Video brighter than original with CCE SP

[Lucius Snow]

Hello all,

In order to make some DVD from DV sources tapes (Pal 4/3 interlaced), i use CCE SP 2.67 for MPEG2 encoding. I export from Vegas 5 through Debugmode Frameserver 2.0 (format RGB24). Here are the settings i use for less a hour film :

http://poubellelqt.free.fr/crap/ccesp1.jpg
http://poubellelqt.free.fr/crap/ccesp2.jpg
http://poubellelqt.free.fr/crap/ccesp3.jpg

The result is very good except for one thing : the video is brighter than the original source. Which setting makes that ? Is it luminance level or anything else ? I'd like no brightness addition.

Thank you.

[Video Dude]

Yes, it is the luminance level. It is that RGB conversion that is most likely messing you up. Can you specify to frameserve to YUY2? If not, you might want to "smart render" to a DV file. Then use a DV codec that supports decoding in YUY2 and load the DV into CCE.

This seems to be a common question lately. (In fact, if you look at the first page of the cce forum section, the same question has been asked three times in the past week!)

A search turns up the following answers.

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=28815
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=21418
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=70589
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=38440
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=17859
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=82953

And also RB's CCE FAQ
Q12: How do I set the "Luminance Level" option correctly?
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=53770

Setting the luminance level seems to bring much debate here on the forums. Its best to read through the many, many threads and see if you can understand it.

[Lucius Snow]

Thank you.

I put 0 to 255 instead of 16 to 235 and it's now better :)

About the frameserving, i can chose RGB24, RGB32 or YUY2. I'm a bit confused though. Here is what the developer says about it :

From vegas all three options are equal. Vegas always gives data in RGB format to the frameserver so if you choose YUY2 the frameserver converts rgb->yuy2 and then serves. If you had chosen either RGB24 or RGB32, the frameserver gives the data to CCE as rgb and CCE does the conversion to yuv. So it is just a matter of which software does the conversion.

I'm working on DV sources (sometimes recompressed when there are effects on the timeline), the codec is the one used by Vegas(Mainconcept).

By the way, here is what the developper added :

when you serve as YUY2 the range would be 16->235 and CCE will not stretch it to 0->235

So i'm wondering, which settings are the best ? RGB24 & 0 to 255 OR YUY2 & 16 to 235 ?