Ripped videos too dark

[Captain315]

I've tried about everything I can think of to fix backup videos that are too dark. Anyone know of a program that might allow me to change the video before burning to disk? I've tried different rippers, different players etc. but they are still way too dark.

[poisondeathray]

I've tried about everything I can think of to fix backup videos that are too dark. Anyone know of a program that might allow me to change the video before burning to disk? I've tried different rippers, different players etc. but they are still way too dark.

When you say before 'burning to disk' what do you mean? authoring and making a dvd video? or burning something like an AVI as a data file to disk?

If you are ripping a DVD then encoding to an AVI, just add a brightness filter

If it is an already compressed video like XviD or h.264 or DVD-Video files, you can playback with a brightening filter on your software media player otherwise you have to re-encode (and lose some quality) with a brightness filter

[Captain315]

Thanks for the reply. As an example, "American Gangster" after being ripped with DVDfab Platinum and DvdDecrypter and run thru Shrink, the resulting video is way too dark when played on the PC and the TV. I want to eventually convert all my movies to Xvid (if that's the best) and keep them on a portable hard drive. I have an Oppo dvd player that has a USB port for such things but I've got to straighten out the darkness problem before I try to tackle conversion to AVI. I've never heard of a brightness filter but if it could be used in conjunction with these other programs, I would sure like to hear how it can be done and any suggestions of which and where to get such a filter. I'm getting really tired of just seeing dark faces. Getting very frustrated with this as I've been experimenting with numerous programs for over two weeks now. Thanks for any help I can get.

[poisondeathray]

If it "appears" dark on your computer and settings it may be normal on someone else's. If you re-encode to make it brighter, it might look "whitewashed" on other systems.

One solution is just to turn up the brightness with your software media player - this way you don't have to re-convert anything (e.g. vlc, mpc, power dvd all have settings for playback)

If you ripped a DVD, you cannot "brighten" up your VOB files permanantly unless you re-encode them. If you choose to re-encode them, and your final goal is to make them even smaller, and you want best quality for a given filesize/bitrate, h.264 > DivX or XviD, but takes much more CPU power & time to encode. If you had the space, I would leave them ripped as is (best quality), because every conversion to a lossy format will result in some quality loss. Finally almost every converter has filters.

[jagabo]

You should be aware that computer monitors are very different from televisions. Video usually looks dark and drab on a computer monitor compared to a TV. You shouldn't adjust the video to look good on the computer, it will end up overly bright on TV. What your have been doing (rip, shrink, Xvid conversion, playing on an Oppo DVD player) should make no difference to the brightness of the picture.

If you want video to look brighter on the computer you should use your graphics card's video overlay feature's proc amp settings to adjust the brightness, contrast, gamma, color and hue. Video overlay has different settings than the desktop so this won't effect the desktop and other programs, only media players.

[Captain315]

Thanks for your advice. I will go and try some more settings on WinDVD, which is the player of choice for me right now. If there is a better one, I'd appreciate a heads up on it. The Oppo plays Divx/Xvid but I haven't tried compressing one to the h.264 format. Is this a better format than Xvid? Thanks again!

[poisondeathray]

If you want your final backup format compatible with your Oppo, h.264 won't work.

There are many settings you can adjust on WinDVD

[Captain315]

I will take your advice poison.... You've been extremely helpful and patient. I really appreciate your attitude and am envious of your knowledge. At my age, I forget more than I remember and things are changing very fast. It appears that you are very knowledgeable in this stuff so just one more question and I'll leave you alone. I appreciate all the ratings and comments on the tool section but it's obvious that some comments are premature or skewed in some manner. Consequently..... What converter (Xvid) do you consider the "best"? I've tried nearly all of them and AutoGK and avi.net are the only two that I can get to work. All the others seem to crash or give poor quality.

[jagabo]

AutoGK is one of the easiest to use and gives pretty good output. If you want more control you can try VirtualDub or AviDemux.

[poisondeathray]

I haven't used avi.net, so I can't comment, but AutoGK is good in that it's very easy to use.

For conversions to XviD from a Vob/DVD source, I use virtualdubmod, or avidemux, and they have many options that you can tweak for quality, and many filters etc...

Good Luck

EDIT: NICE! Jagabo beat me by 1sec

[Captain315]

I will give these two programs a try if I can figure them out enough. Thanks!