Depressing. Footage in Premiere/VLC looks VERY different in Quicktime/Vimeo/Youtube

[Jim Elliott]

Glad you found a solution. I still use Premiere with the layer of contrast/saturation on top. But might eventually switch over fully to fcpx

[Chris Spencer-lowe]

I’m in the same boat too.
It’s VLC reading the video files the same as what I see in Premiere that really gets me. It feels like that is a big clue.

I’ve done two projects where I use my iMac’s P3 monitor full screen through Mercury Transmit ( yup, Mercury Transmit is buggy, yessir but it does work) and a rec 709 HDTV balanced quite flatly and a tad under saturated as a worst case scenario.

I have not seen these crazy differences when playing back out of QT vrs VLC on the other two projects and I did them both this way.

I really hate the idea of having to cluge together an adjustment layer ‘reckoning’ or a ‘fixit’ LUT but I see no choice at this point. Even if I do that, VLC will then play it back over the top. I’ve used VLC for live projection for years and often in tandem with Quicktime player and I have never seen such an image difference between the two. The closest thing I’ve seen to this is that short period of time when Quicktime wasn’t displaying the correct gamma with files out of FCP and you had to downgrade Quicktime to an earlier version to get exports to play back with the right gamma and sat.

I really suspect this is somehow to do with Adobe and Apple not coordinating. Again. There have been huge problems with all of the new versions of CC 2018 Premiere. I would not be surprised if there is some kind of header in the files that tells various software players how to interpret the colour space, or at least the gamma and saturation in the file. And somehow, that info is correct for VLC but not Quicktime or YouTube coming out of Premiere/Media Encoder? Perhaps I’m thinking too much.

I will definitively do any future grading work in Resolve. I may even try to do a ‘fixit grade’ for this problem now, If I can.

[Robin Frost]

“I can’t promise this will work for you, but many people have had luck using this LUT I made for youtube.

64 cube iridas lut for burning in darker 16-235 from 0-255 for youtube upload. it darkens image, then youtube re-lightens again.
https://f1.creativecow.net/10598/fixmyyoutube“

The trouble with the ‘fixmyyoutube’ lut is that it blows out whites and crushes blacks, leading to quite a loss in detail. And no, the detail doesn’t return when Youtube re-lightens it..

Here’s a few examples.. first image is before, second is after..

Just look at that ferris wheel!

And thought this screengrab from a boring 2D animated commercial was a very good example! The grey almost disappears.

It is frustrating as i really want all footage to look the best it can on Youtube, but when compared to the original it always looks washed out. Hopefully there’s a way round preserving the detail with this method.

[Chris Wright]

it shouldn’t be blowing out whites like that. it doesn’t work with adjustment layers directly or lumetri. you have to use it in the dropdown for the export in adobe media encoder. or you can NEST its sequence first. its a premiere bug. also, if you have pure black 0 IRE it can possibly cause issues.

also, there are other ways such as upload a video, click re-touch youtube video, then cancel that. it will encode from vp9 codec on youtube native player. that would be my first choice, or 2nd, a p3 to rec. 709 lut. or rec709 native monitor.

[Aaron Palabyab]

Just had to switch back to Premiere Pro CC from FCP X for a current project because I need to hand it over to another editor later on and quickly ran into this issue. Thanks to everyone for all their efforts at investigating, and I share everyone’s frustration.

Obviously, I haven’t found anything but a similar workaround to what you all have been doing: I export the video without titles and GFX, slap on a color adjustment to the entire thing in FCP X, then export back out and bring it into my Premiere Pro timeline on top of the existing clips and under the titles/GFX. It’s a pain, however, at least this way I can compare color in real time with FCP X and Premiere open side-by-side.

Can’t believe Adobe still hasn’t addressed an issue as glaring as this.

[Antoine Le guen]

Thank you so much for this thread ! I fought I was going crazy.

I lost days trying to figure out why the short film I just spent days grading looked weird everywhere but on Firefox & VLC and figured out that ALL my work from last year looks dull pretty much on every browser/player because of this unacceptable issue for a so-called “professional” NLE…

I am currently switching to FCPX for the small stuff & Resolve (better color/audio) for the big ones because of this very reason.

I was already making do with the terrible render times, bugs & freezes of all sorts, monthly payments & poor playback perfs on OSX but this is too much.

I feel like I lost my time learning this software.

Not cool Adobe, not cool.

Maxed out 2017 MBP linked to a LG 5k Ultrafine Display.

[Greg Janza]

This has been stated repeatedly in this thread:

The only way to see a color accurate image from Premiere is with a fully calibrated external monitor connected through an i/o card.

Windows 10 Pro | i7-5820k CPU | 64 gigs RAM | NvidiaGeForceGTX970 | Blackmagic Decklink 4k Mini Monitor |
Adobe CC 2018 |Renders/cache: Samsung SSD 950 Pro x2 in Raid 0 | Media: Samsung SSD 960 PRO PCIe NVMe M.2 2280 | Media: OWC Thunderbay 4 x 2 Raid 0 mirrored with FreeFileSync

[Shane Ross]

[Antoine Le Guen] “I am currently switching to FCPX for the small stuff & Resolve (better color/audio) for the big ones because of this very reason.”

If you use Resolve for grading, you’ll need Blackmagic IO out to a good HDTV to see a proper image. The built in viewer isn’t accurate at all…far from it. One reason BMD makes Resolve for free, is to sell their BMD hardware…

[Antoine Le Guen] “I lost days trying to figure out why the short film I just spent days grading looked weird everywhere but on Firefox & VLC and figured out that ALL my work from last year looks dull pretty much on every browser/player because of this unacceptable issue for a so-called “professional” NLE… “

This will be the case with FCPX too…what you see in it won’t be what you see in QT vs VLC vs Firefox vs Chrome vs Safari….

Shane
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Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Antoine Le guen]

Hi Shane, thank you for the insight.
Both my mbp and ultrafine 5K displays are calibrated monthly using a Spyder5, so their colours should be accurate or close enough.
From what I understood, researching for a few days now, is that Premiere, VLC & Firefox (among others) are simply not managing wide gamut P3 colours correctly and show over saturated/contrasted images.
Other programs, like Lightroom, Photoshop, Chrome, Quicktime, etc. all show the “correct” colours for P3 displays (aside from minor differences I don’t really care about, they are close enough for me, each software is different, so be it).
This results in exports being grossly under saturated/contrasted for anyone but P3 displays owners using VLC or Firefox… Not a big crowd !

FCPX and Resolve do manage P3 correctly from what I’ve seen / researched.
FCPX just does it “out of the box” and there’s a thing to toggle on in Resolve.

Hope it helps others,
Cheers !

[Shane Ross]

[Antoine Le Guen] “Both my mbp and ultrafine 5K displays are calibrated monthly using a Spyder5, so their colours should be accurate or close enough.”

OK…THEY are. But the applications themselves often don’t offer color accurate representations of the footage. The VIEWER and PROGRAM MONITORS in many apps aren’t accurate, even if your monitor is. Avid’s are not…Premiere’s, iffy. Resolve, not at all.

[Antoine Le Guen] “From what I understood, researching for a few days now, is that Premiere, VLC & Firefox (among others) are simply not managing wide gamut P3 colours correctly and show over saturated/contrasted images.”

OK…Premiere is designed for editing…seeing what you are doing and making editing decisions. If you want color accuracy, then you need hardware to send your signal to an external box. VLC isn’t designed for high end work, it’s a simple free player that happens to play back MANY formats. It”s far more accurate than QT, for sure. But not a professional color accurate application. And web browsers too…color accuracy on the high end is not their priority.

FCP-X does offer color accuracy, as it knows it’s market and that market is mainly viewed on computer screens, so it’s interface does offer color accuracy.

[Antoine Le Guen] “Other programs, like Lightroom, Photoshop,”

Yes, those ARE designed to work on PHOTO calibrated monitors…and monitor calibrators are designed to make monitors match specs for photography more than video work.

[Antoine Le Guen] ” Chrome, Quicktime, etc. all show the “correct” colours for P3 displays”

Quicktime? Really? I find it brightens the image…all the time.

[Antoine Le Guen] “FCPX and Resolve do manage P3 correctly from what I’ve seen / researched.”

Resolve’s built in display is far from accurate. It’s gamma is much higher (more washed out) and it favors the color RED. I am judging this based on what I see my computer display (calibrated for photo work) and my external, professional color grading monitor. that viewer is way off. BMD knows this, acknowledges it (to me, anyway, not publicly).

[Antoine Le Guen] “FCPX just does it “out of the box” and there’s a thing to toggle on in Resolve.”

Yup, FCX is designed with this purpose in mind, because the vast majority of it’s userbase needs that. And what do you toggle in Resolve? I’d love to see that to compare.

Shane
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Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def