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Exported Video Rec 709 appears nice on Laptop & Tv but not on phone
I have a movie that I color graded and exported in Davinci Resolve 15 Studio in Rec 709 gamma 2.4 color space . The exported video, when played in vlc player in the same laptop, looked identical to the Resolve timeline. It also looked similar in Tv. I made this crushed blacks look where the shadows are crushed and it looked so nice and contrasty. This movie is mainly for youtube, so a lot of people are going to watch it on mobile phones. So when I transferred the clip to my samsung galaxy s10+ smart phone, the video looks not contrasty at all like I saw in the laptop or tv. I uploaded a sample to youtube and the same thing happened, the colors and black levels looked punchy in laptop and tv but not on my phone. So I thought there was something wrong with my phone display or maybe it is not converting the Rec 709 properly. So I decided to compare other videos like hollywood, youtube and netflix etc. between my phone and my laptop. To my surprise, they all look similar. It is dark where there is dark, and it is bright where there is bright and the colors are also similar. It is only my movie that looks different in both these devices. I want my video to look almost similar to what I see in laptop. When other videos look similar, why does not my movie look similar? The blacks are not crushed at all. So i changed gamma from 2.4 to 2.2 . Now the video looks like the blacks are awfully crushed on my laptop and ,a little nicely but not as much, crushed on my phone. I just cant get a match. What could be the problem?
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2 Replies
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That is a constant battle, to get a render that looks the same on all devices. There will always be some variation because not all devices are calibrated he same. Whenever I see a huge difference between devices, it has always been something I have done wrong. Mostly an improper setting somewhere. The first thing I would do is to check the metadata of your video with something like “MediaInfo” or “ffprobe” if you have one of them. Then there are Color Page settings and render settings that must all be correct for your desired output. The metadata may give you a clue as to where to look.
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Read these:
“Grading for Mixed Delivery: Cinema, Home, and Every Screen in Between” by Cullen Kelly
https://blog.frame.io/2019/10/14/grading-mixed-delivery/
“How to Deal with Levels: Full vs. Video” by Dan Swierenga
https://www.thepostprocess.com/2019/09/24/how-to-deal-with-levels-full-vs-video
and
“A Deeper Look at Consistent Color with QuickTime Tags From Resolve To YouTube & Vimeo on Wide Gamut Apple Monitors”
by Dan Swierenga
and I think they cover the issues and the solutions very well. Understanding color management is also helpful:
“Color Management for Video Editors”
https://jonnyelwyn.co.uk/film-and-video-editing/colour-management-for-video-editors/
My simple method: always export a second or two of SMPTE color bars at the very head of the project, and then check them on scopes in whatever player you’re using to see how it looks. If there’s a shift (video level or hue or chroma), you’ll see it very quickly in bars.
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