Hello.
First of all, thank all for letting me use this platform to ask for help. Should my question be in the wrong section, please forgive me - i am kind of in a hurry (limited freetime during work) and have a problem i need a solution for. So here goes.
During my recent holiday, my boyfriend's nephew took a video of a live performance at night, using my digicam (Sony T200). However, being 10 years old, he had no idea that "night mode" is to be used.
So now i have a nice video clip - which is pitch black!
Now when i play it on the computer (WMP 11) no problem - the "Video Settings" has a "Brightness" slider and this is fully sufficient to enjoy the clip in good colours etc, BUT there's a catch.
The video is to be converted and put on my boyfriend's nephew's mobile phone...... which, of course, does NOT have a "Brightness" slider.
So HOW can i "brighten things up" by quite a bit? It should be possible as WMP can play it so nicely. I have already tried "VideoEditMagic" which can make it BRIGHT enough, but the result is all red-ish - and no matter how i play with it's settings and options, i only get it all red or too dark (and still red!)
The second software i just tried is MPEG_Streamclip" after reading about it right here in your forum - however the result is similar to VideoEditMagic - either too dark, or all red, no matter what i twist and turn.
Now i have two possibilities - play it on WMP and "capture" it off the monitor with the digicam once more - lotsa work as i will need to replace the audio track with the one from the original etc etc etc...... plus the quality doesn't get better by doing that either (and there are these nasty stripes running thru the picture!!). OR i find a solution, i.e. the name of a software that really CAN do the task, from someone here
The original file by the way is a regular .mpg file, nothing fancy.
Please, video pros, help a somewhat newbie-ish guy out...... i appreciate any help i can get
With kind regards.....
your Thanh
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There are lots of ways to do this. First, what format does the mobile phone use? That somewhat determines the software as it's simpler to do the brightness/color/filter adjustments at the same time as you do the conversion to the final format.
Since the original is MPEG and the phone probably uses a AVI type format, I would try VirtualDub Mod and maybe the Color Mill filter. That combines most of the adjustments needed to make it more 'viewable'. If VD Mod can also convert it to the proper format all in one session, even better. colormill2.1.1.zip
You may need to resize, change the audio or make other adjustments also.
And welcome to our forums. -
Hello
Thank you so much for your reply. The mobile phone in question does indeed use a specific type of .avi file, it is a Nokia 3230 which has a software named "SmartMovie" installed on it and on my computer is the appropriate converter for that.
However (i've been doing a shipoad of video converting for myself too and have no problems at all with THAT step) i was planning to have the file still as .mpg after the "brightening" action, so i can convert it, if necessary, to other formats later on (.avi for THAT phone, .3gp for MY phone, you name it...) so basically i wish to simply brighten up the existing .mpg respectively create a new .mpg file that is just brighter than this one.
My normal procedure is to start with a .mpg file for any further editing - as i am very used to TmpgEnc. So i use a number of single-purpose or multi-purpose converter softwares to get from whatever format i obtained a clip in to .mpg, which i then cut, merge etc in TmpgEnc. The resulting .mpg i then convert to the format i NEED the file in - mostly to run on my own phone or a portable device such as an iPod.
VirtualDub i used on Windows XP before for a number of tasks, will it work on Vista too? Does it do the job even if the output file is still .mpg? And, very important, is there a preview option? Because one thing i can't stand is to wait and wait for a conversion to finish and only by watching the finished file finding out that it isn't as it should be (ProCoder has this nasty habit on Vista - no preview, and sometimes videos play upside-sown after finished).
Thank you very much for welcoming me too, and i hope i don't become a bother
With kind regards.....
your Thanh -
VirtualDub Mod or the regular VD work fine on Vista. I suggested VD as it has many available filters. When you brighten a video, the colors may shift and the overall appearance may be sort of 'muddy' as contrast is lost and noise appears in the video. That's why I suggested Color Mill.
But VD only outputs in AVI type formats. You could use a low loss AVI format, like DV-AVI by adding a DV codec like the Panasonic DV Codec, then converting back to MPEG if wanted. Or frameserve the output directly to a MPEG encoder, like TMPGEnc.
Most MPEG editors don't have the available filtering needed for color correction, contrast, video levels, noise filtering that VD has. And you can preview the filtering to see the results before encoding.
There are many guides available for VD Mod or VD at the bottom of their tool pages. -
Hello again
Thank you very much for your help. However it didn't work out..... even with your method i get only very poor results. VirtualDub Mod works fine in Vista, also the filter... however again, everything comes out all red and very "pixelated", when i use the Colour Mill filter, as soon as i take down the "red" a little it becomes all green or blue..... i just don't get the natural colours.
I ended up doing what i had to do - played it, mounted the digicam in a way that it could capture off the screen and swapped the audio track of the new clip with that from the original, now i have it in watchable quality (not as good as when just playing on WMP with the "brightness" slider fully right but at least watchable) and i consider it "ok".
But i do appreciate your help on the matter, at least one thing it gained me - the knowledge that VirtualDub Mod runs fine on Vista
A new question, if you don't mind - i have VideoEditMagic 4.4 here on my office machine (Windows XP), this claims to be compatible with Vista too - however upon installing it there it installed just fine, yet double clicking it's icon does nothing whatsoever, the application just won't start. Right-clicking and "run as administrator" yields the exact same result - no reaction. What might be wrong? (i did uninstall it and installed again, this time ran the installer itself "as administrator" too but that too didn't work).
With kind regards.......
your Thanh -
I downloaded and installed a trial version of VideoEditMagic 4.4 and it ran with no problems on one of my Vista computers. You may have a corrupted installer or there is something else running on the computer that's interfering with the install.
I would try it from a different source.
I would also check and see if it has any special requirements and see if there is a FAQ on the software's home site that might be of some help.
Here's a general Vista compatibility list for future reference: http://www.iexbeta.com/wiki/index.php/Windows_Vista_RTM_Software_Compatibility_List -
Hello
Thanks for the reply, i appreciate it. Once i get home i will give it another try - maybe it's already working now. because one thing i noticed is that after installing both VideoEditMagic AND VirtualDub Mod, the next time i attempted to play a regular .avi file in WMP this application (WMP) crashed with "Fault Module = ac3filter.ax" or something like that. I fixed that by re-registering that .ax file and that worked again, however i did not try to run VideoEditMagic again.
I often found that installing some video editing application or converter would break one or several codecs (Vista Codec Pack), last time when i did something (i think it was a new version of Super or whatever) i could not play ANY video any longer, and after reinstalling a new version of Vista Codec Pack everything played but nothing except .wmv had sound...... ended up with System RestoreVista is really a b!tch when it comes to "video".
With kind regards.....
your Thanh -
Hi
I've read some threads on this forum for a while trying to solve this exact same problem.
I have an ASF video that is also virtually completely black. It is a band playing in a very dark room. (Actually the bar is called The Darkroom.) If I play it in Windows Media Player and put the brightness control at max I can watch the video and even make out details of the faces of the people, so I know that useable video information is on there. I've tried to increase the brightness in Ulead Studio 7, Virtual Dub, Movavi Video Editor, and Moviemaker. They all will raise the brightness to some degree, but the detail is gone and it's still too dark. (I think VDUB never even worked with the ASF file. I tried version 1.3 and 1.7.) No amount of playing with the controls can come close to the brightness and quality I get through Windows Media Player.
Why is WMP so much better at increasing brightness and showing the details?
Is there a software I could buy that works that well? (The Ulead was dismal compared to WMP.)
I'm starting to come to the same conclusion Thanh came to, which is to recapture the video through analog means. Is there a device that can capture video through a VGA monitor connection?
I also can play the video on my TV through my camcorder, where it comes out dark as well, but could I use a composite-video capture device with a better built-in brightness control?
Any help would be appreciated,
thanks,
Lou
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