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How about bringing up the image on a timeline, and getting those scopes I mentioned showing. Do a screengrab, drag/drop onto the reply box. Like this ...
Seeing where the image pixels lie in the scopes is a useful way to see where the data 'sits' on the scale.
And of course, you can check the Source tab of the ECP, and see if any effects are being applied there.
Neil
Ok, I've downloaded the file and brought it up in Premiere.
The first part of my response is technical mumbo jumbo, then I'll get to what appears on my system.
Technical Stuff But Useful To Know
Two things of interest.
First, the color space is Rec.601, the old standard, prior to Rec.709. I did use the new CM controls to override to Rec.709, but it made no difference in the image here. Perhaps it would on another system, I don't know. But somewhat odd that this was apparently shot with the Rec.601 standard.
And second, the encoded range is 'full', which is not the normal/expected data range for YUV media. This may or may not be where the issue comes in on your system.
Well, technically YUV is the 'shorthand' used for YCb/Cr ... and legal/limited is the expected encoding practice for most Rec.709 media. Especially, for all YUV/Y-Cb/Cr Rec.709 media files.
Some 12 bit Rec.709 files are actually RGB, not YUV/Y-Cb/Cr, and RGB files are 'expected' to be encoded as 'full' range.
Note, this is only to do with encoding data values to the file. It has nothing to do with how wide a dynamic range or how much data is captured and recorded to file. Nor with the display of the files, as both should be displayed as 0-255 on any decently setup system.
When displayed on a properly setup system, the legal/limited encoded file will be displayed as 0-255, and will not have any banding or other issues different from encoded as 'full'. All the data, all the levels, are actually there.
And this whole legal/limited thing is heavily covered in pro colorist training. As there are so many misconceptions about it.
(The whole full/legal is a morass of legacy stuff that should have been junked years ago, but ... those standards are still in place. And Premiere doth abide by the standards in default behaviors (except for a couple exceptions; but then, there are always exceptions ... ).)
Ok ... so what appears on my screens?
Here's what I see on first bringing the file into Premiere, and using the "new sequence from file" option.
Across the image are the Lumetri scopes panel, the Program monitor, and the Source monitor.
Neither on this, my main UI screen, nor on my vastly better Q reference monitor, do I see any difference between the source image and that displayed on the timeline/sequence.
Nor are there any crushed blacks nor clipped whites. It's a very, very nice file in all, data-wise.
But ... what do I see in say VLC player?
Ahh ... there's the higher contrast version, darker 'black' and lighter 'white' like you're getting in Premiere. So ... why the reversal? On my system, the VLC player displayed this as a 'full' range file, according to the file tagging.
While Premiere, on my system, apparently looked at the file format nature: YUV, and therefore interpreted it as Rec.709/legal.
Your scopes are showing potentially crushed values in the blacks, that dense signal down at the bottom. My scopes aren't showing that crushing at all. That is a bit of a puzzler.
And I'm wondering ... if this had been encoded as expected, as a legal range file, would we be seeing different images?
So ... what is your OS, Mac, perchance? And past that, I'm wondering if, because the file is 'full', but YUV, if there's a difference in the way your system displays it versus how Premiere displays it. As for this file, a mismatch between full/legal may very well be the problem here.
A bit of an interesting thing, because typically the Mac OS ColorSync utility messes with Rec.709 media. It uses a very non-standard gamma of 1.96 rather than 2.4. So the shadows in typical QuickTime player displays on a Mac appear lifted at least somewhat
That's why on Macs it's pretty important to use the "Display Color Management" option in the Preferences. Not for images within Premiere to match images outside of Premiere on that system, but so that, within Premiere, you see a more correct, proper Rec.709 image than you would otherwise.
I'm wondering ... if this is a situation where the 'full' range tag of the file and the whole ColorSync issue give us this ... mishmash ... of un-expected results.
For Further General Information ...
My system was very carefully setup, has been tested thoroughly, and 'natively' works properly with both full and legal/limited media without further adjustment by me. VLC saw the 'full' range tag, and played the file as 'full'.
My system is heavily color 'managed', all four monitors calibrated using an Xrite puck & software. The monitor I use as a reference monitor gets additional, tedious work. Which is called being "profiled".
For that work, I use ColourSpace, a calibration software for pro colorists and for calibration specialists, to run the puck. It uses Resolve as a color patch generator, and runs a LONG series of reading of patches to come up with a series of reports on the results it gets by reading the patches.
And from those graphs, one can check the accuracy of the monitor to the nth degree. It took a couple days of calibration then profile, recalibrate then profile, to figure out how to setup this monitor so it could be calibrated well enough to get an acceptable profile. And it's been very much within the deltaE for basic response up a graphed curve, and the other several graphs, for professional work.
That said, if I were going to do any broadcast or streaming, I'd have a Flanders or Eizo full-on grade 1 reference monitor in here first.
Neil
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