Why does TMPGEnc darken resulting MPEG-2 video??

[gkolleng]

I'm trying to convert a Divx movie to MPEG-2 for burn onto DVD. I have noticed that when I convert the Divx to MPEG-2 with TMPGEnc, the resulting MPEG-2 from TMPGEnc is darker than the original input Divx movie.

I have read some old posts where people suggest using the "Simple color correction" filter in TMPGEnc, however I'm not sure if this is the solution for my problem since I don't have any problems with the brightness of the original Divx movie. I'm having a problem with the output of TMPGEnc.

If I increased the brightness of the Divx movie with this filter would the resulting MPEG-2 be brighter as well? I'm pretty sure the answer is yes, but it will take a bit of guess work on my part, since the preview that TMPGEnc gives me when applying the filter is for the Divx movie which is already the proper brightness. So I wouldn't really know how much to increase the brightness.

Thanks.

[johns0]

Why dont you just encode a few minutes and burn to cdrw and see if the brightness looks ok,sometimes movies look too dark on the monitor but on tv they will look normal.

[gkolleng]

Right, or along the same lines, I could encode just 30 sec. or so of my Divx movie with TMPGEnc, and adjust the brightness setting accordingly. Thanks for the idea.

Does anyone know why TMPGEnc does this? Does it do this to all movies that it encodes? I haven't noticed it with all the movies I encode.

[jackrussell]

I've noticed that some mpg2 looks darker on the PC but when they have been burned to play on my dvd player they look fine and i even had to turn down brightness on the Tv with some of them.