DV to MPEG2 - slightly brighter?

[rubic42]

I'm processing some DV into MPEG2 for DVD, using a combination of TemporalSoften2 and DeNoise in AviSynth to clean it up and CCE to encode. When playing back on the DVD player, the video seems to be brighter than the original DV when viewed on the same TV. Is there anything specific in the chain of processing events that would cause this to happen?

Could it be the 16 to 235 luma option in CCE? Or is it the effect of the RGB/YUV color space conversions? Is the quickest way to solve this to just apply a brightness/contrast filter or is there a change in the processing settings that would fix this?

[bb]

I'd guess it's the luma option (the same thing is called "TV scale" in DVD2AVI, for those who are into MPEG2 conversions). If your DV is dark, then enabling the option in CCE will make your video brighter. This is clearly noticable in almost black scenes. Very bright scenes would come out a little darker.

bb

[rubic42]

My DV isn't dark, I'd say everything is getting lighter, a little washed out. It's just enough to be annoying to me, but it looks OK still... I just need to find the origin.

[Arky]

If this is really an issue for you, why not try TMPGenc? It give wonderfully rich colours with DV material.

I do, however, understand the reasons why you might wish to stick with Cinemacraft, speed, not least, being an issue...


Arky ;o)

[TRILIGHT]

For what it's worth, I've seen many posts in other forums talking about a "brighter" or "washed out" looking effect when working with DV material. Just thought I'd let you know your equipment is probably fine and it's just the effect of working with this type of source. I don't have a DV camera myself but I've seen it posted way too many times to just be coincidence.

[rubic42]

TMPGEnc does make some nice, rich colors, but I'm encoding at a low bitrate and I prefer CCE's noise to TMPGEnc's blocks in this case. And speed is a factor as well.

[Arky]

I know Ligos isn't Quite up to the quality of TMPGEnc and CCESP, but I will just mention that Ligos is also criticised by TecoLTD.com, in their encoder tests, for incorrectly handling DV-source material - guess what? It gives a bleached effect.

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http://www.tecoltd.com/enctest/enctest.htm


QUOTE ["The VBR technique is very effective. The reason why we did not give 9 points is that there is some problem if the source is DV. We detected that the contrast of the result does not match the source. We made a grayscale movie (DV compressed) what contains luminance from 0 to 255, and this encoder created a result containing approx. 8-235. The explanation was that the encoder expects fixed luma scale from 0-255. This is true, because we made an uncompressed RGB file as well with the same content, and the result was perfect. The mentioned effect causes strange (blockies) effects at the darker scenes, btw. Some of the competitor products can solve this problem though. Anyway, if the source is not DV (but we really don't know what else it would be nowadays) this encoder produces excellent quality"] END QUOTE.
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I'm gonna start using CCESP in earnest soon, once my P4's up and running, and I will be encoding DV source material, so I do hope the effect you refer to isn't too severe - I'll be gutted, and I agree with your sentiments on TMPGEnc, much as I like the encoder.

Obviously this is a colour-space interpretation/conversion issue, since RGB source (AKA DVD rips) works fine in CCESP..

Please let me know if you unearth any useful tips on the issue.


Arky ;o)

[auenf]

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=21007

just to confuse you more ;)

altho somehow i managed to fix the darker problem, cant remember how tho...

Enf...

[Arky]

Not trying to teach somebody as experienced as you to suck eggs - I'm no expert (YET!! :D ) on CCESP, but I take it you haven't overlooked the settings for:


Luminance Level

16 to 235
0 to 255



have you?


Arky ;o)