MPC plays dark

[rdeffley]

For the longest time, I was a VLC fan. But in recent months I started using Media Player Classic Home Cinema and I really like it. Playback/quality seems nicer and the options are great. It's also great how settings stay stored unlike VLC where you have to manually reset.

But, one thing I've noticed about MPC is that it plays files at least 20-30% darker than the source. I have to keep brightness set @ +16 to match the DVD or HD source. Any idea why MPC plays files so dark? VLC doesn't have this issue.

[hello_hello]

I suspect it's MPC-HC getting it right, but you're used to VLC. The question would be, how do you know VLC is getting it right (it's the same as the DVD or HD source)? Which renderer are you using with MPC-HC?

Normal video uses a different range of luminance levels than PCs do. Video is normally limited range (16-235) while PCs use full range levels (0-255). For video to display correctly on a PC monitor the levels need to be expanded. If they're not, the video will look brighter, although it can potentially look "washed out". If you play a video with encoded black bars (ie a widescreen movie on DVD) do the black bars look black or dark grey? If they look dark grey, the levels are probably wrong. If they're "blacker" for MPC-HC then it's probably using the correct levels. If the black borders are the same using both players but the video itself is darker using MPC-HC then something is wrong, but that'd be unusual.

For MPC-HC if you select the EVR Renderer (custom presenter) in options under Output and restart the player, that should give you the correct levels. Most of the other renderers don't expand the levels. You can check when using the EVR renderer via the View/Renderer Settings/Output Range menu. 0-255 should be checked. If you change it to 16-235 and it looks the same as VLC, then VLC is no doubt using the wrong levels (I know nothing about VLC).
(Edit: If you're using XP there's a chance the MPC-HC output range setting won't make any difference. I think for XP it's broken and expanding the levels needs to be done via the video card drivers)

Most video cards have a setting to expand the levels for video so it doesn't require the player to get it right. For Nvidia it looks something like this. It shouldn't matter if a player and the video card drivers are both set to expand the levels. They won't be expanded twice.



I suspect maybe you're used to VLC being brighter, but it's not really "correct", but all of the above assumes you're viewing the video with a PC monitor and not with a PC connected to a TV. If you're connected to a TV then expanding the levels might be the wrong thing to do as it might expect limited levels and the picture would then be too dark.

To add to the fun, if you expand the levels using the video card drivers, they kind of "take over" and MPC-HC's own brightness and contrast controls etc will probably stop working. If you then want to adjust the brightness or contrast etc, you'll probably need to do it via the video card's settings.

Anyway, even if I'm not exactly on the right track the info above might help you to work out which player is getting the levels correct so you know where to start looking to fix them.