The Dark Knight - Colors seem off?

[agent154]

I can't tell if I'm imagining things, or if there's really something wrong.

Ripped TDK from BluRay and re-encoded it with MeGUI. Faces seem... a bit too red. It bothers me because I've encoded other movies recently with the same settings, and they don't appear to have anything wrong with them. All I have in my avs script is the following:

DirectShowSource("Q:\FullDisc\THE DARK KNIGHT\BDMV\STREAM\00007.m2ts", fps=23.976, audio=false)
ConvertToYV12()

[sanlyn]

Yes, a bit red. Not all commercial videos are made that well. I've seen worse. Since you've converted it to YV12, use ColorYUV to dull some of that red (COlorYUV(cont_v=-20). Also, according to the photo posted, your darks are crushed.

[agent154]

It looks perfect when I play it on my bluray player on my TV. The m2ts I ripped though, while looking at it on my PC, looks like that. I'll try your suggestion about coloryuv.

What do you mean by darks being crushed though?

[jagabo]

Try ColorMatrix(mode="Rec.709->Rec.601") if you're making standard definition. Or specify the rec.709 matrix in your encode. Rec.601 vs. Rec.709:



Your darks probably aren't crushed. The shot is supposed to be that way -- with all that back lighting.

[agent154]

I'm re-ripping the bluray right now just on some weird off chance that it was ripped poorly. I doubt it, but whatever.

I'll also take another shot that's far more telling.

FWIW, I'm ripping it and encoding to full 1080p. Not sure what difference that will make.

[sanlyn]

What do you mean by darks being crushed though?

The picture has no shadow detail. But that could be just the pic, I don't know how well it represents your source.

[jagabo]

I still think you have a rec.601 vs rec.709 problem. Most HD video is encoded with rec.709. Most software players use rec.601.

[sanlyn]

I brought this into VirtualDub with Rec601. Used photoshop to determine white and black points. Rest was done in VirtualDub. That lighting is a problem.


[Attachment 13025 - Click to enlarge]

[sanlyn]

Your darks probably aren't crushed. The shot is supposed to be that way -- with all that back lighting.

No, it's not bad, it's likely the way VLC is playing it. After all, this is just a screen cap of VLC's display. I have to tweak VLC's contrast/brightness for each of my PC'S, and PowerDVD and others as well. Depending on the graphics card, etc., the colors wouldn't be correct anyway -- VLC's measley Tint control is too fiddly to be that useful. Too bad there's no PC player with better image setup controls.

[lordsmurf]

Original looks fine to me.

Not all scenes are color-corrected for reality.
Sometimes it's purely for effect. Remember that when editing.

[agent154]

Might be VLC after all.. or my desktop. I played the movie in XBMC via my laptop on my TV, and everything looks perfect.

Thanks for the input anyhow.