Rendering to x264, Color Change

[Mator]

Hello.

I've recently been looking into the video encoding settings I want to use for a large project (300gb+ of footage gathered over several years). I noticed that, when rendering out of Sony Vegas with the x264vfw codec the output video is slightly discolored when compared with the original footage/an uncompressed render (I also noticed this discoloration when rendering with ffdshow to HuffYUV and MJPEG). Specifically, the footage seems to be more "yellow". Below is a frame comparison:


x264


Uncompressed



I rather dislike this discoloration, and would like to, if possible, remove it. I have found that by compressing the Uncompressed video file after it has rendered to Xvid I am able to avoid this discoloration (which is slightly odd, considering Xvid uses H.264/3 compression.) However, I would most prefer to use x264 and to not have to render every video twice.

Does anyone know how I can fix/remove this discoloration or of some other solution whereby I can avoid it while still getting the excellent compression and render time of of the x264 codec? If so, I would greatly appreciate it if you could share your idea/solution.


Thanks in advance,
-Mator


Edit: OH, and if it makes any difference, my input video is from Fraps.

Edit 2: I managed to find a thread which addressed the same problem I was having, according to jagabo:

Small changes are inevitable when converting from RGB to YUV. And the 4:2:0 chroma subsampling of YV12 (used internally by x264 and most other video compression schemes) will cause loss of color resolution. Your sample BMP images don't show anything beyond the expected changes.

If this is the case, would it perhaps be possible for me to apply a color-correction to the footage before rendering it that would counteract the affect of the RGB to YUV color discrepancy? This is my last chance for having a single render from Vegas instead of having to render everything twice.

Edit 3: Eh, nevermind. It seems that YouTube changes the colors as well, leaving Uncompressed and the x264 render looking pretty much the same. And since this video is going on YouTube anyways I might as well just go the easy route and use x264.

[budwzr]

The easy and best route would be to use the Sony AVC codec. It's extremely good.

[_Al_]

add video bus track to cover whole timeline and apply Sony levels effect on it and choose one of those presets - Studio RGB to Computer RGB

perhaps it is that "Vegas level thing" where you need to do this so you get right color space out with x264 VFW

[budwzr]

That's a pretty good idea, but the color difference is ever so slight that it needn't be bothered with.

[jagabo]

The RGB/YUV and chroma subsampling issues you quoted aren't the source of your problem. The color in the video isn't changing. What's changing is the way your player displays the colors. You may have a rec.709 vs rec.601 problem.

https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/329866-incorrect-collor-display-in-video-playback?p...=1#post2045481
https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/329866-incorrect-collor-display-in-video-playback?p...=1#post2045830

Or, if you use quicktime, it has all kinds of color and levels problems on both the Windows and Mac.

If you upload short before/after samples someone will take a look at them and tell you if anything has changed.