http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee94/psyrus_uraya/bad-contrast.jpg

[Original fraps avi on left, Vegas .mp4 render on right]

 

 

So since about a week ago, for some reason Sony Vegas (9.0c) refuses to render this clip in the same contrast/brightness as the original clip, despite there being no effects or settings messed with by yours truly.

 

I've reinstalled [updated, actually] my codec pack, thinking that might've been the problem, but no, it did not change anything. On bright clips the effect is less noticeable, but on anything dark, the darkish areas go almost black.

 

Anyone have ideas to correct this strange occurrence?

 

N.B. It is not just the final renders, when the clip is imported to vegas, the preview also shows up very dark...

Oh and I just realized I installed Nero recently, could that have screwed with it (I think Nero has some encoding features or whatever). If this is a potential cause, is there perhaps a way to test without uninstalling vegas/nero?

Can you just run a short FRAPS clip through another Encoder? Or try something other than x264 (I assume that's what you have in your mp4 container)?

 

And why can't you uninstall Nero? What does it offer that ImgBurn doesn't?

 

And I suppose the only workaround may be putting a brightness/contrast filter on it for now.

I bit the bullet and uninstalled Nero, but it didn't fix it...

 

EasyH264 encoder is doing it as well (mp4), so I dunno what the heeeck is going on

Could it be some sort of setting with your gpu? Like AVIVO for ATI cards?

I thought the CPU was in charge of rendering, which uses a 'codec' or something to determine how to render it in XYZ format? Is it possible that my h264/mp4 codec/rendering thingy is corrupt?

 

How would I go about checking or even fixing it? I uninstalled/reinstalled codec packs already

he means that your video card, through its drivers, may be actively changing how the video is playing, through brightness/contrast/saturation settings etc.

 

go through your video card settings and turn off things like avivo or whatever the nvidia equivalent is.

he means that your video card, through its drivers, may be actively changing how the video is playing, through brightness/contrast/saturation settings etc.

 

go through your video card settings and turn off things like avivo or whatever the nvidia equivalent is.

 

But that pic is of two videos (the raw .avi & the rendered .mp4) playing at the same time, next to each other. Would the video card selectively play them at different contrast settings?

 

edit: Just checked and all Nvidia options were already off, set to "Use video player settings"

Edited December 11, 200915 yr by Husker

How does your mp4 encode? With ffmpeg?

 

Edit: Well, I'm not sure how Vegas does it but EasyH264? And when you encode, has it already gone through Vegas or is it encoded directly from the FRAPS file?

 

Without waiting for an answer, does a short 20 second FRAPS RAW clip without being touched by Vegas and then encoded have the same problem? And does a third party have a problem with the brightness (i.e. is it a local problem - uploaded and shown to someone else)?

 

 

Edit2: And I reread the thread but may have missed it...did you try uninstalling Vegas and reinstalling (it wouldn't be too much of a hassle, would it?)?

Edited December 11, 200915 yr by captncrunch240

How does your mp4 encode? With ffmpeg?

Uhhh how would I check that?

 

 

Edit: Well, I'm not sure how Vegas does it but EasyH264? And when you encode, has it already gone through Vegas or is it encoded directly from the FRAPS file?

Nah I tried the Easy264 straight from the fraps avi, same problem.

 

Without waiting for an answer, does a short 20 second FRAPS RAW clip without being touched by Vegas and then encoded have the same problem? And does a third party have a problem with the brightness (i.e. is it a local problem - uploaded and shown to someone else)?

 

Well check this video out, the original fraps avi files are perfect brightness, but when it was rendered and uploaded, comes up really dark for me... for you as well?

 

Edit2: And I reread the thread but may have missed it...did you try uninstalling Vegas and reinstalling (it wouldn't be too much of a hassle, would it?)?

That'll be the next step. Not too much of a problem, the install process is pretty painless

not some weird setting thats on in vegas?

Well check this video out, the original fraps avi files are perfect brightness, but when it was rendered and uploaded, comes up really dark for me... for you as well?

Hmm, to me, that vid looks fine because I have no reference point. Behind the Strykers looks a little dark though. And the Youtube compression, even in HD isn't great (comparing some I've uploaded to the original).

 

Next up, uninstall Vegas.

 

Try searching Doom9 too.

 

 

Edit: Oops, I will answer other question. If the Encoder is free, it's probably ffmpeg. Doom9 has a MP4 Encoder GUI Forum section with all of the main encoders there. I noticed you had that odd sound problem at the beginning of your clip, I get that too with almost every encoder I've tried bar one or two.

 

Try this and see what it looks like. The playlist isn't finished so just click on either one, for this experiment, click on the 300 metre LAT one (all 3 vids should work even though titles are wrong).

 

Vid Playlist

 

This is the direct link (not flash based). Does the brightness/contrast seem right to you (keeping in mind that it's had a filter applied to it which may brighten and saturate it)?

Edited December 11, 200915 yr by captncrunch240

What I meant was, for my ATI card at least, is that I can do GPU encoding of videos, using AVIVO. This is much much quicker than using the CPU. In CCC, I can change a bunch of colour related settings.

 

As for Nvidia, doesn't CUDA do that? Or is it PureVideo, I dunno.

 

It could also be that it's not a problem with the encode, but instead on the decode when you play it, since looking at PureVideo, that is what that seems to do: http://www.nvidia.com/page/purevideo.html

 

I dunno, try using a different codec and see if there is a difference, because h264 is one of the few codecs that these gpu encoders support.

Ok, uninstalled vegas and reinstalled, and uninstalled and reinstalled codec pack.

 

MP4 exact same as before.

 

Tried WMV and it works fine.

 

http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee94/psyrus_uraya/RageFace2.png

Edited December 13, 200915 yr by Husker

So interestingly enough, if I make nvidia take over colour correction, it fixes up the problem (on playback), so I suppose that the underlying problem is on playback and not rendering? Ugh I'm so confused

thats why i asked you to download my videos above.

 

the brightness is fine on mine, so if it's a playback issue on yours, then we are narrowing it down.

Ah sorry I missed that part, I looked at the flash playlist but didn't download the file; it's hard to tell on the LAT shot, because it's quite a vibrant scene and I don't have the original avi source to compare with. *sigh*, I'll take some more dark area fraps and keep experimenting, ugh this is so annoying

do you want me to do a side by side or something, like you did above.

 

what if i just fraps something tonight and compress it with basic settings and upload it. would that help.

Nah it's cool, I need to compare my original fraps to the rendered/playing one to see if it is working correctly, so third party material won't work. Thanks though! Worse comes to worst, reinstall win7

yeah, thought of that.

 

thought maybe it was the final mp4 getting adjusted but it's probably in the render, like you say.

 

i guess if you go through all your old footage of raw and compressed and then recompress...