BD Rebuilder - Blacks becomes washed out/brighter after encode [SOLVED]

[rk-]

Hi,

I've been playing around with BD Rebuilder for some time now, testing most encode options to see which works best, and I've noticed that no matter what encode option I choose the blacks becomes a lot brighter than what they are in the original source. I'm using the BD-25 target option and I've tried most /Encode/ options there are, including CRF and ABR variants of them, but the result is always the same, washed out blacks.

I've attached two screenshots, one from the original .m2ts file and one from the encoded .m2ts file, and as you can see the blacks are brighter in the encode (most noticeable in the bars above/below the picture). This encode screenshot is from using the BD-25 target option and the High-Speed encode option (but it looks exactly the same using e.g. the High Quality option).

Any idea why this happens and what, if anythinig, I can do to prevent this? Thanks for your help.

[poisondeathray]

How are you determining this ? What player / renderer ?

Do you have more than 1 player open at a time ? The most common mistake is to have multiple instances when comparing, and they use different renderer and settings. Close player one and view one at a time .

[rk-]

How are you determining this ? What player / renderer ?

Do you have more than 1 player open at a time ? The most common mistake is to have multiple instances when comparing, and they use different renderer and settings. Close player one and view one at a time .

VLC, one instance. I open the original, take a snapshot, close it, open the encode, take a snapshot, and close it.

This issue is not only visible when playing them in a SW player, it's also visible when playing the encode/comparing the two in my standalone Panasonic blu-ray player.

[jagabo]

pc.709 (full range YUV, 0-255) vs. rec.709 (limited range, 16-235) levels. Don't know why the program is doing this.

[rk-]

pc.709 (full range YUV, 0-255) vs. rec.709 (limited range, 16-235) levels. Don't know why the program is doing this.

I'm sorry, I don't understand this fully. Is this a known (random?) issue with BD Rebuilder (no one can get true blacks in encodes?), and/or is this something I can change in a setting/.ini manually to force 'pc.709'?

[poisondeathray]

Do you still have the log file ? There might be some clues in the log file

If it's using directshow for example, you might have some filters misconfigured on your system

[rk-]

Do you still have the log file ? There might be some clues in the log file

No log-file saved, just LASTCMD;

"F:\BLURAY_BACKUP\BD_Rebuilder\tools\x264.exe" "F:\BDREBUILDER_WORKING\WORKFILES\VID_00800.AV S" --preset ultrafast --bluray-compat --cabac --bframes 3 --b-pyramid none --weightp 1 --qpmin=0 --bitrate 25410 --level 4.1 --qpfile "F:\BDREBUILDER_WORKING\WORKFILES\VID_00800.CH P" --sar 1:1 --aud --nal-hrd vbr --pic-struct --vbv-bufsize 30000 --keyint 24 --min-keyint 1 --ipratio 1.1 --pbratio 1.1 --vbv-maxrate 35000 --threads auto --slices 4 --thread-input --output "F:\BDREBUILDER_WORKING\WORKFILES\VID_00800.AVS.26 4"

If it's using directshow for example, you might have some filters misconfigured on your system

You know, that's a very good point! That also occurred to me during my troubleshooting but I put it out of my mind and actually never checked it (a combination of "I'm sure ffdshow is fine" and "I'm switiching to x264 LAVF for frame serving so it doesn't matter anyhow"). I'm looking at ffdshow now and I'm noticing that 1. Post-processing is enabled (but no obvious setting changed to explain the increased brightness in blacks), and 2. Overlay is enabled (with Standard Y: 16-235 selected and not Full Y: 0-255 under Input Levels). Not sure if this is the cause, especially since my snapshots were from an encode done with x264 LAVF and not DirectShowSource, but I'll change/reset these ffdshow values and try another encode. I'll report back, thanks!


Status update: Well, I did another encode and only afterwards did I realize that it was using CoreAVC and not ffdshow, so all the settings I changed/reset in ffdshow had no impact. I checked CoreAVC and found that it also had modified settings. negative contrast in Levels, Output set to Auto (Auto/0-255/16-235) instead of 0-255, so I reset the levels and changed output to 0-255 and started a new encode.

[rk-]

Success! It was the CoreAVC settings that was causing the washed out blacks and resetting these solved it (see encode snapshot below)!

Thanks for all the help/brainstorming, appreciate it a lot! And thanks poisondeathray for pointing me in the direction of misconfigured filters (and to jagabo for educating me on 16-235 vs 0-255)