Colors are wrong when I use CUDA GPU Acceleration, but not when I use the Mercury Software Engine. - Reboot
I had the exact issue of an another thread for a while and finally found a fix that no one seems to mention.
Setup: Windows 10, Premiere Pro 2023, Nvidia RTX 3050, footage shot in HDR (MOV, ~60fps).
The problem: With hardware decoding enabled (ImporterMPEG.decoder_pref = hw in the debug console), colors appeared cooler/washed out compared to software decoding. Switching back to SW decode showed correct colors, but with higher CPU load.
What I tried that did NOT work:
- Tweaking color flags in Premiere's debug console (
ColorSpaceConverter.AttemptFinalPixelFormatConversion,Host.ColorConversion.EnableDisplayColorManagementForSWRenderer, etc.) - Nvidia Control Panel dynamic range was already set to Limited — no change
- Disabling
IntelEncoder.UseHwAccEncodingto prioritize NVENC
What actually fixed it: Enabling HDR on the monitor.
The footage was shot in HDR. With the monitor in SDR mode, Premiere's HW decoder was mishandling the HDR color space, displaying it incorrectly. Once HDR was enabled on the display, the HW decode showed the correct colors — matching the export output.
Key insight: The export was always correct regardless. The issue was purely a preview/display problem caused by the monitor not being in HDR mode while editing HDR footage with hardware decoding active.
If your footage is HDR and you're seeing a color shift with HW decode: enable HDR on your monitor first before trying anything else.
Since the other post was closed, i thought about creating another one to see if this helps anyone!
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