Strange Hue Discrepancy Between Video and Screen Captures in Potplayer

[nikaylarose]

Hi there, I found this forum through a google search of my issue and it brought me to a post about the colors appearing wrong when a video is playing, my problem isn't quite the same so I wasn't sure where to post exactly. I hope here is okay.

I was taking some screen captures to make some gifs and I happened to open one image at the same time as the video and noticed how wildly different the two look side by side despite the frame I opened only being a few before what was playing on my screen at the time. I took a cap to show what I'm talking about and I honestly have no idea why the two are so different, does anyone have a suggestion on this? I've also noticed that sometimes I'll take caps of a scene at every 2 frames, then decide later I want every frame instead and go back to re-cap it, and the caps will look different from each other there too so my psd ends up not looking right on the second version, very strange. I make sure to check that no video adjustments accidentally popped on when I go to cap so that's definitely not the issue. I'm just at a loss to why my caps are so cool toned while the video that's playing is much more warm toned. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thank you!

[pandy]

Looks like common issue 601 vs 709 color matrix, also you should check quantization range.

btw this may help: https://ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg-filters.html#colormatrix

[jagabo]

rec.601 vs rec.709 colors are a big problem. They determine how RGB is converted to YUV and back. Using the wrong matrix gives you slightly off colors. The general rule is that standard definition uses rec.601, high definition uses rec.709. But that's not always the case. And where exactly does standard definition end and high definition start? Different programs/players may use different criteria. Your best bet is to keep track of the matrix yourself, use rec.601 for SD, rec.709 for HD, and flag it when you encode. Many players will follow the flags. But some don't. They may always use one or the other (for example, youtube always uses/assumes rec.709). Or they may use the resolution to decide.

[nikaylarose]

Looks like common issue 601 vs 709 color matrix, also you should check quantization range.

btw this may help: https://ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg-filters.html#colormatrix

rec.601 vs rec.709 colors are a big problem. They determine how RGB is converted to YUV and back. Using the wrong matrix gives you slightly off colors. The general rule is that standard definition uses rec.601, high definition uses rec.709. But that's not always the case. And where exactly does standard definition end and high definition start? Different programs/players may use different criteria. Your best bet is to keep track of the matrix yourself, use rec.601 for SD, rec.709 for HD, and flag it when you encode. Many players will follow the flags. But some don't. They may always use one or the other (for example, youtube always uses/assumes rec.709). Or they may use the resolution to decide.

Thank you both for the replies. Unfortunately I don't know what most of this jargon means so I'm at a loss as to what I can do to fix my issue. A friend suggested fiddling with my graphics card settings and I was able to make the original video look more like how the screencap came out, but I would really prefer the caps to come out like how the video displays for me normally with the warmer more vibrant colors. I included a cap of the image I originally sent on the right compared to how the video looks with the settings adjustments on the far left, which is the flattest of all three, not really what I'm going for here.

My video source here is 1080p blu ray rips, I don't know anything about encoding so I'm not sure how to implement this 709 matrix thing you mentioned. I guess I also just don't understand why the program would show me the video looking one way and then when I use it to cap the video the images come out completely different, doesn't really make any sense to me. If you have any advice on what I can do or change to make them come out like the video looks I would greatly appreciate it

[pandy]

Help us and provide detailed description how you going from your source to final goal... what software is used. At least i need to understand those steps. Or perhaps there is other way to reach your goal so forum members may advise on this.

(from my perspective it looks like some of your work can be automated for example with ffmpeg)

[raffriff42]

There is another possible cause: monitor color profiles will affect the captured colors. See this discussion for example:

I did change my ICC profile to one of the defaults and both my video and screen capture via FRAPS is working fine.

I just find it weird that with my spyder3 profile the video was yellow and screen capture blue. I would think both should be the same.

Thanks everyone for the help

Disable any active monitor profiles during capture. You can enable them again for viewing the result.

(I think any profiles running in the video renderer (MadVR etc) will do the same)

[nikaylarose]

Help us and provide detailed description how you going from your source to final goal... what software is used. At least i need to understand those steps. Or perhaps there is other way to reach your goal so forum members may advise on this.

(from my perspective it looks like some of your work can be automated for example with ffmpeg)

The only program I'm using is Potplayer, I use their screencap feature as I play the mkv video. I'm sorry I don't know how to better explain and I don't know anything about ffmpeg or color profiles

[pandy]

The only program I'm using is Potplayer, I use their screencap feature as I play the mkv video. I'm sorry I don't know how to better explain and I don't know anything about ffmpeg or color profiles

There is high chance that your source is BT.709 color matrix based but in pictures BT.601 color matrix is used - this may explain why colors are different.
To fix this you need to convert pictures from wrong to correct colour space.

[jagabo]

Also, video processing amp settings of the player or graphics card may not be reproduced in screen caps. For example, if you have your graphics card set to enhance skin tones, those enhanced colors may not appear in the screen cap, but rather the original colors.