Depressing. Footage in Premiere/VLC looks VERY different in Quicktime/Vimeo/Youtube

[rexrodall]

Well, this is depressing. I don't know if something is wrong with my MacBook 2016, but I've noticed that footage in the Premiere program monitor looks VERY different to the exported video in various platforms, to the extent that I don't even know why I bother color correcting! I took some screenshots of the exact same video (below). This is a H.264 export at 16mbps. I also tried various other exports (quicktime, matched source, prores etc) and got some results.

Premiere is what I want it to look like, and vlc represents this very very well. But Quicktime, Vimeo & Youtube (safari), Preview (Mac) all produce the same gamma shift and desaturation. With Firefox Vimeo going in the opposite direction and looking like the woman's face is on fire. I exported to my iPhone via dropbox and the results were somewhere in between.

THIS IS CRAZY?! I know there isn't a HUGE difference, but its enough to make me not want to bother colouring anything ever again knowing that I have no idea whether it will be played by people on Vimeo/quicktime (way more drained than what I'm editing/seeing in Premiere) or VLC (accurate to Premiere, but...so what)

Has anyone got any pointers? Give up making videos?

[R Neil Haugen · Accepted solution]

Ahhh ... sending "our babies out into the wild" is very, very frustrating. There's been a TON of threads on here ever since I started in PrPro back in CS6.

PrPro is designed to "assume" modern digital image standards ... "full" dynamic range of 0-255 for 8-bit exports, and "standard" gamma. VLC typically works the same, although on my PC I needed to go into the Nvidia control app for my GTX970 and tab to the "Video options" section, and then choose to have the Nvidia settings over-rule video player settings, and to use "full" 0-255 dynamic range.

QuickTime uses the old tape-based dynamic range of 16-235, with a slightly different gamma ... so it lifts the blacks to 16, drops the whites to 235, and slightly raises the gamma. The result: muddy darks, muddy whites, and low-contrast/low-saturation video.

YouTube & Vimeo ... wow. I've had some clips out of PrPro load perfectly, others try and match QuickTime's mess. Or worse.

There's another user "around here" who's made a LUT he applies to his exports that will go to YouTube that changes the output to mostly make up for YouTube's crazyness. Others have said if they take a PrPro H.264 export into FFMPEG or one of the other specialized converter apps, they can export the "same" file but that app puts a tag in the file header so YouTube "sees" it correctly. I've not tried that.

And of course, no matter what you do, NO ONE "out there" will ever look at that image on a screen setup to look exactly like yours. Have a nice day, and ... please don't go crazy!

Neil

[rexrodall]

So, where is it going wrong? Something to do with the export settings? The export itself? The way my computer 'watches' Vimeo/youtube (i.e. will the same upload look 'correct' on other computers).

I literally can't believe all the videos I have ever done looked 10-15% more washed out to 80% of people 😕

[excited_Genie16B8]

I don't even know why I bother color correcting!

That's actually the proper attitude to take.  At least partially.

You can't control the viewing environment of...well, anyone but yourself.  So all you can so is make it look good on the best TV you have access to (after proper calibration, of course) and let it go.  How it looks anywhere else is just not something you can control or account for.

Having said that, I should also point out that none of the viewing methods you describe is sufficient for the task of judging the image.  You must get the video off the computer and onto a calibrated TV (with an I/O device or via export).  Judge it there, and only there.

[rexrodall]

most of my videos are just for Vimeo/youtube 😞

[excited_Genie16B8]

Doesn't matter where they end up.  That philosophy holds for all video production.

[R Neil Haugen]

Jim's point is well-taken. Once you know you've got a well-set image, viewed on a well-calibrated monitor/tv, over proper gear, you know it will be good signal data. It will then appear on anyone else's gear looking the same as any other professionally produced/controlled media looks.

Which won't have a thing to do with how it looks on your setup, but ... it will look as they expect "good" to look on theirs.

Neil

[rexrodall]

I guess that makes sense. But I could over-compensate by, for example using gamma correction in premiere just for the youtube or Vimeo files. ..... or will the youtube/vimeo files look different on all computers? Its not a monitor problem, its a player (or codec) problem ... isn't it?

[rexrodall]

I remember taking screenshots of some of my videos in Vimeo and comparing to the Premiere program monitor and looked exactly the same. Maybe its my new MacBook (2016) but that isn't happening right now.

[R Neil Haugen]

That's part of the problem ... when you're watching YouTube or Vimeo, you can be dealing with browser settings/predilections, whatever YouTube/Vimeo and the 'local' downloading service have done with the signal, and of course that computer's video system.

Too many unknowable unknowns.

Colorists spend a TON of money on gear, outboard video boxes (like what Meg the Dog listed above), multi-thousand dollar calibrated monitors, and yet ... for all the work they do seeing that the material they export is dead-on, gramma's going to be watching it on her tv which has drifted way dark & green.

Trying to control for that? A colorist I know quotes Gandalf from the Lord of the Rings: "That way lies ... madness!"

Control your own setup. Grade on that, and test your material on known proper gear. And let it go.

For what it's worth, most of my Vimeo uploads worked fine, as far as watching them "back" on my machine via Vimeo. As have a goodly share of my YouTube ones. A few YouTube ones did come in more to the problems you've been having.

And every different player I've ever had on my machine has done a leetle bit of something to make things look slightly to a LOT different than another video player.

Neil

[rexrodall]

thanks Neil. what borrower do you use? I use safari but have just done a test in chrome and found the colours to be very good on Vimeo.

Vimeo (safari), youtube (safari) and quicktime all look the same to me - pretty crappy compared to what I was editing), washed out, and a oranges are yellowy

Vimeo (Chrome) and VLC look spot on to Premiere

Firefox (Vimeo/youtube) is similar gamma wise but oranges are little more red

So the problem with doing 'compensated grades' or LUTS especially for youtube is that it will make Firefox then look VERY contrasty.

Like you say, best to stick, for me at least to premiere and VLC. Its a shame though as so many people I know use safari, and my videos will end up looking washed out to them

Goodness knows what Facebook videos look like.....

[R Neil Haugen]

Remember what I said up a post or two ... if your material is very tight to "studio-control quality" signal data, then anyone viewing your material on their gear will see your material exactly the same as they see all other pro-grade material.

That's the best you can get. To them, it will look as "good" or "normal" as anything else they watch.

For what it's worth, I split use between Firefox & Chrome. Haven't tried Safari in years. Yea, both are a bit different from each other. And even though my two monitors are calibrated with the same gear to the same settings, they are both a bit different. Which is ok ... I know which is the more accurate one.

Neil

[rexrodall]

Would you recommend setting a monitor to sRGB or something else? I have an new MacBook and new display, both display P3 wide gamut and I'm not sure but it seems to be confusing things! There seems to be a lot less difference between, say quicktime and premiere when monitor set to sRGB as oppose to the wide P3 gamut, which has a big difference quicktime and premiere, its kind of off putting

[R Neil Haugen]

Not familiar with the Maciverse, particularly ... but from what I do know of say P3 vs sRGB spaces and such, I'd imagine that PrPro can spread out on the bigger space, but the Quicktime player can't. I'm probably wrong, but that's what pops into my head.

Very few of your YouTube folks will be able to watch your stuff on a P3 monitor, btw.

If you're prepping stuff primarily for YouTube 'b-cast' ... I'd suggest editing/grading in sRGB.

Neil

[excited_Genie16B8]

You need to view the footage on a calibrated TV from a hardware device.  You have to get the video off the computer.  Either purchase a compatible I/O device from AJA, Blackmagic, etc., or export the video and get it onto the TV somehow.

The reasoning here is one of eliminating variables.  You have to ensure that you're seeing the signal as it is, and not altered in some way by the software, graphics card or operating system (all of which can and often do just that).

You have to get the video off the computer.

[excited_Genie16B8]

I could over-compensate by, for example using gamma correction in premiere just for the youtube or Vimeo files

You really can't.

the youtube/vimeo files look different on all computers

And that's why.

[Jarle_Leirpoll]

rexrodall​, I've sent you a PM. WOuld love to use your image in my book.

The Cool Stuff in Premiere Pro - PremierePro.net

/jarle

[DGolf]

Hi - I'm curious about "There's another user "around here" who's made a LUT he applies to his exports". An

[R Neil Haugen]

The one you're probably wanting to see about his export LUT is something like chrisw29486 ... I don't have the direct link, but he's in a LOT of the threads on YouTube and Lumetri gamma issues. Search through a few, you'll find him.

YouTube on initial upload uses one codec for the first while, and ... may ... then move to a second one. VP9 is I think the initial, and another format for the 'final', except they don't always do the second re-encode. Which is why some users have found that if on initial upload they do things to their private channel, then edit/retouch the video but save without actually doing any retouching, within a couple hours YouTube does the second re-encode step and their video now shows with proper dynamic range & gamma.

Another tip found very useful by many is to use the DNxHD/R in mxf format exported out of PrPro rather than say H.264, for uploading to YouTube. That seems to pass into their system as one would hope it would.

Neil

[KeithHopkin]

I've been struggling with this for the past few weeks working on a new system at a new office (I'm on a Mac Pro). I could be completely wrong about what I did but it seemed that the system display settings were using the display's profile (CS2730). From what I've read if a display comes with its own profile then that should be used. At home and a previous gig I used an iMac most likely using the default "iMac" profile.

So what was happening for me is what a lot of folks have been describing. The image in Premiere looks more saturated and higher contrast than the image outside of Premiere. So I changed my system's display profile to sRGB IEC61966-2.1 and now the image outside of Premiere resembles what it looks like in Premiere. Is this wrong???????

[R Neil Haugen]

BT(Rec.709) video standard is by definition sRGB. Period. So you've now matched your monitor to what PrPro will use. Which is correct for producing/viewing Rec709 video.

Neil

[KeithHopkin]

Cool. Thanks for the thumbs up on that.

[R Neil Haugen]

You have to work with what is. And also hope that sometime soon the user gets more color management controls in PrPro like Resolve has.

Neil

[Romy2746388093lz]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0huDTGCtqo&ab_channel=BryanAdamCastillo

[R Neil Haugen]

Sorry, but that's no fix. PERIOD.

It's only a workaround that makes the file look, on a Mac Retina set to Rec.709 in ColorSync, like it did within Premiere. Be careful abourt using it.  

Especially because on ALL non-Mac systems, your file is now WAY too dark and oversaturated!

How to see what others will see? Import that file with the LUT applied back into Premiere. Right. That's now what everyone else non-Mac sees of your video.

The Problem isn't "Adobe" ... or 'Premiere" ... it's Apple's choice to misapply color standards for Rec.709 video files in their ColorSync utility.

Apps on your Mac, that do NOT allow ColorSync to control the image, will not have this problem.

Another option on some Macs, is if you have the option in the Mac ColorSync/Monitor settings for "HDTV" ... use that rather then the Rec.709 setting. As the HDTV option will actually use the correct full Rec.709 settings, including the correct display gamma of 2.4.

Neil