Bad quality downscaling...

[Emillister]

First of all sorry for my English...

So, I have some HD (720p) movies and I wan't them to convert to something like 520p to easy use with FAT32 formatted drive due to filesize.

Problem is that, if I downscale video it looks like this:
http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/8919/uni2i.jpg

As you can see image is very bright and not so colorful as original seen here:
http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/1838/uni1o.jpg

Maybe someone have some tips?

*I tried using Any Video Converter (First Screenshot), HandBrake, MediaCoder...[/url]

P.S. I didn't found any familiar topics, If there is one, well, sorry...

[poisondeathray]

How are you watching it? What media player? What renderer? Do you have more than 1 player open at once? How are you taking screenshots?

It looks like levels issue , playback renderer issues , or graphic card display settings issues

[Emillister]

How are you watching it? What media player? What renderer? Do you have more than 1 player open at once? How are you taking screenshots?

It looks like levels issue , playback renderer issues , or graphic card display settings issues

It pretty much looks the same on all players, I tried two codecs packs CCCP and K-Lite, no difference. Screenshots taken by Media Player Classic, video looks same on WMP and VLC media player... Renderer I assume is Default on VLC no difference beetween DirectX output, it have better colors on OpenGL but then original video looks slightly darker..

Levels issue? Hmm, what is that?

Forgot one thing:
Conversion formats I tried:
WMV and AVI (DivX and Xvid), no luck...

[poisondeathray]

Only 1 media player used at 1 time? Because only 1 instance can use the graphics card overlay, the 2nd will switch to a different renderer (usually vmr9, giving a washed out look). Check to see if renderer is "overlay mixer" in the options for MPC (you cannot take screenshots in this mode)

By levels, I mean TV [16-235] vs. PC [0-255] levels. Do a quick search, as levels has been addressed many times before.

There should be no switch when encoding unless you tell it to. ie. input should equal output levels. What you are seeing is usually a display issue, not an encoding issue

[Emillister]

Check to see if renderer is "overlay mixer" in the options for MPC

Tried that nothing changed, maybe there is someting wrong with codecs... I have no idea how to fix this...

[poisondeathray]

Did you exit & restart the player for changes to take effect?

Can you post a tiny clip of the source & corresponding encoded file; this will help to narrow it down if it was the encoding process that caused it vs. something configured improperly on your system. You can use a free hosting site e.g. mediafire.com, or megaupload.com

[jagabo]

What is the source file type and codec and what type of file/codec are you producing? I've seen players play different file types with different levels (the problem you are seeing) so there may be nothing at all wrong with the conversion.

There are also problems with the EVR output renderer on some computers.

[Emillister]

OK, I made small clip, I have slow internet connection now, so nothing long..
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?yn32rnt2ijc

Original is *.MKV file, output is WMV (Also tried AVI with DivX or Xvid)

EVR output renderer? Hmmm.. If problem is this "EVR output renderer" how can I fix it?

[poisondeathray]

Black levels look fine on that sample (you didn't upload a sample of the source to compare) , but the waveform looks the same as the waveform on screenshot of the original. It also looks fine in KMplayer , for example

wmv sample
http://i27.tinypic.com/numbc.png

source ss
http://i32.tinypic.com/aot9om.png

encoded ss
http://i25.tinypic.com/2dlmah4.png

This suggests there nothing wrong with the encoded file, rather a playback or configuration issue (renderer, decoder, graphics card setting/drivers)

[Emillister]

Ok, I will try to figure out what's wrong tomorrow, it's late... (At least for me)

I will post if I will succed..

[jagabo]

Here's a short MPG file with some levels test blocks:

levels.mpg

When you watch it on a computer or TV it should look like this:



Note that the blocks labeled 0, 4, and 12 should all be perfectly black. You should not be able to see any difference between them. The block labeled 20 should be just barely lighter than those three (but many monitors do not differentiate very dark blacks well). At the high end, the blocks labeled 255, 251, and 239 should all be full white. You should not be able to see any difference between them. The block labeled 231 should be a tiny bit darker. You should easily be able t see the difference between all the blocks in the 16 to 235 range.

Some editors may display the MPG file like this:



You should be able to differentiate all the different blocks in that image (0 and 4 might be very hard to tell apart). This is how the luma channel inside the MPG file is stored, but now how it should be displayed. A properly encoded MPG movie should not have blacks as black as the 0, 4 and 12 blocks (nothing below 16). And should not have whites as bright as the 239, 251 and 255 blocks (nothing above 235).

After conversion to another container and codec you should see the same thing.

[Emillister]

Yes, there was something wrong with output itself..

Fixed my problem by uncheking all formats for output except RGB32 in ffdshow..

So thank you guys! Really appreciate it.. 8)

[jagabo]

Fixed my problem by uncheking all formats for output except RGB32 in ffdshow..

That's not an optimal fix. It's forcing your CPU to do a lot more work than necessary whenever you play a video. I would go back to allowing all the colorspaces in ffdshow and then look in the graphics card's setup applet (Control Panel -> Display -> Settings -> Advanced...) for settings that control video output. Also try the different output modules in MPCHC, especially Overlay Mixer, the various VMR options, and the EVR options. See if any of them works right.

[Emillister]

Fixed my problem by uncheking all formats for output except RGB32 in ffdshow..

That's not an optimal fix. It's forcing your CPU to do a lot more work than necessary whenever you play a video. I would go back to allowing all the colorspaces in ffdshow and then look in the graphics card's setup applet (Control Panel -> Display -> Settings -> Advanced...) for settings that control video output. Also try the different output modules in MPCHC, especially Overlay Mixer, the various VMR options, and the EVR options. See if any of them works right.

Yeah, but then video's which looks normal (mkv), after that is slighly darker.. It's not solution for me.. For outputs, i can't use one player, I often use WMP, and I can't configure that (I think i cannot).

[poisondeathray]

Why don't use a better player with more configurable options? incl. brightness/contrast etc...

e.g. KMplayer

[Emillister]

KMplayer have no library like WMP or Winamp have, but Winamp is seriusly slow on my computer... I don't need new player, I need efficient fix for problem.

[poisondeathray]

If you are using ffdshow to decode, you can change luminance (and other display options) in WMP11 (under picture properties in ffdshow)

There is something messed up on your system, the original and re-encoded file should look the same in the same player

The HQ RGB conversion in ffdshow is not ideal because it's very CPU intensive

[jagabo]

Yeah, but then video's which looks normal (mkv), after that is slighly darker.. It's not solution for me..

You need to go through your entire video system and fix all the components. It's possible to have every video display correctly without having to resort to RGB.

[Emillister]

Hmph.... I think something is seriusly messed up, because now WMP quits when I open Xvid encoded AVI.. and it have even more stupid framerate issues, video goes faster than audio (turned on default settings).. Only thing that might be powerful fix would be reinstalling system... I'm sick of these issues.. Haven't had problems before...

[poisondeathray]

Sorry to hear that

Sometimes codec packs can cause bad problems, maybe that's what's happening here?

Before you reformat you can try uninstalling all the codec packs, using a registry cleaner like ccleaner, and only reinstalling things you need: start with ffdshow, haali media splitter.

[Emillister]

Uninstalled everything, used CCleaner, used gSpot to Un-register codecs, reinstalled ffdshow, set default settings, no luck.. I'm getting ready for reformat now... If I will expierience any problems I will post...

[jagabo]

Before you reinstall Windows try re-registering quartz.dll. Open a command line interface and type:

regsvr32 c:\windows\system32\quartz.dll

[Emillister]

Before you reinstall Windows try re-registering quartz.dll. Open a command line interface and type:

regsvr32 c:\windows\system32\quartz.dll

Nope, doesn't work..

[jagabo]

System Restore?

[Emillister]

System Restore?

Good idea, I will try it...

Edit: No luck...

[jagabo]

WMP quits when I open Xvid encoded AVI..

All Xvid AVI files or just one in particular? Some versions of Xvid require mod4 (even multiple of 4) frame sizes, some mod2 (even multiple of 2). If you are trying to play a mod2 frame size you may have problems.

[poisondeathray]

Is ffdshow set to libavcodec for xvid? (or do you have xvid installed)?

What about VLC or non directshow player? (do problems only occur in WMP11, MPC)?

[Emillister]

WMP quits when I open Xvid encoded AVI..

All Xvid AVI files or just one in particular? Some versions of Xvid require mod4 (even multiple of 4) frame sizes, some mod2 (even multiple of 2). If you are trying to play a mod2 frame size you may have problems.

All of Xvid AVI's.. Strangly some DivX video's too... :/

[jagabo]

Can you get the old WMP 6.4 to play the files? It's still included in the WMP package. Look in the WMP folder for MPLAYER2.EXE. If you can play an Xvid video with that look at the list of filters being used. That may give you some hints (File -> Properties -> Advanced). Or, since only some Divx files are giving problems, play one that that will play and look at the filters.

[Emillister]

Is ffdshow set to libavcodec for xvid? (or do you have xvid installed)?

What about VLC or non directshow player? (do problems only occur in WMP11, MPC)?

All video's only work on VLC media player...
Xvid is set to libavcodec...

Can you get the old WMP 6.4 to play the files? It's still included in the WMP package. Look in the WMP folder for MPLAYER2.EXE. If you can play an Xvid video with that look at the list of filters being used. That may give you some hints (File -> Properties -> Advanced). Or, since only some Divx files are giving problems, play one that that will play and look at the filters.

Windows Vista don't have old Windows media player...

Media Player Classic is working OK, but it changes from Aero to Default skin... :/