H.264 looks darker on Youtube/Chrome/Win 7

[Mikay²]

I recently noticed that our h.264 encoded videos look darker on Youtube and that our clinical white looks dirty. Now I have seen that this is the case when I watch the videos with Chrome on Windows 7, but not with Chrome on Windows 10.

Are there any suggestions how to solve this issue?

Our H.264 company preset uses hardware-coding/high profile/level 5,1

[excited_Genie16B8]

How your material looks on a calibrated display from a hardware player is all that you can control.

How it looks anywhere is is beyond your control.

[Mikay²]

I (partially) disagree.

If others are able to make white look white, why should Premiere Pro not be able to do that? I just checked it on the same browser. In every other video that I found with white areas, white was white and not some dirty #fffffd version of it. So there must be an explanation why this happens.

[excited_Genie16B8]

You're reasoning is off a little.

You need to start by making sure you're seeing the signal accurately.  To do that, you use a hardware device, something that won't by itself introduce any changes to the signal.  You connect that to the best quality display you can afford and calibrate it to industry standard specs, also to make sure that the image is presented as it really is.

If the player or the display are introducing changes to the signal, then you're not seeing it accurately.  Most hardware devices won't introduce any changes.  This included Blu-ray players and I/O devices like the AJA Kona.  Software players can and often do alter the signal, so they're just not reliable enough to use for quality control purposes.

Browsers fall into the category of software players.

[Mikay²]

Again, it's not a hardware issue! Wether white is displayed as #fffffd and not as #ffffff has nothing to do with the hardware or whether my monitor is calibrated. The clip looks differently on the same monitor depending on the OS (while everything else looks identical).

So it must be a software issue. Of course, software players may display colors differently, but then again, in other videos #ffffff looks like #ffffff on Youtube! So it seems to be related to our exported clips which are exported by the Media Encoder in H.264.

[excited_Genie16B8]

The clip looks differently on the same monitor depending on the OS

OS is software.  You need to get anything that can change the signal out of the signal path.

Hardware->Calibrated display = the only way to know.

[Mikay²]

The first 8 seconds of our company intro is mostly white. An intersting thing occurs when I start the video and go back to the first frame. Then, suddenly part of the first frame actually looks #fffffff white (next to some areas with slight deviations). So this has nothing to do with calibration. But everything gets muddy again when I play the video again.

The video is about 3 minutes long and has a size of 500MB. So there should be enough information in the clip. 

[Mikay²]

Here is an example with the same browser on the same OS and both on Youtube. On the left side is one of our videos while on the right side a video of another company. The other video looks clinically white while our video looks muddy, although this is just a completely white area in Premiere Pro. 

It doesn't take a calibrated monitor to see that there is something wrong. One could argue that it is the player that produces the error, why then, isn't it producing this error when it plays the other video?

The question is simple: How do I export videos so that #ffffff comes out as #fffffff? Other's are able to do it, so why shouldn't Premiere Pro/Media Encoder be able to do it?

Thanks!

[Kevin-Monahan]

Ever find a solution, mik? Let us know!

Kevin

[R Neil Haugen]

If you don't have a fully calibrated system as Jim talks about, you have no way of being sure your material started at the proper dynamic range settings. Pro broadcast material is produced and checked on systems with many-thousand dollar monitors that are 'fed' from external boxes that have LUTs in them created by many-thousand dollar calibration systems by testing that specific monitor in place in operation.

Unless you have one ... or have checked you material shown on one ... you have no way of knowing that "your" white is the same as the other company's white.

Getting proper b-cast level color/dynamic-range is not something you can do by just buying a computer (no matter how spendy or "cool"), loading up an app and "grading". You have to make sure you have an appropriate setup for the work.

Your hardware, OS, and monitors need to be set up correctly, and all calibrated ... in a controlled lighting space with appropriate amount, location, and color of room lighting. And then ... deliver a short test piece to someone such as a local TV station with a full machine QC unit and see what their gear says about your material, and how it looks on their calibrated gear.

At the least, you need an sRGB monitor capable of full video sRGB color space, set to that, set to around 100 nits using D6500, and calibrated to Rec 709 sRGB with a puck/software system, in a room moderately dark with a grey curtain or wall behind the monitor. You should have a reflected reading of the background that is around 10% the brightness of the monitor's white. That's about as good as you can get without going the full Flander's Scientific monitor route, with a BlackMagic, Kona, or AJA external calibrated LUT box driving the monitor.

You still need to then have the output tested by someone with a QC machine for full confidence in your setup.

Once you've done that, then you have a valid test to check your exports versus another company's presence. And ... yours will look like other pro-level material on any other system, no matter how it looks on that system compared to yours. Every flipping screen out there is different, many a long ways different.

Neil

[chrisw44157881 · Accepted solution]

i have personally seen that different versions of chrome change the white point. you can even change chrome's handling of it.

Step 1: Open the Chrome Browser settings. Enter the URL: chrome://flags/ in the address bar of your Chrome Browser.

Step 2: Change the Color profile. Scroll down the page until the point "Force Color Profile". I Try "Default" to "sRGB". or other settings.

I have compared it against firefox and firefox is 100% perfect in youtube(at least on my system) Please keep in mind that different OS's might have triggered your graphics card to use different settings besides 0-255 in display properties as well.

[Mikay²]

Thank you Chris! Finally someone who knows what he is talking about

Now here is the question: How do I have to export my videos so that this white point adjustment does not occur? Obviously, our competitors are able to upload videos so that #ffffff comes out as #fffffff. So there must be a way.

[chrisw44157881]

if you import the new h.264 video back into premiere, the color should appear exactly the same. its when the web browser displays it, that it shifts. there was a old thread about hue shifts in h.264 but I think cc 2019 fixed that. I'd pixel sample the re-import into premiere.  There's other issues with youtube in general, using vp9 instead of h.264 changes how colors are encoded in youtube. you can try clicking re-touch in youtube and it might trigger a different encode to vp9 colors.

[R Neil Haugen]

That question goes directly back to my previous post. You need at least a sort-of-pro control over your monitor.

Also ... in grading ... trust the scopes over your eyes for this, especially the end-points white/black.

You do grade by watching your scopes, right?

Neil

[Mikay²]

chrisw44157881​

Lot's of usefull information here! Thanks!