Dark MPGs after using TMPGEnc

[cinschilling]

For several months now, I've been capturing with DC10+ and saving it as an Indeo 5.04 AVI with Pinnacle Studio 7 (or until recently, with Studio DC10Plus). Then I'd convert it to MPG with TMPGEnc using the VideoCD (NTSC) template.

I've always had decent results until a few weeks ago. Suddenly family and friends began complaining that the MPGs are too dark on their computers. Although they look fine on my machine (and resulting VCDs look fine on my Power-DVD), it's true -- they're indeed so dark on other PCs that they're unwatchable.

It looks almost as if the gamma's been turned all the way up (or is it down?). Bright daytime beach scenes look as though they were shot at night.

I had only changed a couple of things:
1) When saving as an AVI, I checked the "Scalability" box in the Indeo 5.04 Decoder Configuration.
2) In TMPGEnc, I set the "Motion Search Precision" to High Quality-very slow, and also experimented with the Ghost Reduction and Sharpen Edge features.

I've since changed everything back to normal default settings, but my MPGs are still dark, dark, dark.

Does anyone have a clue what's causing this? THANKS SO MUCH!

[Tommyknocker]

You obviously have some experience using the filters. If you are satisfied with the results of the filter settings, why not use the brightness/contrast fitting as well?

[roach76]

How about you tell you friends and family if they are unhappy with what you're doing for them they should do it themselves!

[kinneera]

Although they look fine on my machine (and resulting VCDs look fine on my Power-DVD), it's true -- they're indeed so dark on other PCs that they're unwatchable.

This clearly indicates that the problem lies not in the MPEG itself but in some characteristic unique to the configuration of the other PCs (or more likely your own). The obvious question is whether they simply have their monitor's brightness or contrast settings much lower than yours. Another possibility is that their MPEG decoder is causing a problem.

[KingJohn]

I know this is a shot in the dark but have you updated your TMPGEnc lately and not setup the DirectShow priorities again ?

Select options > environmental settings
click the VFAPI plug-in tab
right click the "DirectShow" and select higher priority, do this several times until its at the top with a value of 4

[Solnzevo]

this might help

http://www.homepagemodules.de/board/topic.php?&board=1213&id=46801&forum=1860

but im not sure

[mikk]

I think i know what at least part of the problem is.

The problem could be related to the different ways that different devices display YUV images.

There are 2 different scales.
-TV scale: 8-235
-PC scale: 0-255

Lets talk about it in black and white (with shades of grey) to make it simple to understand.

The tv scale is the way that tvs are supposed to use. a level of 8 or below is black. 235 and above is white.

With the pc scale, 0 is black, 255 is white.

So there are 2 different ways the picture can be encoded, and 2 different ways it can be displayed.

PC video cards don't seem to agree on which scale to use. i have seen cards that use the PC scale and cards that use the TV scale. I know that my GeForce 2 uses the TV scale, and my old i740 uses the PC scale.

so if the image is being displayed as TV scale, when it was encoded as PC scale, the colour range is clipped from 0-255 to 8-235. the detail above 235 and below 8 is lost. so anything above 235 is white, and anything 8 and below becomes black.

now u can see why dark things become darker. bright things also become brighter.

[Solnzevo]

so how about the collor correctin in tmpgenc? woldnt this help

[Cobra]

I had almost the same problem - TMPGEnc would encode movies darker than the original. All I do is perform a simple colour correction (under the advanced tab) and knock the brightness up to +10 and gamma up to +30 to bring it back to normal. Have a play with this and see what happens.

CobraDMX

[mikk]

The fix for the problem i described is:
If the problem is from the PC video card: for nvidia cards, try changing overlay settings, contrast 87, brightness 114. It's not perfect, but close.

If the problem comes from the encoder: go into the TMPGEnc settings (on the bottom right) and on the "Quantize matrix", change "Output YUV data as Basic YCbCr not CCIR601".

[VideoMann]

I fixed this problem with the Nvidia Overlay controls (Display Setting-->Advace-->etc) . I tried to calibrate my video capture to the TV picture.

I had to pump up the brightness to 150-160%. When the scenes are very bright on the TV they are extra white on the computer but most scenes come very close. I've captured TV programs on the Hardrive then played them back on TV by sending the video from the PC Graphic Card back to the TV to see if it was too bright, but it seems very very good. You may also need to recalibrate the contrast (probably decrease it slightly). All this is dependent on the graphic card you have on your PC. Remember the PC monitor and the TV use 2 different technologies and probably only very expensive equipment can get the PC calibrated to the TV exactly.

The first step is I would adjust the brightness and contrast of your monitor to see a web page with pictures and text at a confortable brightness, then I would close all the apps launch video capture program and preview live video (DV tape, or VCR signal) and go to the settings and adjust the overlay controls.
If that does not work then you will have to look into the encoding, or use a filter in Premiere or similar program that will let you boost the brightness of the video (this will require rendering a filter effect, can take significant time).

[mikk]

I fixed this problem with the Nvidia Overlay controls (Display Setting-->Advace-->etc) . I tried to calibrate my video capture to the TV picture.

yeah, i forgot to mention that the 114% brightness and 87% contrast were for my nvidia geforce 2 (now a quadro mxr) overylay controls. i used the video essentials dvd to get it as close to perfect as i could, but it's still a bit off in the middle of the range. of course, this is only for playing the disc, you may need to double this when recording from a video in.

probably only very expensive equipment can get the PC calibrated to the TV exactly.

the dvd and mpeg playback my intel i740 video card was on the tv scale. i'm not sure why it was, but it could be because the card only did rgb overlays (not yuv).