Color space confusion

[Paul Goelz]

Update:

I just took a look at a couple older projects I rendered to computer RGB and uploaded to YouTube. They appeared slightly dark, as if the player received computer RGB but was expecting studio RGB. I then downloaded the cooresponding MP4 file that (I assume) YouTube uses for playback and compared it to my uploaded file. The levels were identical. So any level anomalies in YouTube playback would seem to be just that…. in playback. And again, the Min Concepts MPEG2 codec in Vegas does not seem to care what levels you send it. They are simply passed through to the output.

So the preferred YouTUbe upload would appear to be studio RGB since that seems to be what the player expects.

There is still the possibility that there is something in my setup that is affecting the playback levels. I need to check periodically to make sure that the nVidia driver for my video card has not changed its settings….. I have seen it do that occasionally. It can detect if you are playing a video and can use different brightness, contrast and gamma settings for video vs. regular desktop display settings. This can be HIGHLY confusing if you are not looking for it because it undoes all your calibration.

Paul

[Paul Goelz]

Further to this mini-issue…..

I did some digging and found that the MP4 that you can download from YouTube is not the file they use for playback. They apparently transcode to a flash file.

I also was unable to find ANY reference ANYWHERE to the correct levels for youTube upload. The YouTube site itself completely avoids any mention of levels. The closest I got was one person who commented that it looked like YouTube “darkened” his videos.

I uploaded a video yesterday that was done at studio RGB levels and it looks fine. So for now I’ll use studio RGB for YouTube. It is particularly critical in my case because I am restoring and uploading some of my 29 year old VHS videos that were mostly shot in low light with a camera that struggled to produce maybe 30 IRE most of the time in those lighting conditions. So even when I raise the levels and play with the gamma a bit, much of the detail is in the bottom 20% of the range.

Paul