Hi Phoulom -

PDR wouldn't be doing that without some help.

My GoPro is Hero5 Black. When I produce, without any colour enhancement or adjustment, the colours in the produced file are just like the original clip.

What mode were you shooting in?

Here's a partial screenshot from an original GoPro clip (MP4 3840x2160) & the produced file (MP4 3840x2160):



Maybe with some more information, members could assist you better.

Cheers - Tony
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hi tony,

thanks for replying..I have power director 16, windows 10 machine lastest version, nvidia 1070 gpu, and gopro 6 black. What im seeing is that as soon as i import the gopro video in and watch it on the preview sceen, the gamma has shifted to make the video look really dark. This happens on all video resolutions from the grpro from 1080 to 4k. I dont even have to render it yet. I tried other videos from my canon camcorder and it doesnt exhibit this issue. thinking this has to do with powerdirector not recognizing gopro full range or limited range video or codec issues? i attached screen shot below of what im talking about..

Hi again -

Sorry - I can see the issue you haviong from the screenshots, but I can't replicate it here. The only thing I can think of is that it may be to do with your recording settings. Were you recording with ProTune?

I grabbed some original GoPro Hero Black 6 clips from here:
UHD
2.7K
1080

and produced them to the same format/profile. Here's a zip of the three produced files from PDR16. There's no darkening or "crushed blacks".

Could you upload a sample file (e.g. the one your screenshots are taken from) to a shared file site? That might help narrow the cause of the problem.

Cheers - Tony
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hi tony,

i uploaded a sample clip to my google drive. See if you can see the difference?

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1kI215lbtmoGKOUWSTtnucIeic3dRsT5n?usp=sharing

GH010128 is gopro video clip unedited
pd16_GH010128 is rendered in powerdirector 1080p/60 without any enhancements


I also uploaded both files to my youtube channel.

https://www.youtube.com/user/Mintwax2008/videos


thanks

Hi Phoulom -

Thank you for uploading those videos. What it showed here is what I previously posted. The colours/darkness in your produced clip is (as good as) identical to the original.

I tested on 3 different PCs, each with calibrated monitors. Colours/darkness also displayed the same in various media players.

These screenshots, taken in PDR16, show the orignal/produced clips side by side at 00:00:02:00 and 00:00:12:00. Forum would not allow post with attachments.

Cheers - Tony
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wow this is interesting...I uploaded both of those clips to my youtube channel

https://www.youtube.com/user/Mintwax2008/videos

and watched them on my hdtv and both of my computers and for me the video titled pd16 GH010128 was a lot darker ..were those screenshots from the youtube channel?

This is what im seeing when watching these videos on youtube. Direct screenshot on my computer on youtube.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1SVi_h8lLrr7TAxc21IByAH3GfCiW3aod?usp=sharing

Will check out one of your uploaded GoPro video for colorspace used.

Your produced video is darker for a reason. I can increase both the gamma and exposure on my camera anyway to compensate.

There is a small difference in gamma as PD16 processes in a sRGB colorspace that can be easily fixed. I tend to increase my exposure by 0.3 f-stop as that is my personal preference in capturing video. It can be done in post also. See the attached file for the mediainfo of the two clips. Your produced file has more keyframes, half the original bitrate, and is in sRGB instead of BT.709. See this explanation: https://www.image-engineering.de/library/technotes/714-color-spaces-rec-709-vs-srgb .

I have not researched this particular GoPro camera and it’s settings. Many consumer level cameras allow setting the colorspace for Adobe RGB, sRGB, x.v. color, gamma curves, etc.

Hi Everyone,

After analyzing Tony's rendered files I saw no difference in the 1080p clip. The other clips were just a tad darker. using the media info app confirmed that the 1080p rendered file kept the full range output just like the original gopro clip. I was able to replicate this using the svrt function and it kept the same color range intact. So i concluded that on the 1080p clip, Tony had also rendered it using svrt. So what im seeing is that gopro video files uses the full color range of 0-255. Using PD16 hardware acceleration to render the clip forces it to use the limited range color range of 16-235. Different gamma values are used for black. To get the PD16 sRGB rendered clips to have the same look as the orginal gopro clip, I used media player classic and change the color range from 0-255 to 16-235 and with that I saw no difference. So to conclude I will be using svrt function going forward to render my clips..



color range info on the the gopro file and rendered files

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1pQSMotk239NbU3iRojazTYifN-Py1OTw?usp=sharing

I would doubt that Tony used svrt to produce those clips as he would have said so. It is more likely that the player used. I don’t have a problem when using VLC. There should not be that amount of difference seen if cpu only rendering is used. I would uncheck Hardware decoding in preferences and don’t use hardware encoding and run a quick test. Not familiar with the media player you used in win 10 to come to your conclusion. The output range of 16 to 235 is the American NTSC standard whereas the Japanese proposed and changed to the 0 to 255 since we are using digital nowadays. It is the default of the player you have that displayed the crushed blacks and not the video. This would make more sense.

Hi tomasc -

I have a reasonable understanding of the differences between various colour spaces (enough to get me by), but what I don't understand is that you guys can see some difference in darkness between original GoPro files and produced ones.

Now I don't mind admitting that my eyes aren't what they used to be, & that may be the root cause, but I'm viewing on calibrated monitors, each set to 0-255. As far as I can tell, it must come down to one of those things... the vision or the monitor.

Of course the difference is obvious in MediaInfo reports, but I've compared in PDR, Ae, Lr & any number of media players & I cannot see that the produced files are darker than the originals (except in Phoulom's screenshots).

Cheers - Tony
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Thanks to Phoulom for supplying the screenshots. The one he supplied showed the PD16 one is darker. I supplied the link that explained the difference between BT.709 and sRGB in the gamma curve difference. It was only after he supplied additional documentation and files that I was able to see and compare the difference. Any subtle difference can be fixed with a free BT.709 LUTs from RockerStock.com.

Using Phoulom’s original and PD16 produced file there is a large difference when he used the media player classic that I don’t have and use. It is because this player defaults to the original ntsc range of 16 to 235 for sRGB and 0 to 255 for BT.709. His screenshots show this major difference.

Using VLC as the player I actually see no difference in the original and the PD16 produced file. It is not enough for me to try to correct it with a BT.709 LUTs and would not do so. See the attachment supplied and the areas to look at in the screenshot.

I hope that this ends the discussion and everyone is happy and know what to do. Again, thanks to Phoulom for supplying excellent documentation. Learned here that the media player used can make a difference. Tony, you deserve a good night’s rest for pursuing this issue. You are still the best and conscientious contributor to this forum in my eyes.

All,

thanks for everyone's assistance. I downloaded the vlc player and i do agree there are no differences in gamma of the original gopro vs the pd16 rendered file. On the vlc player, the blacks on both clips already looked crushed. Yes I agree it looks like it depends on what media player you are using to watch this on. I am on windows 10 and using the default movies & TV app. I guess i'll just have to live with it and brighten it up in post when i upload to youtube. I provided a screenshot below to show what I'm talking about. The left is the original gopro clip playing on windows 10 movies & Tv app vs the pd16 rendered clip on the right playing on vlc player. Also i provided screenshots from youtube.

The Windows 10 movies & TV app has very few settings and they are not in the app itself but in the settings of Windows 10.
I ahve a german Windows 10, but the setting is in the Apps section of the win10 settings:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-ca/help/4038608/windows-10-video-playback-settings

I have seen, that the app can way of "enhance" video quality. I don't like those setinngs and it is switched off for my PC. Maybe there is the setting activated so windows tries to enhance the playback?

Hatti Win 10 64, i7-4790k, 32GB Ram, 256 GB SSD, SATA 2TB, SATA 4TB, NVidia GTX1080 8GB, LG 34" 4K Wide, AOC 24" 1080

Hi Phoulom & all -

I understand this thread has been resolved (i.e. Phoulom doesn't have the same issue he thought he had) & I'm sorry to chime back into it but some of the information above wasn't clear to me or I was unable to replicate the same thing here.

I posted that I'd tested in a number of media players. Win10's Films & TV (or Movies & TV) wasn't one of the players I tested & it turns out it's the only one that displays the produced file darker than the original (here, at least). BTW, Hatti, no enhancement settings were applied.

These players - VLC, POT Player, MPC HC, & KMPlayer - all display Phoulom's original & produced files the same, with no crushed blacks.

Here's a zip file of screenshots from each player - the original GoPro file & PDR16 produced file.

Cheers - Tony
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