G'day Igor -

Have you tried a colour render test, including snapshots, but without applying any video enhancement or colour adjustment?

You've presented a fairly complex set of circumstances there, so it's difficult to try to replicate. Could you post a screenshot of your timeline with notes about any effects applied?

It is true that rendering a video does not always replicate colours precisely, partly because our source files are typically already compressed in camera.

Cheers - Tony
Visit PDtoots. PowerDirector Tutorials, tips, free resources & more. Subscribe!
Full linked Tutorial Catalog PDtoots happily supports fellow PowerDirector users!

Hi Tony,

Thank you for your quick reply. I thought, I was the only one up at 6am on a Sunday.

Sorry, I don't know what you mean by "colour render test". Please explain (as they say in QLD)

I will provide the pictures shortly. In the mean time, it's very easy to recreate the problem.

[olist]
[list]Disable all video enhancement and colour adjustments[/list]
[list]Take a few seconds of a video file, preferably MP4: 1920x1080 (If possible find a static scene for easy comparison)[/list]
[list]Take a snapshot of a frame, place it next to the video on the timeline and stretch it to be a few seconds long.[/list]
[list]Produce the video.[/list]
[/olist]
You will see a significant difference in quality between the frames rendered from a picture and the video.

To make the difference even more pronounced, enable video enhancement in step 1 above and repeat steps 2 to 3.

Regards,

Igor

Sorry, the forum screwed up the list. It should say:

1. Disable all video enhancement and colour adjustments.
2. Take a few seconds of a video file, preferably MP4: 1920x1080. (If possible find a static scene for easy comparison)
3. Take a snapshot of a frame, place it next to the video on the timeline and stretch it to be a few seconds long.
4. Produce the video

Hi again Igor -

Before proceeding with this, could you just check a few things in PDR preferences? Under the File tab > Snapshot File Name > 2D, what format are you using? JPG? PNG? BMP? GIF? Change it to PNG or BMP if it's not. Also, do you have "Use original video size..." checked? Those two things will make a significant difference to your snapshot quality.

By colour render test, I mean producing a video from (say) a test pattern image where the colours are distinct and RGB values known. In testing your issue, I've been using a reference image and comparing the rendered colours to the original.



The rendered colours show small variations from the original & snapshot colours have the same variation. In other words, the snapshot in the produced file is the same as the preceeding video frame.

Here's the original image I've been using, if you'd like to test - https://1drv.ms/i/s!Ar0wuD0szNpoigT2MoBCHlR109vA

I've replicated your steps above, with & without Video Enhancement, but I'm unable to replicate your issue. In various produced files, the snapshot quality in the produced file is equivalent to the original video. Here are some short produced files:

Without video enhancement - https://1drv.ms/v/s!Ar0wuD0szNpoigFKcpn-Xa232A1v

With video enhancement - https://1drv.ms/v/s!Ar0wuD0szNpoigNK1GxuXcJRb4ss

Cheers - Tony
Visit PDtoots. PowerDirector Tutorials, tips, free resources & more. Subscribe!
Full linked Tutorial Catalog PDtoots happily supports fellow PowerDirector users!

EEK! It just hit me...

Are you taking a snapshot (camera icon under the preview screen) or using the Edit Video/Image > Freeze Frame feature? If it's the latter, make sure you've unchecked (in Preferences - Editing) "Add an effect & title when using Freeze Frame". Maybe that's the filter you were talking about.

Can't see the forest for the trees, sometimes

Cheers - Tony
Visit PDtoots. PowerDirector Tutorials, tips, free resources & more. Subscribe!
Full linked Tutorial Catalog PDtoots happily supports fellow PowerDirector users!