AVCHD color look good on camera but terrible on pc (strange problem!?)

[smrpix]

Canon lists the lcd monitor on that camera as: 2.7" Multi-Angle Vivid Widescreen LCD (Approx. 211,000 pixels)

Don't know what "vivid" is supposed to mean (anyone?) But 211,000 pixels is certainly too few to judge quality. There is a brightness adjustment (see page 95 of your manual) that may help you bring the monitor into closer alignment with what is actually being recorded. Your .MTS looks excellent for a small camera by the way.

As a side note, the clip you uploaded obviously has the autofocus and autoexposure on (and I would speculate autowhite as well.) You obviously have a discerning eye and ought to be using manual.

[chaos33]

maybe my camcorder has an exceptional viewfinder that it plays the video better than it originally is:)

Several Canon camcorders have viewfinders (at least, LCD screens) which intentionally show the video with more contrast and deeper colour saturation than it really has. I don't know if yours is one of them.


The file on your PC is the same as the file on your camcorder. I don't know how you think it's magically breaking it during transfer. It doesn't have the capability to process it in any way while transferring it - neither wrecking it nor improving it.

Cheers,
David.

As you said may be expecting the same quality of camcorder's LCD screen was my mistake. As I said I am not a professional when it comes to this and this post has been very helpful to see how some of the knowledgeable people on this forum approached the issue.

I didn't seriously think that the file is being damaged through the transfer process. That was a question mark as a result of not being able to find the issue:)

Thanks for the helpful posts.

[chaos33]

...

As a side note, the clip you uploaded obviously has the autofocus and autoexposure on (and I would speculate autowhite as well.) You obviously have a discerning eye and ought to be using manual.

Now, this might be related to the cause! I don't know how I can link those together but what you mentioned is a valid point.

If you realize there is a white section on the right side of my sample video. That should not be there and it was not there when I set the recording. I keep that white section out of recording area and when I play back in the camcorder it doesn't appear on there. However, when I import the files on my PC those white section appear for some reason:) There is probably a very easy explanation and answer of this(especially for people on this forum who know what they are talking about) but that's another thing I didn't know "how that happened":) As I said I am doing this by myself with no help so I thought may be the autofocus is doing that depending on my movements during the recording.

Considering that I record my own videos and there is nobody behind the camera, is it a good idea to set autofocus, autoexposure and autowhite to off?

[smrpix]

there is a white section on the right side of my sample video....

Considering that I record my own videos and there is nobody behind the camera, is it a good idea to set autofocus, autoexposure and autowhite to off?

You'll find a repeating theme here, consumer camcorder viewfinders are not absolutely precise -- and not designed to be. I would bet that it is cutting off a little on all four sides. (Your iphone does a BRUTAL job of cutting off the edges on movies while shooting.) For most people , getting a little "extra" picture in the end is better than getting less than they expected.

As for manual exposure, etc. Most camcorders have a way to "hold" or "lock" the auto settings so they don't fluctuate while you are recording. I'd say try that first. Remember, you standing in front of the camera will give a very different exposure reading than black seamless. So experiment and compare and test and view it on a computer because that's the only way to know what's right and "learn" your particular camera.

The auto- exposure, white balance, focus etc on modern cameras are really really good at setting a baseline. Tweak from there.

[aedipuss]

consumer cam's lcd screens do not display the entire recording area. that's how you got the white board/curtains and drapes in the picture. you'd need to plug in the cam's tv output into a monitor to see what's actually in the picture.

as for leaving the cam on full auto for your shoots. if you really do them entirely by yourself, then yes it's probably required as you can't be in 2 places at once to adjust the cam and be the model.

[chaos33]

1) I recorded the video in a small studio at my home-office with a black background and some good lighting(softboxes) with Canon Vixia HF10(records in AVCHD format on a flash disk)

If you have light falling on a "black" background sheet, the background will not be completely "black". Background materials -- even jet-black ones -- will reflect some amount of light, even if just a small amount, and will reflect spill from wall reflections as well. A pure black is RGB Red-0 Green-0 Blue-0. That is, a pure black has zero color value, period. For tv video, a pure black would look somewhat grimy, and many TV's can't reproduce RGB 0-0-0 anyway. Therefore, even a small amount of light reflected from a black background would make that "black" into a very dark gray. Move the lights closer to a black background, and an even lighter gray would result.

2) The video lighting and all colors looked good when I played them back in the camcorder.

It's debatable what "looked good" really means. Have another look. My guess is that your camcorder's viewfinder is rather dark; hair and shadow details are likely murky, with little detail and poor separation from the background. Likely it is also oversaturated and with juiced-up contrast (highlights should not "sparkle and shine" in video; there's something wrong with either the display or the video if they do). As seen here, the highlights in the blue shirt exceed RGB 255, the latter being limit of your PC's bright-range display. You couldn't make the highlights shine any "brighter" on a digital display, even if you wanted to.

3) Then I transferred all the videos into my PC (with the features I already mentioned before). I also use Sony Vegas Pro 10 as my editing program. I tried playing the videos on WMP, VLC and Sony Vegas (all latest versions). They all played well but with major picture quality loss.

I don't see a quality loss in the images you posted. The exposure and color balance look about right. If you mean that you want your video sharpened and more saturated, that's easy to do with filters. You are also viewing images in a larger window than your camera's viewfinder.

4) The video is not as clear(light and color wise) as it was shown in the camcorder. Naming it "purple-ish" might be my mistake, I meant the shirt color was different so does the background color(I think). In the original video they appear a lot more shiny and sharp. The screenshots you posted here might look blue but the point is it's different (darker and dull) than what is shown in the camcorder.

If you were using a black background, then the background color in the images you posted looks exactly like a black background that is reflecting a small amount of light -- which means that it will look very dark gray, not RGB-0 black. Also, as was mentioned earlier, different media players don't display video in exactly the same way, and no media player for Windows is properly calibrated. WMP is one of the worst. As for the shirt in the image, what color should it be? I see that it is a pale, bright blue, leaning very slightly toward cyan; it is a smooth polyester blend with some reflectivity and a slightly luminous quality (I mean to say, it does not look "dull") with medium-intensity highlights. The watch is metallic chrome/silver and gray, the microphone is dull blackish/gray, the skin colors look correct, the shirt's buttons are almost pure white, and the hair color appears blackish with maybe some dull brown subdued highlights (which could also be from the light source). The teeth are white, the eyes appear to be blue or hazel (could be reflections from the shirt), and the lips are neither too pink nor too red. What should be the "correct" colors for these objects?

5) I did make a monitor color calibration since I use Windows 7. However, I don't have a pro software like Spyder4Express. Still, this much quality loss must have another reason other than my monitor's color calibration because as I said videos recorded by other camcorders(different format than AVCHD, e.g: .mov files) look like they should with very minor quality loss. Therefore, in this case I think computer being the problem is out of the question.

Avoid Spyder. It's inferior to other software/hardware kits, has poor black-level response and several color translation errors, and is over priced. You can get an EyeOne meter and software for lower cost and greater accuracy than a Spyder4. The Windows 7 calibration utility is seriously flawed, as it depends strictly on your ability to "suit the results to taste" and to eyeball a very narrow set of corrections . That has nothing to do with accuracy; it is impossible to properly adjust a consumer monitor with the Windows 7 utlity's controls. The only part of that utility that makes any sense is the gamma correction, but that corrects only at RGB's midrange. If I set my own monitors using the Windows 7 program they are seriously out of whack in the darks and brights and the RGB grayscale is not linear but looks like a bell curve splayed at both ends. You don't need a $500 USD "Professional" colorimeter for a PC monitor. That would be a waste of money.

6) So, the computer is not the reason(since I imported, edited and use other recordings from different camcorders before with no problem) . The file is not the reason(because it plays clean and high quality in the camcorder). In this case, it's either the camcorder (which is brand new by the way) or my computer has an issue with AVCHD formats(but then how come the screenshots you posted has the same quality loss?). I wish I could get a screenshot of the actual recording in the camcorder so I can post both of them here so you can see the difference.

Indeed, the different video formats use a different colorspace and CIE targets. But I don't know what you mean by saying that the other screenshot posted showed the "same quality loss". The last post has exactly the same color balance and levels as the other images; there is no difference. The only image that looks slightly different is your CS6 image posted earlier; that one has a more dimensional property and seems to have more perceived depth, and looks more properly exposed than the other two, which seem a bit too bright. If you don't see a difference between the CS6 image and the others, then your monitor needs a better calibration. On my monitor, the difference is quite distinct. I'm viewing all these images on an IPS monitor calibrated with an EyeOne D2 or LT. My TVs are calibrated with the same hardware and to the same D6500 standards. What I see on my PC is pretty much what I will see on my TV (although the two devices will never look exactly alike.).

We don't know what your videos from your other cameras look like, but the images posted from your Canon look correctly exposed and have a proper color balance. You might post a similar image from your "other" videos for comparison.

I haven't kept track of how you transferred your camera's video to your PC. If by a "screen capture" you mean a capture of your Windows 7 screen output, what those images tell us is how the video looks in the Windows clipboard. They does not tell us how your monitor displayed it. They tell us is how they look in the unmodified Windows clipboard, which can be different from the way your monitor is actually displaying colors. It would also be quite different from the way your camera's viewfinder displays the same videos. The best way to get a capture of your video would be to cut a short, unprocessed and unmodified video clip and post in this forum, or use Avisynth or VirtualDub to capture frames. I don't think CS6 has a frame capture control (maybe it does nowadays, I don't use CS6), but I think VLC can capture frames (????). I never tried it.

In my own experience, the viewfinders of my two digital cameras show an image that does not look like the scene I'm photographing. The viewfinder images look sharper (usually) because they're smaller, and they're darker and more saturated than the actual scene. My experience with Canon viewfinders is that they are uniformly oversaturated with pumped-up contrast, which makes them easier to see in bright light. When I load those pics into my PC and view them in Photoshop Pro, After Effects, or even VirtualDub on a calibrated monitor, the pics look more like the scene I photographed rather than the way they looked in the viewfinders. Most camera viewfinders are not entirely accurate (they aren't designed for that kind of accuracy), nor they illuminate in the same way as PC monitors AFIK.

7) To be honest, the only thing which comes to my mind is that my camcorder is broken. It records good, it plays good but when I transfer the files they get ruined:) I know it sounds on the "not possible" side but what else is left? I can see that when videos imported into a computer they might lose some quality, but this is more than "some quality", there is a major difference.

It's very possible, although I still don't see any "damage". But no one could say for certain without a sample of the video you're working with on your PC (ED: Oops, sorry. I see a sample was posted. My bad!). How they look in any specific viewfinder is up for debate, except to say that in-camera viewfinders are not the best way to judge PQ. They are designed for information only and to be seen clearly in different lighting conditions.

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/eye_one_display2.htm

Thank you so much for this detailed answer.

1) My expectation was not getting a pure black background. All I know was that it was a different black than the original video I see in the camcorder. Frankly, I am judging just by looking at both videos and it's obvious to me there is a difference in colors. For example, in the original video, my skin looks darker, my hair looks lighter and the shirt and eyes are much sharper(if there is such a saying :) )

2) I really dont know what to say about this because you have some valid points. May be as you said the lcd screen is misleading me thinking that the video is better quality. May be when the picture gets bigger on PC it loses some sharpness. However, this has never happened in other camcorders...even with the videos I shot with my iphone.

3) May be quality loss is not the right word because since my lighting was good the current video doesn't look bad, but it does look different and worse(in my opinion of course) than the original video I see with camcorder. I think I already addressed your comment about "viewing images in a larger window" on the above point. Where can I find the filters for making the video sharpened and more saturated? I treid color correction with Sony Vegas but it didn't give me the outcome I was trying to get.

4) This might be an issue with English not being my native language. The sample video colors might look good in terms of the color codes you guys already addressed greatly, I am just making comments according to my observations with no scientific proofs. But believe me, there is a difference. I wish I took a picture while recording. I'd take a picture now but I am not sure if I could get the same lighting the same way again:)

5) Thanks for the recommendation. I came up with it when I was researching how I can solve the issue I am facing, but it was too expensive for me..especially for an investment which I wasnt even sure if it was going to fix the issue. To be totally honest, I dont think this has something to do with calibration...at least not in this case. I'll take a look at the one you recommended though. Thx for that.

6) Sorry, I didnt mean the screenshots posted on here was different, I meant the screenshots posted on here and the original video looked different.
I'll post a similar image but I am not sure if it's going to make any sense since the variables are totally different.
WHat you said about the viewfinder picture quality makes sense. If that is the issue then I can understand. May be this has something to do with Canon viewfinder, because this is my first Canon camera and the ones I used before gave me almost the same picture quality. I used to have a Sony and a JVC by the way(just avarage camcorders though).

7) I see your point. Well, as I said in point 6 I have never had a Canon camera so if it's something specific to Canon it might be the reason. I just didn't get that diversity with Sony and JVC which I had before.

Thanks so much, I really appreciate your comments.

[chaos33]

smrpix and aedipuss;

Thanks for clarifying that. I guess I am still a bit in the first stages of learning and diving into this endless video production scene. As I said I am just doing this for my online video production so I can deliver marketing and training videos on the web. So, hopefully I can learn what I need to know in the fastest time possible, otherwise I'll spend more time fixing my videos than recording them

Thanks again.

[aedipuss]

almost all consumer cams have their brightness and saturation levels set too high on purpose. it's the "look" that consumers have demanded. some canon videocams have a "cinema" setting in the manual controls that turns down the extra "pop and sizzle" that full auto will always provide.

also you appear to be slightly out of focus in the video. zooming in farther on you to force the autofocus onto only you or setting it to focus manually at the spot you will be in(set up a tall stand at face height/position with a card you can focus on) before shooting may help.

[smrpix]

The best reason to get to know your gear is so that you don't have to think about it. Content rules.

Best of luck

[sanlyn]

OK, I'll readily admit to being a dufus and missing your posted video. This ain't my first time doing that.

Having seen it, here is an unretouched frame from the .mts file. Below it is a modified image, opened in Avisynth and converted to RGB with matrix bt.709 and captured in VirtualDub. If you are going to be working in apps that use RGB to display (if you're using a PC monitor, you have no other choice), you should convert the video to RGB or tell your display app what RGB matrices to use for display. The video is YV12 and if it is encoded to NTSC/BD standard for TV, the standard target range is 16-235 luma (16-240 chroma). A PC displays a 0-255 RGB range. If you maintain the valid TV range in a PC, the video will look brighter on a PC but "normal" on TV. Zero-RGB black looks kinda strange on TV anyway.

[Attachment 14202 - Click to enlarge]

[Attachment 14203 - Click to enlarge]

My modification was to reduce y_offset and y_gamma by a few points (-8), and resize to a smaller 16:9 image with Lanczos. I think this is frame 777 (don't quote me). I attached a full-size PNG of the same or similar frame at the bottom of this post.

I don't know how this video cut to .mts was made. It shows signs of being re-rendered in editing (? ?). MediaInfo says the target bitrate is around 6000 VBR or lower. First, I can say with considerable certainty that your camera's viewfinder is not accurate. I see from an earlier post that the finder has adjustments; adjust for the surroundings: dark lighting, studio light, bright daylight, etc.

Backdrop: you can see from the early frames that there is spill light on the black background -- which, of course, will make the black look lighter. In the early frames when you step into the image you can see your darker shadow on the background. If that background were truly "black" and reflected no light whatsoever, there's no way you could see a shadow on it. You're also standing quite near the backdrop itself. So if you want a really black background it should be farther away from you and from the lights, as well as being surrounded by baffle devices to keep light away from it.

You can play with contrast and brightness to make the backdrop really black. But, then, the hair would disappear in the dark. I made a slight adjustment for a bit darker black levels (your shadow is RGB 14, the rest of the panel is about RGB 34), but you can already see hair detail becoming vague, looking a bit posterized and blocky due to black clipping. The backdrop has some chroma noise, macroblocking and hints of banding; transitions from lighter to darker black aren't smooth. I'd attribute that to a low bitrate and to the kind of noise in large flat areas you always see in digital cameras. There are many smoothing filters, but a higher bitrate goes a long way toward maintaining smooth flat areas. IMHO a target bitrate of 6000 is generally too low for home made BluRay.

[aedipuss]

i just looked at the mediainfo of the sample also. did i miss what the intended final output format is going to be? because it looks like you have the cam set in a low quality LP setting, and not making use of it's much higher quality 1920x1080 FZP mode.

[Stears555]

Hi,

I am new here and would like to consult some knowledgeable people on here about a strange issue I've been facing.

I have a Canon HF10 camcorder which records on a flash disk. When I play back the recorded videos directly on my camcorder it looks great, however when I transfer the files to my PC(they are still AVCHD files and plays with Windows Media Player) the colors look terrible. For example, the black backdrop I have look greyish and the blue shirt I have looks purple. The lighting seems the same(no quality loss in terms of lighting but just the colors).

How does this happen and what can I do so I can get the original quality of the video?

For your information;
I use Sony Vegas Pro 10 and even when I transfer(import) the AVCHD file to Vegas it displays it with those bad colors.
I have a powerful computer which the files play with no problems. The only problem is the ridiculous loss of color quality.

Does anyone know why this is happening and what needs to be done to fix it?

Thanks.

Hello!

For the correct playback of AVCHD videos, use MPCHC player with the Coreavc or LAV codec as "external filters" with the following options as depicted by the photos: http://dictaphone.atw.hu/coreavc.png http://dictaphone.atw.hu/lavvideodecoder.png

Believe me, the VLC and windows media players are not the best to play AVCHD files.

[sanlyn]

For the correct playback of AVCHD videos, use MPCHC player with the Coreavc or LAV codec as "external filters" with the following options as depicted by the photos: http://dictaphone.atw.hu/coreavc.png http://dictaphone.atw.hu/lavvideodecoder.png

Believe me, the VLC and windows media players are not the best to play AVCHD files.

I viewed the video sample in VLC, WMP (yech!!), After Effects, and VirtualDub, and frame captures in Photoshop Pro. It looked pretty much the same way in all. One possible reason for requiring all this setup for AVCHD is your NVidia card. If you are using a monitor with an .icm calibration but are using a graphics card overlay, the overlay defeats the .icm calibration and affects playback in various ways in various media players. But I suppose everyone has their own setup.

[Stears555]

For the correct playback of AVCHD videos, use MPCHC player with the Coreavc or LAV codec as "external filters" with the following options as depicted by the photos: http://dictaphone.atw.hu/coreavc.png http://dictaphone.atw.hu/lavvideodecoder.png

Believe me, the VLC and windows media players are not the best to play AVCHD files.

I viewed the video sample in VLC, WMP (yech!!), After Effects, and VirtualDub, and frame captures in Photoshop Pro. It looked pretty much the same way in all. One possible reason for requiring all this setup for AVCHD is your NVidia card. If you are using a monitor with an .icm calibration but are using a graphics card overlay, the overlay defeats the .icm calibration and affects playback in various ways in various media players. But I suppose everyone has their own setup.

However the overlay renderer belongs to the past. VLC is a very backward player, it is not flexible and it has very few calibrations and options. VLC is not able to play/handle AVCHD files correctly

[sanlyn]

VLC played this sample file OK, but I agree it has random problems. So does every other Windows player . I think it will be a while before media players get HD straightened out. Meanwhile I just switch players or use VirtualDub until I get what I want. Keeping track of add-ons, plugins, codecs, updates, revisions for multiple players, every time I want to work with something is just too much of a pain in the neck. Let the developers figure it out. God forbid a disaster should hit any one of my computers. With all the crap installed on them now, it would take forever to restore any one of them even with image backups. When developers get it together, I'll be playing more with HD. In the meantime I don't use a PC as a primary movie player. People spend too much time on PC's, iphones, tablets, etc., anyway, to the point where we don't control them: they control us.

But that's just me.

[Enginurse]

Hi everyone,

I've read this thread a few times and have nearly the same problems and setup as the original poster, except that I'm using a Canon Vixia HF200. I appreciate all the time and thought out answers that have accompanied the thread.

Based on my experience and from the looks of the thread, it seems as though the problem lies in a very untrustworthy viewfinder.

In order to get video to play back at anything close to what is shown on the viewfinder I need to manually increase saturation levels to "76" in the windows media player video settings or do a similar global video saturation level change in AMD's Catalyst Control Center video settings. Why doesn't the video on the PC come in true to the viewfinder picture at the default "0" levels like every other video source (iphone, DSLR video mode, SD camcorders, etc.) as the original poster mentioned?

Is there a way to calibrate the viewfinder or install firmware in the camcorder so I can properly see what will appear on the PC? I would very much like to see the same bright/vivid color scheme shown on the viewfinder appear on my PC without having to do this media player video setting endpoint workaround. The problem with the workaround is that the SOURCE data is not correct and I really don't want to have to post process every single clip of video to get it that way.

Any help would be appreciated, but I think myself and the original poster are out of luck.

I can't believe how many good reviews this camera has gotten when there is such a dramatic difference in color. What's going on?

[Enginurse]

I've done a little bit more searching on AVCHD (.mts) playback washout and have come across a few threads (copied in at the end of the message) that bring me to the following conclusion:

Unedited/Native AVCHD files are built for television viewing via the camcorder or blu-ray discs, not for computer playback. We are stuck doing color/gamma correction in order to get the same vibrant picture to appear on our computers/websites that is displayed on the camcorder's LCD screen and what is displayed when hooking the camcorder directly up to a television via HDMI cable. Unfortunately, accurate unedited play back of AVCHD effectively requires the use of a HDTV and Blu-Ray discs because of the convoluted filing system required to get .mts files to play off of the camcorder once the file has been archived on a hard-drive. Also, good luck finding a TV that will read the .mts files off of a usb hard-drive correctly.

I imagine some dedicated editing software does a good job of emulating TV color levels on PC monitors for the authoring of Blu-Ray discs or TV broadcasting files (whatever they are, I don't know), but this is not ideal if you want to send an unedited file to a friend running a stock PC media player or post that file immediately to Youtube. Keep in mind local Media Player filters, video setting/video card/monitor adjustments are only fixes for YOUR viewing, not an audience's.

in order of usefulness:
http://www.eoshd.com/content/8612/mac-avchd-gamma-issues-the-fix (article addressing premier pro editing software quick fix to get an accurate PC translation of a native AVCHD file, also has informative thread and before and after pictures that I think are representive of this thread)
http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/archive/index.php/t-510310.html (original poster accepts use of Blu-Ray as playback method after experimenting with PC/MAC/PS3 media center playback options)
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2545461?start=0&tstart=0 (discussion of AVCHD video editing and playback on TVs vs PC/Mac Monitors, workflow for color correction is provided)
http://www.eoshd.com/comments/topic/1233-h264-playback-and-quicktime-a-bug/ (A quicktime bug is addressed. The bug washed out the vibrancy of an accurate AVCHD PC translation, also see comparison photos and links within the link. The comparison photos in this link are much closer than what I experience than the pictures in the first link in this list.)

[Enginurse]

Also, to tie things up, I found a thread in this forum regarding adjusting the camera's LCD screen settings to match those viewed unedited on PC monitors, see link below. It's generally not recommended, but it definitely can be justified as a means to cut small projects and to reduce time spent during post production editing.

https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/317647-color-correction-in-camera-or-filters-in-post

[smrpix]

I found a thread in this forum regarding adjusting the camera's LCD screen settings to match those viewed unedited on PC monitors

Actually you found a thread about adjusting the camera's INTERNAL settings -- which is not too wise if you don't have a good monitor in the field. Adjusting your camera's LCD viewfinder to more closely match what you're actually recording is indeed recommended.

[Enginurse]

OK. The problem, for me at least, was with a handful (!!!) of poorly calibrated PC monitors. Indeed, as mentioned earlier in the post, it IS possible that separate monitors (work and home) can have the same goofy setups. Anyway, all of my AVCHD .mts files play brilliantly after digging through the AMD Vision Engine Control Center>Desktop Management>Desktop Color settings. The OP's raw footage looks pretty fantastic as well. Backdrop is black and I can still see the dark hair. Skin tones are warm. Blue shirt is baby blue, not pale blue.

The calibration also did wonders to other footage that I thought was running just fine before (.mov, .mp4, youtube flash, etc.). It's a revelation.

[glenpinn]

i shoot 1080/50p AVCHD @ 28Mbps on my AC90 cameras, and they play fine with WMP (yes i like this player) and MPC-hc, but i do not use VLC now because it has just become very problematic and just doesnt do as good as it used to back in the early days.

i also shoot RawDNG and ProRes HD @ 220Mbps on my BMPCC (pocket camera) and MPC-hc is the only player that will look at them, so it is now my player of choice for everything.

also, you need your screen calibrated as well, it seriously helps a lot with video work.