Rendered Videos Dark After Uploading to YouTube

Parallax Abstraction wrote on 8/9/2017, 1:02 PM

Hey all. I've been having this problem for quite some time and it's becoming frustrating so I'm hoping people here will have an answer. I run a small, gaming focused YouTube channel I'm using Vegas Pro 13 to edit. I've had a problem for a long time where after rendering, my videos appear very dark on both YouTube and in certain media players (PotPlayer for example.) I've been correcting this by applying the Computer RGB to Studio RGB filter to my entire project before rendering. However, I have discovered that this is not a good solution. My videos rendered this way have consistent colour washout compared to footage on other channels. To give an example:

The background of that game play should be solid white but as you can see, in the video, it's kind of a washed out grey. Colours in my videos with Computer RGB to Studio RGB applied simply don't pop like they should. Here's how I structure my projects:

-I'm running 8-bit pixel format.
-I capture in lossless (using MagicYUV now but I previously used Lagarith) and import those clips directly into Vegas.
-Right now, I apply Computer RGB to Studio RGB to the entire project.
-I render with a customised MainConcept AVC/AAC template that's set to 1080p/60 and renders at 25,000,000 bit rate. It's set to use CUDA if available but I have a GTX 1080 so it makes no difference either way since Vegas Pro hasn't worked with CUDA since the 5xx series. Here's a screenshot of all the settings.
-I upload the rendered video to YouTube with no other encoding done.

Does anyone have a solid solution to this? I see tons of other YouTube channels with much better colours than mine and without the darkness issue. Trading one visual problem for another isn't a good solution and this being a professional grade application, I'm sure there's a way around this I just don't know. Can any fellow Vegas heads assist? Thanks a ton everyone!

Comments

Red Prince wrote on 8/9/2017, 1:14 PM

The background of that game play should be solid white but as you can see, in the video, it's kind of a washed out grey. Colours in my videos with Computer RGB to Studio RGB applied simply don't pop like they should.

The computer RGB to studio RGB is what turns the white background to light gray. So, do not apply that conversion. It was needed back in the days of MPEG-2, but not with AVC.

Parallax Abstraction wrote on 8/9/2017, 1:16 PM

Yes but as I said, if I don't apply that filter, the videos are way too dark overall on YouTube. Neither's a proper solution to the core problem.

Musicvid wrote on 8/9/2017, 1:48 PM

Turn off the Dynamic Contrast control (or whatever its called) on your graphics card, monitor, player, and/or teevee. Calibrate your display with Calibrize, and then start a fresh project with Vegas scopes and levels. If that fixes it, read this:

https://www.vegascreativesoftware.info/us/forum/pc-to-tv-levels-a-comedy-of-errors--107325/

Parallax Abstraction wrote on 8/9/2017, 7:10 PM

That's an interesting idea but it wouldn't explain why the videos look fine in the Vegas Pro preview window and only look dark when rendered out and played in certain players. I've also tested rendering projects on my laptop with similar results. The darkness in the videos is definitely done in the rendering process somewhere.

Red Prince wrote on 8/9/2017, 7:26 PM

Does the problem appear when you play the rendered video on your computer (I mean before uploading it to YouTube)? Because YouTube will re-compress your video after the upload. For example, their own specs state that they use 12 Mbps for 1080p60 (or 15 Mbps for HDR), which is a lot less than the 25 Mbps you render to.

Parallax Abstraction wrote on 8/9/2017, 7:35 PM

The problem does appear when I play the videos on my computer but not in every media player. If I play them in PotPlayer, they're dark. In Windows Media Player, they're fine. I also encode at a higher bitrate than YouTube recommends because if you do that, you actually get a better end product on the site with fewer artifacts than if you just render in their recommended bitrate. I've tested this myself. Infuriating but so are most things YouTube. :)

Red Prince wrote on 8/9/2017, 7:41 PM

Yes, YouTube is quite infuriating.

Musicvid wrote on 8/9/2017, 10:36 PM

Parallax Abstraction wrote on 8/9/2017, 6:10 PM

That's an interesting idea but it wouldn't explain why the videos look fine in the Vegas Pro preview window and only look dark when rendered out and played in certain players.

Yes, it would.

Parallax Abstraction wrote on 8/10/2017, 3:50 PM

How? How would monitor calibration effect how the video looks fine in one media player and not in another? If it looks different in different players on the same monitor, calibration of said monitor isn't a solution.

OldSmoke wrote on 8/10/2017, 4:41 PM

How? How would monitor calibration effect how the video looks fine in one media player and not in another? If it looks different in different players on the same monitor, calibration of said monitor isn't a solution.

Did you read the thread musicvid referred to?

Parallax Abstraction wrote on 8/10/2017, 4:59 PM

Yes I did. And I'm clearly still missing something because I don't understand how calibrating my particular monitor is going to solve the problem of my videos looking dark when uploaded to YouTube. The images in his thread look the way he says they should look on my display. I'm happy to turn off Dynamic Contrast and run Calibrize but I still fail to see how that's going to make the videos look right on everyone else's display. That's why I figure there's a way to solve this in Vegas Pro itself because there are tons of other gaming YouTubers who edit in Vegas Pro and whose videos don't look this way.

Musicvid wrote on 8/10/2017, 6:57 PM

Did I even hint at a single cause or a single solution to this?

If you think so, I'm sorry I even responded.

I intended to suggest starting fresh with a clean project, a clean monitor, conformed source, a clean player, and awareness of the "hidden" level controls possibly lurking in each. The reason I suggested that is because their is stuff in your chain that neither reflects nor invalidates the results of many other users.

Oftentimes, the "stuff" I mentioned is impossible to pin down once it has already happened.

The math suggests that there are 31 out of 32 ways to get it wrong. Would you rather start with a clean plate, or embark on a mission to rule out those possibilities one at a time?

If your video looks right in the Vegas preview, it will be wrong on YouTube. That's because Vegas is not a player. Between here and there and your monitor, there are all kinds of "stuff" that can go even wronger!

Parallax Abstraction wrote on 8/10/2017, 9:59 PM

I'm happy to try those things, I'm just saying that given my experience to date trying this on multiple machines, I'm more confident the problem is between Vegas Pro and YouTube than my display. But hey, it's good advice worth trying so I will block out some time this weekend to do so and run some tests. Thanks.

EricLNZ wrote on 8/10/2017, 11:54 PM

Apart from the loss of highlight white, and shadows black, caused by you using Studio RGB your video looks okay to me. It certainly isn't overall dark. I'm viewing on a monitor set to show full RGB.

You have no control over how others have their monitors, tablets or phones set. Can you upload a short test without Studio RGB for us to look at.

Parallax Abstraction wrote on 8/11/2017, 9:11 AM

I'll try out Musicvid's suggestions and if those don't bear fruit, I'll render out a small section of that Cublast video without the filter.

Musicvid wrote on 8/11/2017, 9:19 AM

You know, I just looked at a number of Cublast examples on YouTube, AND THEY ALL LOOK JUST LIKE YOURS.

You do not seem to have an obvious problem, so best of luck.

Parallax Abstraction wrote on 8/11/2017, 9:22 AM

The game itself has a much more white background than the video and I have seen videos on my displays that much more closely look like that. Of course, I can't remember any of them now. :) Nonetheless, your suggestions can certainly help provide some more consistency in the visual quality of my videos going forward so I'll try them regardless.

Musicvid wrote on 8/11/2017, 9:38 AM

I'm not seeing that on YouTube. Yours actually looks cleaner. Time to put down this project and focus on something else for a while; maybe download the Belle-Nuit charts and conform your system and player video levels from door to door using Vegas Scopes as your internal reference. That way you are ruling out all incidental excuses.