[Vegas] How to keep colors as exact as possible to source material?

[rocco123]

I mean, I use an animation program, and I render the animation in a .mp4 file

I put this .mp4 file in Sony Vegas for post production, and when I render it, the colors are changed sightly.

Current settings im using for rendering:




These are the settings i've been using thus far. Using 32bit and linear improved the color a lot, but it is still not the exact tone as the source video... what should I change?

[_Al_]

Project Properties, pixel format = full range?, that may not work for your video, try to change it the other choice - video levels or 8bit

[poisondeathray]

What video type inside the mp4 ?

What does "colors are changed sightly" mean ? (slightly?) but to what extent ? Can you post a before/after ? how are you determining this (how are you viewing or taking screenshots)

What other types of manipulations are you doing in vegas ?

Vegas only works in RGB. So would expect to get some minor rounding differences if working with YUV sources in many scenarios

[rocco123]

What video type inside the mp4 ?

What program do you recommend to check the information within the mp4 files?

What does "colors are changed sightly" mean ? (slightly?) but to what extent ? Can you post a before/after ? how are you determining this (how are you viewing or taking screenshots)

The colors become less vivid somehow... im determining this by looking at the source mp4 file and then the rendered mp4 file with sony vegas. I will post screenshots later.

What other types of manipulations are you doing in vegas ?

Im not doing anything else. Just rendering it through vegas is causing the change in color.

Vegas only works in RGB. So would expect to get some minor rounding differences if working with YUV sources in many scenarios

I will try to find a program that gives me all info about the mp4 files, im not sure if the animation program renders in RGB or YUV. Its called mine imator, a minecraft animation program.

[poisondeathray]

you can use mediainfo (view=>text)

do what _Al_ suggests first. Probably you want to use video levels

[rocco123]

I got this info from MediaInfo, there is a lot of options in this program so I hope this is enough:

ID : 1
Format : MPEG-4 Visual
Format profile : Simple@L1
Format settings, BVOP : No
Format settings, QPel : No
Format settings, GMC : No warppoints
Format settings, Matrix : Default (H.263)
Codec ID : mp4v-20
Duration : 10 s 34 ms
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 8 737 kb/s
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 30.000 FPS
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Compression mode : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.140
Stream size : 10.5 MiB (100%)
Writing library : Lavc57.89.100

That is the source file. Looks like it's YUV.

This is after rendering with Vegas in the settings seen on the first post:

ID : 2
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : Main@L4.1
Format settings : CABAC / 3 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, RefFrames : 3 frames
Format settings, GOP : M=4, N=15
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 10 s 67 ms
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 20.2 Mb/s
Maximum bit rate : 28.0 Mb/s
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 30.000 FPS
Standard : NTSC
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.325
Stream size : 24.3 MiB (99%)
Language : English
Encoded date : UTC 2018-04-06 16:31:16
Tagged date : UTC 2018-04-06 16:31:16
Color range : Limited

And here is a comparation, as you can see, the rendered one looks brighter:



Here is video levels 32 bit:



And here is 8bit:



And as you can see, changing from full range, video levels or 8bit makes no difference. What can I do to make it look like the source one?

[poisondeathray]

ok I remember now - it's the same as this
https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/379756-Stuttering-preview-in-Vegas-when-using-a-ce...es#post2454685

I use vegas 13 and the decoding pathway gets routed through qt7plug.dll . It's a variation of the "quicktime gamma shift bug" . It was a pretty common bug in the past.

It might be different for the newer "Magix" versions

In theory, you could just re-wrap it to AVI, and it would use another decoding pathway, but it doesn't work for your sample

The solution record in a different format (IIRC there were several options in that program), or re-encode it to something else before using vegas

You can try to manipulate with the levels filter and come close, but it's easier IMO to use a more compatible format

[rocco123]

In any case, what do you think about my settings here?




should i change something? for example, the variable bitrate settings are correct?