Different players give different saturation & proper screenshot making

[Bh4i]

I just began with some basic encoding and noticed some things when comparing image quality:

- When i have multiple instances open from MPC it will give other saturation as when i have only 1 process open.
- When making screenshots with MPC, it gives a other saturation that i can see while playing the video. The screenshot taken appears to be much more desaturated, and more natural.
- But sometimes when i play a file with MPC it gives me an oversaturated video, and when i close and op en THE SAME file again, it sometimes gives me the same quality as the screenshots. Now, this is really confusing. :confused:
- So, the final question(s) are: Why do i get different saturation factors with multiple instances of MPC and why are these different in other programs. Is there any program that will give me the best playback? VLC appears to give a constant saturation.
- What is the proper way to make screenshots? The screenshots made with MPC appear to be different from those made with VLC.

These seems to be many question, but atm im really confused :( I download some other versions of MPC and have this problem also. I do have a new TFT monitor, but i dont think it has something to do with that, as VLC is the only program that gives a constant saturation.

Confused @ 100% :o

[foxyshadis]

Can you tell what video decoder is being used, as well as what renderer MPC is using? (Renderer is in the Options.) It sounds like VMR7 windowed, given those symptoms - haali's or VMR9 should work identically across multiple windows. Overlay probably wouldn't work at all.

[Bh4i]

I forgot to give further info..

The movie is a x264 encoded with MeGUI.

I use ffdshow (i know that CoreAVC is the best, thinking about buying it..) and renderer is set at "system default". How do i know what my system default is?

I seems that i also have this problem with DVD-Video. I do have Nvidia Purecodec installed, but thats only for MPEG2.

[check]

Overlay will be used for the first and it will fallback to VMR7 for most instances. Overlay can be thought of as the 'reference' output - as long as your video card config doesn't have custom values for brightness, saturation, etc it will produce an output exactly as it is inteded to look.
The only problem is that only one program can use Overlay at a time, so when it uses other renderers such as VMR7/9 they do not produce an identical output and can be different. Moral of the story? Only view one movie at a time! (or use VirtualDub, which does not suffer any problems with multiple instances).

[Bh4i]

Thnx :) I used VMR7/Windows (system default).

Is this only valid for MPC?

[check]

No, pretty much every media player. Test to see :)

[Bh4i]

I dont get it.

If i change this setting in MPC, will it also effect other players? Sounds weird, as i changed this in MPC.

[foxyshadis]

No, each player controls its own; zoom player has it under customized media, bsplayer under options; vlc and wmp have no option and typically use vmr9 or vmr7 if possible.

[mike_lee]

I know exactly what you mean. You get one file playing and it looks great, then you start a second file and it looks like crap, the third file looks like the first.

As was mentioned the second file is using overlay.(or the first file) That's exactly how I ended up here downloading my first filter.

foxyshadis was standing by a 59 Bel Air wearing a leather jacket inscribed with the name of some Japanese punk band, a ciggerette hanging out of the side of his mouth taunting me to d/l my first filter.

"Don't be a pussy man, one filter can't hurt you - what's the matter you scared?" and then I kept downloading filters until today the sun scares me. People are often surprised to see me "Snake Plissken? I thought you were dead."

Set your output to wmr9 or haali and they will all look the same.

http://img140.imagevenue.com/loc544/th_11466_Clipboard01_122_544lo.jpg (http://img140.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=11466_Clipboard01_122_544lo.jpg)http://img104.imagevenue.com/loc345/th_11476_Clipboard05_122_345lo.jpg (http://img104.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=11476_Clipboard05_122_345lo.jpg)http://img21.imagevenue.com/loc376/th_11483_Clipboard05_122_376lo.jpg (http://img21.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=11483_Clipboard05_122_376lo.jpg)

[Bh4i]

Thanks everyone. So:

- Its best to view only 1 movie at the time
- If viewing one movie, use Overlay
- When viewing multiple movies, use VMR9 (windowed) or Haali

The questions im still asking myself :o :

- Why cant i use VMR9 (windowed) or Haali all the time?
- When making a screenshot, which renderer is used?

[check]

Answers:
o You can, but be aware that VMR modes can look fugly on many setups (and on others they look great) - it's a bit of a grab bag. Use virtualdub at 100% zoom to get a 'reference' output for a certain frame and compare the output of different renderers to that to help you choose which you like best. Also note that each one changes CPU usage.
o Whichever renderer is in use. As overlay skips the part of the video card that is used to take screenshots you can't take screenshots in overlay mode. To get around this, either use the 'take screenshot' option in your media player or install and configure ffdshow to decompress raw video and use its 'grab' feature.

[Bh4i]

Thnx for the info buddy :)

[Wesmosis]

thanx guyz
but what's the Advatage of Overlay from System Default
and is there is a tutorial or a guide explain exactly the Playback Output Window IN MPC coz I got dizzy from all these terms (renederless,windowed,overlay,null)!?

[check]

system default is simply an alias for one of the other modes. In other words, on some systems it means overlay, on others VMR7.
Generally, you should stick with overlay for playback on a PC monitor.

[Wesmosis]

I C, so whenever I want the (Save Image or Save Thumbnails) features I just set the Playback Output in MPC to default, otherwise Overlay to be always there, is that correct?

btw, I'm using KLMC1.59 and it came with Overlay Option as a Default, so it's the best for most average joe users ,isn't it?

Pardon my (newbiness) ;)

[mike_lee]

thanx guyz
but what's the Advatage of Overlay from System Default
and is there is a tutorial or a guide explain exactly the Playback Output Window IN MPC coz I got dizzy from all these terms (renederless,windowed,overlay,null)!?

Obviously you know system default is just a shortcut pointed at whatever was set up to render, almost always (as mentioned) overlay or VMR7.

Simplicity I guess, it's designed to work for the average joe. But if you want to take advantage of the cool stuff you can do nowadays you should use some other way. Overlay is designed to bypass CPU and GPU processing and just dumps the video on your screen. If you want to use shaders or render your video on a 3D plane or use features of your new graphics card you will need to find some other way to render. I use haali myself.

[Wesmosis]

aha
thanx Mike