Sounds possible. Adding Levels changes and slightly corrects the values but the main concern is the color shift and why it looks identical in VLC and Resolve but not VEGAS.

I'd say that's a colorspace mismatch (in addition to the different level handling). But hard to say which one is right and which one is false (at least the Vegas Pro levels are correct).

This is what it looks like if in Vegas Pro you apply both a level conversion and color space conversion from rec. 709 to rec. 601.

This is close to the scope of your VLC version above.

So my guess is VLC and Resolve read both the color range and the color space the wrong way (seems like they treat it as rec. 601 with limited range).

I think Marco is right in that Vegas shows the colors correctly and that both VLC and Resolve treat the Nikon footage as if it were rec601 which used to be commonplace. Here are the results of applying a 601 to 709 conversion using the Channel Blend Fx. First the original.

And here's after applying the Fx.

Hey guys,

These are my footage, and thanks for looking into it. I would like to add that the shirt in real life is deep red, and the camera footage played directly in the camera (or on YouTube) is also deep red. So I prefer the way the footage looks like in VLC/Resolve/Nikon/YouTube and that's why I'm assuming Vegas is the one interpreting the footage incorrectly.

I think Marco is right in that Vegas shows the colors correctly and that both VLC and Resolve treat the Nikon footage as if it were rec601 which used to be commonplace. Here are the results of applying a 601 to 709 conversion using the Channel Blend Fx. First the original.

And here's after applying the Fx.

How do I apply a 601 to 709 conversion? Could you share your preset?

I'm a little confused by this part

"Color range                              : Full
Color primaries                          : BT.709
transfer_characteristics_Original        : BT.470 System M
Matrix coefficients                      : BT.601"

So it's full range with 709 primaries and BT 601 matrix coefficients? I didn't realize these could be mixed and matched.

So is the issue that the file is actually 601 but Vegas is interpreting as 709?

@sss-v

Here's a link to the two presets--601 to 709 and also 709-601.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/w9sae645mxt5ihr/AABEGg5EtGQjBXTri5h-LCH9a?dl=0

@sss-v

Here's a link to the two presets--601 to 709 and also 709-601.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/w9sae645mxt5ihr/AABEGg5EtGQjBXTri5h-LCH9a?dl=0

 

Thanks. I'm an audio person and kind of new to video and not used to working with compressed footage (audio is always uncompressed). Is applying this conversion going to degrade the footage? My alternative would be doing the editing in Resolve and no conversion is needed there.

Resolve may be doing a similar conversion internally. You'll also have a full to video levels conversion upon output so it will be changed regardless (Resolve has to do this as well).

Most video is heavily compressed and people still make adjustments to it that are far beyond just these tweaks to each channel (correcting white balance, applying creative look LUTs, conversion to B&W, etc.). Then after you render and bake in any changes the file will be recompressed and significantly degraded if you choose to upload it to a site like YouTube. That last step is where you'll really see the changes, not in minor color adjustments.

Resolve may be doing a similar conversion internally. You'll also have a full to video levels conversion upon output so it will be changed regardless (Resolve has to do this as well).

Most video is heavily compressed and people still make adjustments to it that are far beyond just these tweaks to each channel (correcting white balance, applying creative look LUTs, conversion to B&W, etc.). Then after you render and bake in any changes the file will be recompressed and significantly degraded if you choose to upload it to a site like YouTube. That last step is where you'll really see the changes, not in minor color adjustments.

That's why I'm trying to avoid any unnecessary changes on my side, since I'll know YouTube is going to have it's way with it! I'll be uploading uncompressed, so I guess that'll help a little.

@sss-v

Here's a link to the two presets--601 to 709 and also 709-601.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/w9sae645mxt5ihr/AABEGg5EtGQjBXTri5h-LCH9a?dl=0

 

I tried the preset, and made the level adjustment too. But the footage, although a lot closer, doesn't look identical to VLC/Resolve so something's still missing I guess. I don't have the technical ability to match it. Any hints?

That's why I'm trying to avoid any unnecessary changes on my side, since I'll know YouTube is going to have it's way with it! I'll be uploading uncompressed, so I guess that'll help a little.

That's really a non-sequitur. Just make the changes you need.

I apply technical correction LUTs and do further corrections to every video I make. Straight out of camera colors are never acceptable for my purposes. I upload as ProRes to YouTube when it's not too long, and otherwise a decent quality mp4 done through Voukoder in Vegas. Compared to what YouTube does to it the difference between these files is minimal.

In Resolve did you click on the media, go to clip attributes, and override levels to full range? (I didn't test the video myself but that's what Marco suggested).

See if that makes it look the same.

For a player VLC is okay but I moved to MPC (Media Player Classic) Black Edition and highly recommend it. So far it's been accurate with everything I've imported.

@Marco.is correct.

This is a strange one.

With levels set to full in Resolve (it properly reads the file as full range), here's what it looks like. It appears to match Windows Media Player. MPC-BE looks like it's using limited levels, so it's not accurate with this file.



Post 601 to 709 correction, Vegas matches the rest:

@wwaag Are you sure the Channel Blend presets are named correctly? If I compare these presets with my 601/709 LUTs they work vice versa.

Edit:
It really seems the LUT I used is named incorrectly and the Channel Blend presets are correct. Then my conclusion about the handling of the color space would be vice versa, too. Sorry for this confusion.
And if I got it right it would then confirm Roger's result.

Just having taken a closer look onto the isolated red channel only and how it behaves when color space conversions are applied.

I now really tend to think Vegas Pro is doing it the wrong way (while it treats the levels right). Without a color space conversion from 601 to 709 there is some red information clipped which will be reconstructed by this color space conversion.

So it looks like in Resolve there would be the need to get the levels corrected. And in Vegas Pro there would be the need to get the color space corrected.

Thanks Marco for your analysis.

I believe Resolve levels are fine- the waveform looks the same as VP 18. Manually overriding auto to full did nothing so it's already at full range.

(Quick verification looking at the screenshot shows the white target and speaker to have the same RGB values)

O.k. Then probably only VLC is using the wrong level data.

Btw - setting both the transfer characteristics and the matrix coefficients to 709 makes no difference in Vegas Pro.

So I realized if I render AVI using Sony YUV "without" applying the 601 -> 709 conversion, the colors come out just right on their own (levels seem a bit crushed though).

And, if I apply the 601 -> 709 conversion and render using AVI Uncompressed the colors still come out wrong, even though they look corrected in Vegas.

Feeling a bit frustrated. Maybe I would save time switching to Resolve and learning that rather that trying to debug my workflow in Vegas.

Any thoughts?

@sss-v 
Does this happen to you only for the clips from that one particular camera?

"So I realized if I render AVI using Sony YUV "without" applying the 601 -> 709 conversion, the colors come out just right on their own (levels seem a bit crushed though)."

Do you mean you put your unmodified source clip into Vegas Pro with no FX applied and rendered to Sony YUV from Vegas Pro?

I tried that but it looks identical to the original file. Still orange. Levels were the same when I brought into Vegas and put it a track under the original and toggled between them.

I think the answer is to add that conversion at the track level to any clips shot with that camera and you're done.

This shouldn't be an issue for DSLRs newer than that first generation a decade ago as they are straight Rec 709.