High Bitrate 1080p videos looks washed out

[Gio21stri]

Hi, i have tv show files in 1080p and some of them looks normal on my (non HDR) screen, some super washed out gray. Im Medianfo i see difference - ALL washed out vids have these 3 lines in video statistics: 1) Color primaries : BT.709 2) Transfer characteristics: BT.709 3) Matrix coefficients: BT.709 - all with this BT.709. Normal looking vids doesnt have this info in medianfo at all.

I heard that BT.709 have something to do with HDR. How to change player (Media Player Classic or any other player) options to remove that washed out gray color?

[davexnet]

Perhaps these files were incorrectly converted from HDR to SDR without the proper tone mapping.
BT.709 does not signify HDR

Try playing them with mpc-be

[Gio21stri]

i tried - its the same. Can it be converted to remove these wrong colors?

[davexnet]

Upload a sample and we will see. 10 seconds showing the problem is enough

[butterw]

Videos weren't tonemapped at encoding (BT.709 is SDR). You can manually apply a HDR2SDR hlsl tonemapping shader in mpc-hc.

[Gio21stri]

Videos weren't tonemapped at encoding (BT.709 is SDR). You can manually apply a HDR2SDR hlsl tonemapping shader in mpc-hc.

Its in the settings somewhere? i dont know how to do it, and google seems dont know it too

[Gio21stri]

Upload a sample and we will see. 10 seconds showing the problem is enough

Here is 20 seconds
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rDw8c41hfhv5kF9e2Z-kClVry7I0G0Oj/view?usp=sharing

I tried to change contrast in avidemux - "video - mpeg4 avc -colors -contrast", but There is enormous pixels on black clothes (like guys costumes in the video) on render result. All other scenes is normal, not pixelated

[davexnet]

That doesn't look like an HDR to SDR conversion without tone mapping. See this sample for how it typically looks.
Possibly a wrong color space was used somewhere resulting in incorrect colors but it's hard to tell with your clip,
everything looks beige, there is no natural light or neutral tones to judge the color.

[jagabo]

Does the video look about like this on your computer?


[Attachment 56346 - Click to enlarge]

[Gio21stri]

problem is - im trying to compress this 13 gb episode - using handbrake with quality on 19 and decomb bob filter - everything looks normal and detailed (but with same washed out colors) - so after fixing contrast in avidemux , file looks like this (watch horrible pixelated costumes) https://drive.google.com/file/d/18dTRJNwGZSpbvnQNNonVVntFaDOutAdl/view?usp=sharing

i dont understand is it avidemux makes file so pixelated or its handbrake compression? (cause its impossible to watch this file on any player wthout washed out colors)

[jagabo]

So you're re-encoding twice, at 1/3 the bitrate, twice the frame rate, and surprised you get some posterization? Maybe you were hoping for something like this (single encoding, x264 slow, crf18)?

[badyu17]

Original file is also wrongly flagged as "full range" while the content is not really full range. Maybe that's also part of a problem.

[jagabo]

Original file is also wrongly flagged as "full range" while the content is not really full range. Maybe that's also part of a problem.

You're right. It might be possible to remux with the video flagged as limited range.

[Gio21stri]

Ok it seems to impossible to compress this file without ugly looking results somewere one way or another:
1) i tried Handbrake - It looks pixelated as hell on black (like above)

2) I tried Avidemux - i choose mpeg4 avc output - filters - interlacing - libavdec. File is compressed, details is ok, contrast - ok, pixelation on blacks is gone - but video is not smooth like original at all - movements looks like there is frames missing from every second - best example in ending titles -titles flickering while scrolling - here is excerpt of that render - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RIL2MV5fbUJgRSyrdQJ-n-RJUAo7DG4K/view?usp=sharing

Here is original ending titles from that 13 gb file - looks smooth (in handbrake render too) https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SrlqOcT1tcD2TIMdeSJb7d8fYZ1zEo8e/view?usp=sharing

Any ideas? maybe there is some compressing tool that can do 2 things at once - good deinterlacing and no pixelisation?

[jagabo]

AviSynth + x264 CLI

AviSynth script:

LWLibavVideoSource("Drake Original.mkv") 
AssumeFPS(30000,1001)
Yadif(mode=1)

x264 CLI command:

x264-64bit.exe --preset=slow --crf=18 --keyint=60 --sar=1:1 --colormatrix=bt709 --stitchable --output "output.mkv" input.avs"

Your washed out video problem is because your video is limited range YUV but flagged as full range YUV.

[jagabo]

Here's your "Drake Original.mkv" with the header patched to reflect limited range.

[Gio21stri]

Ok i dont know how to do it and dont wanna spend weeks to learn it, BUT anyway - i need this video compressed, not just contrast fixed. so there will be again second rendering

[4kblurayguru]

Run 2-pass, min/max bitrate plus crf-23 and set speed to slow.

[Gio21stri]

Run 2-pass, min/max bitrate plus crf-23 and set speed to slow.

Yeah this forum is very "helpful". run how where?

[davexnet]

Run 2-pass, min/max bitrate plus crf-23 and set speed to slow.

Yeah this forum is very "helpful". run how where?

Once you create the simple script (as shown by jagabo above) you can open it in any host program
that accepts .avs scripts.

Open the script in Virtualdub2
set video/compression (eg. x264 8-bit)
File/save video