Hello everyone,

I've been producing videos for a while, but I'm far from being a pro.
I have no formal training and I know I have tons of things to learn.
But right now, there's one issue that's been bugging me that I'd like
to understand once and for all.

My main video production software is Premiere 6.5, but for checking
out video results and for playing most generic clips I want to view,
I tend to use plain ol' Windows Media Player (both my computers are
PCs, which I know isn't ideal for video production). Generally
speaking it works just fine. But there are some circumstances that
cause the picture to look too pale, washed out. It's especially
obvious when there's a part that's supposed to be pure black (like a
black still frame I've included in one of my clips), because instead
of being black, it's grayish. It doesn't look nice at all and it
doesn't give me a good idea what the picture is really like.

This phenomenon seems to manifest itself when there's other software
running on my computer. The most typical example in my case is when
Windows Media Encoder is open. When that's the case, any video I play
looks too pale. But the moment I close WME and run WMP again, the
picture looks just fine. It seems it happens when the other software
running involves video in some way.

Is this normal, or is there some kind of video conflict somewhere?
What causes this? Is there a way to avoid this, other that not running
other programs while playing clips?

Mostly it's just a minor annoyance, and I can get around it easily.
But I recently bought a new, more powerful computer, specifically to
help me produce video more easily, and the problem seems to be
permanent. The video picture is washed out, blacks are clearly grayish
(against WMP's black background), and this happens even when no other
programs are running at all. It pretty much makes it impossible for me
to know what a video really looks like, and I'm constantly
transferring video to my old computer to check it out. It's very
inconvenient, and it makes me wonder why I even bothered to buy a new
computer if I have to rely on the old one to do most of the picture-
correction job. Actually, I'm not even happy with my new monitor. It's
way too bright, the colors are way off, and there seems to be no way
to adjust the picture in a satsfying way, no matter how hard I try.
Even more reason to rely on my old computer instead of the new one.
But that's a different issue.

It occurs to me that the washed out look also tends to happen when
running games. When the monitor goes black as it's loading a game,
it's true black. But when the game starts, whatever black there is
becomes lighter, duller, like it's overexposed. It's not that big a
deral, but it's disappointing.

Anyway, sorry for babbling so long about my problem. Thank you in
advance for any advice you can offer.

Francois

On Mar 15, 4:48 pm, thelastlaugh <feedb...@thelastlaughinc.com> wrote:
Assuming you are producing "videos" that are intended for presentation
on interlaced television displays: In general, it is not physically
possible to make a computer display (progressive scan, very non-
television color profile, very non-television frame-rate, very non-
television screen resolution) match the appearance of a television
display. Many people find that it is impossible to judge a video
file's color, focus, exposure, motion, etc., on a computer
display...they instead arrange for simultaneous (or sequential) output
of the file to a genuine television monitor. Premiere 6.5 supposedly
has facilities for doing so, although you may need some additional
hardware. Note that having a video card in your computer that is
equipped with a S-Video or composite video output may not be
satisfactory. This is because the cheaper versions of these cards
only output television video when set for relatively low computer
screen resolutions (like 1024x768 or 800x600). More expensive cards
do not have this limitation. What you really want to do is output
(from Premiere) monitor video to a firewire (IEEE-1394) port and
capture it with a device (monitor, mDV camcorder connected to a
monitor, etc).

Just suggestions...

I thank you for the information, there's some useful stuff in there.
But I'm afraid you misunderstood my question. I know that what you see
on a computer monitor and on a TV isn't the same. I produce both DVDs
and clips meant to played on computers, so I've had to find out the
hard way when I started makign videos. It would be so much easier if
TVs and monitors had the same picture. FOr that matter, it would be
even easier if all computer systems and monitors were the same too.
After all, a picture on one computer can look wildly different on
another computer system.

The problem I was talking about is very different. Like I said,
normally, when I play a clip using, say, Windows Media Player on my
old computer (let's ignore my new computer), the picture looks normal.
The contrast, brightness, saturation, etc, look just fine. Among other
things, black actually looks black. But under certain circumstances,
the picture of the same clip, on the same computer, on the same
monitor (and not on TV), without making any picture adjustments, looks
pale and dull, like brightness has been increased or something. And
black looks greyish. It doesn't look good at all.

I was very confused the first time I noticed this, maybe three years
ago, as it appeared to happen randomly. The clip would look normal
sometimes, but washed out at other times. Until I noticed that the
washed out thing usually happens when there's another program that's
been open before playing the clip, typically a program that involves
video. I often convert DV video to WMV using Windows Media Encoder. As
long as WME is open, I can't play a clip without the picture being
washed out. It's like a different set of video picture settings kicks
out for some reason. But if I stop the clip, close WME, then play the
clip again, it looks just fine. I don't know what causes it, but I
wish I did.

Francois

By the way, the video card in my old computer is a GeForce 7600 GS,
and my system is set to a resolution of 1280x1024. As for my new
computer, it has a GeForce 8800 GTX and the standard resolution I use
is 1680x1050. Not exactly the top-of-the-line when it comes to video
cards, but not exactly bad either.

Somehow, though, despite the smaller size, I much prefer to picture I
get on my old 17" BenQ FP757-12 monitor than my nearly new widescreen
22" Dell UltraSharp 2208WFP. The picture I get with the former is
pleasantly warm and vibrant, while the picture of the latter is too
bright, a little sickly-looking, and the colors are off, despite all
my efforts to make adjustments in my video card software and the
monitor itself. Very frustrating. I'm seriously considering getting a
new monitor. It's really too bad, because I was under the impression
the new monitor would be much better than the old one. How wrong I
was.

Francois

"thelastlaugh" <feedback@thelastlaughinc.com> wrote in message
news:4d9e9ff1-d1db-4124-975d-cc0cee0c0500@f63g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
Have you used a monitor calibration device? You can get them relatively
inexpensively. Here is one http://spyder.datacolor.com/product-mc-s2e.php

Calibration is especially important for photo editing but would probably be
of some value in getting your monitor adjusted for games, video and general
viewing too.

Gary

"thelastlaugh" <feedback@thelastlaughinc.com> wrote in message
news:09a0ee87-d83a-43f5-a514-8f961a17ce61@t54g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
There some differences between the defaults for WMV9
and WMV7. It could be that you are changing which
version of the codec WMP is using.

It is possible that you are switching in and out of
overlay mode.

You might want to try Media Player Classic (MPC)
and check the filters playing [and their property page
settings] when you have this problem. The ffdshow
filter should provide a good deal of information as
well as the various decode and rendering filters.

You description seems show the problem to be
limited to when you are using DirectShow, do you
see the problem at any other time?

Luck;
Ken

On 16 mar, 01:02, "GaryT" <gtemplemanPA...@proaxis.com> wrote:
Hi Gary,

I think using a monitor calibration helper would be a very good idea.
It's someting I've considered for a long time. I was hoping I could do
something with some kind of Adobe calibrator, but I never figured out
how do to it. This Spyder software looks pretty interesting. It's a
significant investment, though. I'm sure it would be worth it, but I'm
so tight money-wise right now. I'll definitely think about it. Thank
you for the advice.

Francois

On 16 mar, 15:59, "Ken Maltby" <kmal...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
Hi Ken,

As far as I can tell, I've always used the WMV9 codec.

I'm afraid it's rather hard for me to answer some of your questions,
because I'm not familiar with the terminology. I mean, you may very
well be right, but I don't know what "overlay mode" means. Nor
"DirectShow". And I don't know what to make of the filters you're
talking about. It's all very alien to me. Sorry, it's just that I'm
very much an amateur at this sort of thing. I've managed ok enough so
far because my videos aren't meant to be professional, and I've found
some ways to get around most of the problems. But there are indeed
many, many holes in my knowledge. Still, thank you for your help.
Maybe I'll figure out these concepts eventually.

Francois

Well, what do you know. I just noticed an ffdshow icon on my taskbar.
I never saw that before. I wonder why I'm only noticing it now. Maybe
because it was mentionned in this thread. Unfortunately, I still don't
know what to do with it. It's all gibberish to me, I'm afraid.

Oh, and Gary, turns out I followed your advice and ordered a Spyder
calibration kit. It's reasonably priced. I hope it helps. Thank you
for the tip.

Francois

On Mon, 17 Mar 2008 12:28:03 -0700 (PDT), thelastlaugh
<feedback@thelastlaughinc.com> wrote:

You might want to checkout the Spyder2. They got recently replaced by the
Spyder3, so they are cheaper. Most people will barely see the difference
between the results of the two.

cheers

-martin-
--
Official website "Jonah's Quid" http://www.jonahsquids.co.uk

On 17 mar, 19:19, Martin Heffels <goo...@flikken.net> wrote:
That's actually the model I ordered. I found it for $60. I did notice
the Spyder3 kits, but I couldn't really afford them. Besides, while my
video production activities are of a commercial nature to some extent,
I don't consider myself a professional, and my videos are meant to be
on the amateur side. I don't need the absolute best equipment one can
find on the market. So I figured the Spyder2 would do just fine.

Francois