Brightness difference between Vegas and Windows Media Player

scissorfighter wrote on 11/30/2003, 3:31 PM
Hey gang,
I'm sure this is an often asked question, but I can't seem to find the correct answer in the forum archives. I've noticed that there's a HUGE difference between the way Vegas displays video and the way Windows Media Player or RealPlayer display that same video. For example, let's say I shoot some video with my DV cam and transfer it into vegas via firewire. if I drop the AVI file onto the timeline and view it in the preview window, it looks just like it appeared on the camera and in real life. If I use WMP or RP to view that same AVI file, it looks MUCH darker and more saturated. I've posted an example of it on the web so you can see what I'm talking about: http://216.220.240.62/video.htm.

If I render out an MPEG2 from Vegas and view it in WMP or RP, it still looks the same as the AVI did in WMP, dark and over saturated. If I take that same MPEG2 and burn it on a DVD and watch it on my set-top DVD player and television, it looks correct, just like it does in Vegas. But if I watch the DVD on my PC using my DVD drive and PowerDVD, it looks dark again, like in RealPlayer! What's going on here, and how do I correct it?

Thanks all,
Ryan

Comments

Jay Gladwell wrote on 11/30/2003, 4:28 PM
Ryan, although I don't have *the* answer to your question, I have seen this happen, especically with RealPlayer (which I have given up on).

Second, I don't have a fraction of the "technical expertise" that many of the folks here do. Having said that, I have come to the conclusion that it has something to do with the compression codecs the various encoders and players use. The two I use exclusively for preparing web video are Quicktime and Windows Media 9. For me, both deliver excellent results.
TheHappyFriar wrote on 11/30/2003, 6:26 PM
Also, I think QT, Real, and MP have seperate video setings. Try adjusting those. I've never had and AVI's or mp2 look different in MP (but on TV they are a little brighter. Just the nature of the TV).
thrillcat wrote on 12/2/2003, 11:38 PM
It sounds like your overlay setting in your display properties.

I had a 2 hour freakout session with this at one point. Many video cards offer an overlay setting, I'm not really sure what it's for. While it changes the look of material viewed in media players, it doesn't affect the Vegas preview window. It does, however, show up in the VidCap application.

I was capturing betacam footage one morning, and it looked fine until I clicked capture video, at which point it became extremely bright and low contrast. I couldn't figure it out, but I opened the video clip in Vegas to test it, and it looked fine. So I rendered it out as a .wmv and watched it in WMP and it looked terrible again. I had the fine folks at DataVideo on the phone, trying to figure out if it was a glitch in my capture device and they suggested I check my overlay settings, which (and I'm still not quite sure how) were way out of whack.

Right click on your desktop, click properties, and go to the settings tab. Click advanced, and check around in there for an overlay settings control. With my nVidia cards, it's under the card name tab, and a box shoots out of the left. Click on overlay there and you can adjust your settings.

TheHappyFriar wrote on 12/3/2003, 5:14 AM
The overlay setting is for when you use the SVHS/RCA out on your video card to view on TV. It's useful when playing games or showing things on your TV, but doesn't also work for all movies/formats/players. :( annoying, but cool.
scissorfighter wrote on 1/11/2004, 6:05 PM
Dude! You are the man. That was the problem.... but not in the way I expected. To my suprise, all the overlay controls (brightness, contrast, saturation) were already at 100%. I had to tweak them way out (135, 82, 82) to get the video to match what vegas, my camera, and my tv were showing. But now everything matches, so that's cool. I suspect an Nvidia driver issue. I looked there before, but didn't think that was a conbributing factor.... I figured an "overlay" should apply to the vegas window too, and since the settings were all 100%, it shouldn't be doing anything anyway. To confirm, I repeated on a different PC with an ATI video card. The video looked fine.

Thanks for the help!
stormstereo wrote on 1/11/2004, 8:49 PM
Had the same problem as Scissorfighter and Thrillcat had the answer. All settings were at 100% except saturation which was parked at 130%! I'll tweak some more, just wanted to tell you the good news.
Best/Tommy