since both Vegas and Media Player seem to use the same CODEC to compress and uncompress to play both those file types.

Sounds like a display gamma problem to me. Perhaps the media players are imposing their own gamma settings?

Hi all,

Thanks for your feedback ,

To come back on whaty Dave was asking , if I play the capture file in any player , it actually does look different than the vegas preview window

Billy : I reencoded the file in real format and it is still the same thing but if I throw it in the media encoder the wmv file that comes out is fine.....

I've actually reinstalled XP recently (unrelated issues) and there hasn't been and new hardware device installed since last summer.

The thing that really puzzles me is the thing about the screenshot , read above, if someone can come up with a decent explanation for this behavior I will give him a medal

Thanks for your time

Phil

Apologies if this has been mentioned above - but - do you think you have the FX bypass in Preview ( you seeing at correct brightness ) AND you've got some Track FX working? - Is this a silly obsevation? Grazie

My Windows Media Player does exactly the opposite (videos are shown too bright). It has to do with gamma as someone else suggested. The good thing is I have an icon (graphics card software) that when right clicked allows me to "revert to default" all settings, and then the video show as it's supposed to.
Same thing happens with Intervideo WinDVD (while playing back DVDs).
I still have to figure out how to fix those settings so it shows ok every time.

Some media players use the OVERLAY gamma setting for your display adapter. This is DIFFERENT from the gamma setting for regular computer viewing.

I have an ATI adapter (8500 Radeon). I right click on the desktop, select Properties, and then click on the Settings tab (you can get to this same place through the Display icon in Control Panel). On the Settings tab, click on the Advanced button.

From this point on, your options will be different because the Advanced settings are display-dependent. However, on my ATI card, using the latest Catalyst drivers, there is a tab labeled "Overlay." This is where you adjust the brightness for your media players. If you actually have media playing while you change this adjustment, you will see a strange and wonderful thing, namely that the brightness of the video playback gets brighter and darker, but the rest of your computer screen is completely unaffected. Since Vegas does NOT use the overlay to display in the preview window, this would explain why video does not look the same brightness. Also, some media players do not use the overlay.

I'll bet (90% confidence) that this is your problem.

Not only do televisions and computer monitors have different gamma response, but, as has been suggested, some media players will "enhance" the video in order to make it look "better." This is exactly the same behavior that consumer TV's use as opposed to a professional video monitor which attempts to display the video as it really looks.

And, no, I'm not saying this in order to provoke another pro vs. consumer monitor debate.

I think John Meyer has the correct answer to your question in the message above. Media players using overlay display video differently than those not using overlay. The question then becomes, which one is "correct." You just need to carefully calibrate all you displays and go from there. Once it leaves your hands, it isn't your responsibility to compensate for how other may have their TV's and computer monitors misadjusted.

John

Hi guys ,

Ok so first Grazie, no I don't have the FX bypassed , this was not a stupid question , we sometimes overlook the basics.

For the others : I've already check the overlay properties of my Nvidia drivers and they are all at default settings.

But I checked the overlay settings for all my players (media,BS and VLan) and remove the tick for overlays.They are all fine now , can't believe this was that easy.

So Mr Meyer , in my case all my players had the overlay turned on and unchecking that option solved my problem so you can turn your confidence meter to 100% :)

The only thing that remains is that obviously the common computer user don't have a clue of what we are talking about here and most likely they have the overlay turned on so should I leave it on then.


Thanks guys.

Phil

It is your choice whether to leave it on or not, but there is a setup for it so you can match it better to your actual video.

Do you see any performance difference between on or off?

Dave T2