Color fidelity issue when exporting - colors changed

Report · Nov 17, 2023

Hi!

I have a problem exporting in Prmeiere and then viewing on my Xgimi Horizon Pro projector. I export in H264 or HEVC265 in the highest possible quality, but the green tones change to a turquoise blue. The others remain more or less faithful to what I see on my perfectly calibrated monitor.

Before, the files were in 709, but the export looked very dark, when changing them to sRGB and exporting in 709, the movie looks much more faithful, but I can't figure out why that green tone changes to blue.

Any idea how to fix it? Is there a way to export and do it exactly?

Thank you so much!

Report · Nov 17, 2023

What does the file look like if you import it back into Premiere.

If it looks ok then you have an issue with the projector.

Report · Nov 17, 2023

Gracias por la respuesta!

Sí, al importar en Premiere se ve de la misma manera, es decir, mismos colores, también en un portátil Apple, ¿cuál puede ser la razón de que en el proyector ocurra eso? ¿Puedo calibrarlo de alguna manera para que muestre los colores de forma fiel? Aunque es extraño, porque no he tocado ninguna configuración y si reproduzco otras películas o series se ven de forma correcta.

Thanks!

Report · Nov 17, 2023

Export a colour bars clip and see what that looks like.

Report · Nov 17, 2023

Hi Richard,

I just did it and the colors look the same, with exactly the same export.

I don't understand.

Report · Nov 17, 2023

Any ideas? Thanks!

Report · Nov 17, 2023

How are you playing the export, from a PC via hdmi or directly from a usb stick?

Report · Nov 17, 2023

From a Seagate expansion external hard drive, do you think that could be it?
https://www.amazon.es/Seagate-STEA2000400-Expansion-port%C3%A1til-Playstation/dp/B00TKFEE5S?th=1

Report · Nov 17, 2023

No I don't think that the hard drive is the issue but it seems you are using a player within the projector, it would be good to test it from an external source via hdmi.

Report · Nov 17, 2023

I have tried playing it from the internal memory, copying the file, but the same thing keeps happening. I've also tried quite a few players and it's still the same. In fact, it's strange because in VLC, which usually plays everything, a horizontal green bar appears at the bottom of the screen and a kind of double image like a glitch. I don't know if there is something wrong with the export characteristics.

Report · Nov 17, 2023

Could you Dropbox a short clip so we can have a look, if you could include some bars that we can look at on a scope that would be even better.

Report · Nov 17, 2023

It won't let me send the link to dropbox, it tells me that invalid HTML was found, how could I send it?

Report · Nov 17, 2023

Do you have OneDrive from Microsoft?

Report · Nov 23, 2023

Hi! Perdona por tardar en contestar.

He continuado las pruebas y hay algo curioso. Cuando proyecto la película desde un disco duro conectado al proyector se ve de esta manera (fotos 1 y 2) (saturación correcta, pero el verde varía a color azulado) si desde el proyector la reproduzco desde Dropbox se ve como la foto 3.
Sin embargo, cuando conecto el disco duro a fire stick y este a través de HDMI, la película se ve como en las fotos 4 y 5. (más desaturadas algunas escenas, pero el color verde correcto)

¿Por qué ocurre esto?

Report · Nov 23, 2023

By the way, this is how I see it from the computer:

Report · Nov 23, 2023

Because the viewing device 'assumes' different color spaces with different input devices.

You can't control for that, no pro colorist can. They go nuts getting their system calibrated and then run a profile to check that calibration. Spending more on their reference monitor alone than the rest of us spend on a computer and 3-4 monitors ... not even counting another five or ten grand USD on a spectro to do the calibration.

And the first thing you learn in colorist training is that after the file leaves your system, no one, ever, whether viewing a broadcast signal, streaming, or theatrical release ... will ever see exactly what they saw on that spendy reference monitor.

But ... on all other screens, their media will look relative to all other professionally produced media! ... professionally produced.

"You can't fix gramma's green TV."

Report · Nov 24, 2023

Hahaha yeah, i understand.

I was just wondering if there was some way, perhaps when exporting, that I could make the colors respect as much as possible with respect to the other devices because it seemed strange to me that a projector that is considered quite pro, would change so much.

But thanks for the response, I'll have to let it fly.

Report · Nov 24, 2023

James Cameron is noted as a bit of a picky sot in a colorist suite. Definitely has opinions on nearly everything, and worries about everything else. Such as ... will this look the same on the theater screens with X projector versus Y projector? And .... what about the DVD on various TVs?

Driving the colorist (politely, of course) around the bend.

So for one of his movies, the post house the colorist was in hired a hotel ballroom. Went to the major suppliers for theater projectors, DVD players and TVs, setting up curtained areas for each around the perimeter of the room. Lowered room lighting and everything, and you could stand in the middle and look around seeing everything.

So they got the film project ready on each media type, and basically started playing at the same time, so the same scene would be up on nearly everything., with Cameron standing there watching things.

Apparently, after a while, he decided something to the effect that well ... yea, there definitely were notable differences. Even two of the same projector showed a notably different image, the TVs were defintely all "unique" views ... but .... realistically ... who was gonna notice the differences anyway, if that one view was all you saw? And gee ... it seems actually to come across mostly fitting my goals everywhere anyway ...

So he signed off on the grade, and everyone got on with Life.

I was boggled that there was enough budget to pull that off ... wowza.

Report · Nov 24, 2023

Wow, what a great anecdote, thanks for sharing it, I love it, I didn't know it, but it's something very James Cameron.
David Fincher is another of those who control color a lot, I imagine he has also had this problem.

The only issue I have now is that there are certain parts of the movie that emulate television commercials. To do this, I added some vertical stripes that vary in size from one plane to another many times and makes them look desaturated. I think this is because this footage is shot in 4k and the rest of the movie in 5k. By exporting everything in the same way I think it causes a variation. Is there a way to equalize everything?

I'm sure there are a few directors who have also had this problem haha

Report · Nov 24, 2023

Ahh, making it look like a TV signal 'caught' on film or video ... or like a bad VHS tape ... that's a fun thing to mess about with. And yea, it might be the scaling in your case ... or .. ?

Walter Volpatto is another colorist who has gone to teaching people to be practical. For instance, he tried all kinds of methods for creating 'film grain', as realistic to actual film as possible, everything from some of the expensive apps to the film grain overlays. Set them all on one project, then output that for both watching on a theater projector and for BluRay player to a large TV.

Invited a bunch of top Hollywood types, film buffs and techno nerds alike. Could they detect what was ...what? Or from actual film?

Well ... no. Because by the time the project was exported from Resolve to either the DCP for theater projectors or the compressed file for streaming/b-cast/BluRay, then displayed on the appropriate device ... you couldn't tell.

So he just does basic added 'dither' grain in Resolve anymore. Unless of course specifically asked to do X.

Report · Nov 24, 2023

Yeah, exactly, it's kind of like a TV screen vision, I think they played with this recently in The Creator at the beginning of the film.

This has also happened to me, the film has added grain and on the projector it disappears almost entirely due to noise reduction, but on other devices it more or less remains the same. It doesn't worry me much because there is little else I can do.

But I think that the vertical lines of the spots can cause problems since they have been recorded in another format and with another camera. I'll try to do some more tests to see if I can unify everything.