Cant get video quality to be same as simple video settings of Windows Media Player

poohbear

Newbie Location: Toronto Joined: Sep 20, 2010 05:17 Messages: 2 Offline

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Sep 20, 2010 05:29

Hello everyone, im looking to purchase power director 8 to edit a particular video i have, but in the trial version i can't even get my video to be as bright as the simple built in settings of Windows Media player! Its a dark video with friends at a birthday party in a club, but in WMP i just have to slightly increase the brightness and contrast and its perfectly viewable, unfortunately its not permanent (when u exit the settings revert back to the way they normally were).

I assumed a powerful video editor like PowerDirector could do the same and then encode it so its permanent. But im afraid the brightness setting in PD8 just brightens it to a washed out white, it doesnt brighten the people in the video or the room (unlike WMP). In KM Player i can also use the in player brightness/contrast settings to make the video brighter/watchable, but in PD8 none of the lighting/color settings make it watchable (video is still too dark, and the brightness/contrast just makes it a white video).

What am i doing wrong? how can i get the video to be viewable like the simple settings in WMP? Again, the only thing i need to turn up slightly in WMP and KM player is the brightness setting, but in PD8 turning up the setting makes the whole scene "whiter", not the same effect as WMP or KM player.

Any help would be appreciated as its a video of a birthday party with close friends. Thanks in advance. Oh, if its pertinent i have Win7 64bit and a powerful computer (phenomII quad-core, 5770 Radeon, 4gb ram, SSD etc) so im not limited by any hardware. I used a Samsung ST70 to record the video and its a H.264/MP4 video that im editing.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at Sep 20. 2010 05:32

Trevor George

Member Location: Bristol, UK. Joined: May 29, 2010 17:44 Messages: 80 Offline

Sep 20, 2010 05:49

When you use the Brightness and Contrast controls n PD8, just nudge the Brightness just-a-little first then the Contrast and see how it looks by previewing. If it's still too dark try again, and maybe back-off one or other.

When you are reasonably happy with the result make sure you click "Apply to all" if the whole video needs lightening, otherwise only the one clip will be improved.

If your attempts so far have "whited out" your video you are moving the sliders too far

Trevor . . My YouTube site . . (Bristol, UK) . . My JVC GZ-HM1 Camcorder

poohbear

Newbie Location: Toronto Joined: Sep 20, 2010 05:17 Messages: 2 Offline

Sep 20, 2010 07:14

hello, i tried that but still its the same, it just whitens everything as opposed to making the scene more viewable.

I figured it out though, i had to go into the effects section, and fiddle with the "color balance". Increasing the red, blue, & green made the image much more viewable, and a little "light ray" effect actually brightened it much better than the brightness feature. Nothing in the "enhancements" section helped actually, it was all the in the "effects" section.

Anyways glad that's sorted out, bought it and using it to edit the video and hopefully many more videos in the future.

cheers.