DV to DVD ending up alot lighter!?

[julen001]

Hi,
When I'm converting my DV 2.0 avi's to DVD mpeg with TMPGEnc or any other conversion tool the mpeg ends up alot lighter than the original.
If I play the video with the DV as source(trough my computer or a camrecorder) it looks great, but burnt down to a dvd+r it looks terrible.

I could probably fix it with the simple color conversion tool or something, but why does this happen, and is there any simple way way to avoid it?

[daamon]

Hi julen001,

Welcome to the forums

Check out this guide:

https://www.videohelp.com/guides.php?guideid=303#303

...on TMPGEnc settings - particularly the bit about "Output basic YCbCr" under the "Quantize matrix" section.

That might be of use / interest...

Be sure to vote for the guide if you use it.

[julen001]

Hm thank's, but i didn't find anything that could help me out.
That setting was already set to the right option, and changing it just gave me an even lighter picture.

[BSR]

Be sure to compare your DV source and DVD-r on a TV and not the computer. Computer monitors have expanded color levels.

Computer = 0-255
TV = 16-235

Some programs automatically compensate for that when viewing, but to be sure test on your TV.

[julen001]

Well yeah, I've watched it on the TV with my computer as source via the tv-out and on a TV trough my camrecorder. It's definitely lighter after the conversion to mpeg, and no matter wath the tools I use, it seems.

[BSR]

I would test on a stand alone DVD player.

Computer might be compressing the 0-255 down to 16-235 before it sends it out through the tv-out.
That means your 16-235 DVD-R is being compressed down to 32-205 through the tv-out.
Again this is all dependent on programs used and how.

This is just a guess though, sorry.

My VHS captures through my DVcam passthrough, converted with TMPGenc, with "Output basic YCbCr" enabled, look exactly like the source.
I test on TV and switch between DVD player and VCR and look for differences, including black levels.
I just tell you this because it is possible to do what you want. There is just something unknown messing it up, it seems, in your process.

[julen001]

Yeah thank's for the help, but i've been testing trough the s-video out on my camera as well, and the dvd's i burn gets insanely light too!