What video player to view videos accurately?

[ayim]

Hey, I've always used MPCHC + Haali Renderer to view my videos but I just noticed switching from Overlay Mixer and Haali's I get a boost in saturation or such from haali's. Also I just found out haali does auto deinterlacing on interlaced footage, Overlay doesn't.
I just also compared the pictures in Sony Vegas and MPCHC + Overlay Mixer and it looks pretty much the same.

Should I just use overlay mixer to view my videos for color correcting to web then, since it matches the video in my editing program it should be accurate right?

I realize many people view videos differently, but I'm trying to find the way most people play them and I'm guessing Windows Media Player and Quicktime, I probably should just see if those match the video in my editor as well.

Anyway, I always thought Haali Renderer was the best to use and was told that, so I'm kind of confused.

[Baldrick]

I would search and read http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=123537 and http://forum.doom9.org/forumdisplay.php?f=15 if you use MPCHC. But it's usually up to you what looks best.

[jagabo]

Overlay Mixer uses your graphics card's hardware to convert from YUV to RGB. Video overlay has its own proc amp settings for this so it may look different than Haali's output renderer (which uses the Desktop color settings), depending on your proc amp settings.

[poisondeathray]

Should I just use overlay mixer to view my videos for color correcting to web then, since it matches the video in my editing program it should be accurate right?

This doesn't ensure anything. If you are color correcting for web, you should test using the same flash player and front end that website is using. e.g. use an offline local webpage on your computer to play your videos, but test the entire process from start to end, even uploading to the website. Adobe Flash doesn't use the same renderer as your media player uses, and it uses it's own software to do YUV=>RGB conversion (one of the reasons why it's so slow)

You could render some test chart videos, and color bars with grey scale and levels, and note the differences as viewed in vegas or whatever your editing program is , as opposed to the final product as viewed in the flash player. The project settings you use in vegas make a difference (e.g. linear gamma vs. 2.222 in 8bit vs. 32bit projects) , as do your settings you set your scopes calibrated to