It isn't a problem with the file per se. And your monitor calibration can only affect the signal it receives, and that's also not the problem here.
The problem is caused by Apple's ColorSync utility, which controls color management for those apps that let it. Like QuickTime Player, Chrome & Safari browsers. As ColorSync uses a display transform of essentially gamma 1.96 on the signal it sends to the monitor.
Rather than the 'normal' Rec.709 display transform of gamma 2.4. Which is used by all non-Apple systems, including broadcast/streaming.
So any app that allows ColorySync to color manage video playback will use that incorrect display transform of gamma 1.96 on the signal it sends to the monitor.
Hence the difference between QuickTime Player/Chrom/Safari and VLC. As VLC doesn't allow ColorSync to color manage the image.
PCs, TVs, and Android devices are designed to use a display gamma of 2.4 for Rec.709 video. As are the Macs with Reference modes set to "HDTV".
How this affects the file itself ... is less understood. You see, Premiere doesn't change the file by applying a gamma to the exported result. That's not how it works.
It's when you are viewing the image within Premiere, and you make changes to the file with that image as showing in the Program monitor ... you have made the changes to the file. It's not an added thing by Premiere ... it's what you've done according to how you viewed the file in Premiere.
Which is why Premiere's viewer gamma (applied to the display signal) should be set to 2.4 for semi-dark room grading ... meaning a pretty dark, neutral (but not blacked-out) room, or gamma 2.2 for "bright room" ... meaning normal room lights on while grading.
Grading in the totally neutral color, darker room, allows for more accurate human visual perception of both hue values and color contrast ... that's why that is the required standard for professional grading.
Broadcast/commercial video is all built on the expectation the material was graded while being viewed in a 'correct' environment. Neutral gray surfaces in any area seen by the colorist, semi-darkened room, a bias light projected at the wall or curtains behind the Reference monitor such that there is a slight (and I do mean slight!) "glow" around the monitor bezel.
The monitor both calibrated and then profiled to check the calibration.
What is done to the file by the colorist, the choices of tonal and color settings, is done under those conditions, in order to get a consistent end result across colorists and suites.
So Premiere tries to create the proper environment for you to correct the image. The signal out to the monitor is created after the correction you've done to the image inside Premiere. You can now choose which display transform setting you want to use:
- if you want the "Mac" QuickTime view 1.96 image to grade, or
- thankfully, when you are grading in a normal bright office and can (and should) use gamma 2.2 in the Viewer settings in Premiere, or
- you are in that neutral, darkened room, and can and should use the gamma 2.4 viewer display setting.
Premiere doesn't apply the gamma to the file ... but to the image sent to the system/monitor after all processing of your grading choices.
And this is why colorists must use a breakout device, such as the cards by BlackMagic and AJA, to send the signal to the reference monitor. They want a "clean feed", meaning neither the OS nor the GPU even "touch" the signal, so they can't change it. NO properly setup, professional reference monitor is ever fed directly from the GPU.
The challenge for 'general' editors and amateurs is to get as close to a grading suite setup as you can afford to do. And to understand the capabilities and limitations of your system, so you can take them into account and work through and over them.
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