[Shoukei Tam]

Ok just in case there are AE users out there who encounter this same problem, I’ll post all my findings and best solution here.
It seems like this problem has already been addressed before on this thread: https://forums.adobe.com/thread/769015
After searching the internet and asking around, I found out that the color shifts are caused by how After Effects interprets and encodes videos. I did further testing by exporting the video out of AE in SD and HD and then importing them back into AE to see if the colors are right. It turned out that only the HD ones have the color shift. From this, the problem seems to have something to do with the colormatrix (or color space) standards for SD and HD videos. SD videos use BT.601 whereas HD videos use BT.709. This led me to this thread which states in detail about the compatibility of these color spaces and how video editing programs process them: https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1566691
In that thread it says After Effects ignores color matrix flags and uses BT.601 regardless of whether the video is SD or HD, or HD tagged with the BT.709 color matrix. This explains why SD videos don’t get the color shift when imported into AE.

Anyway, to counter this problem if After Effects is all you’ve got, here’s a solution (workaround is you will):
-If you have a large raw video file (say like an MOV) and you want to size it down so that it is easier to work with in AE, use other video encoders that tag your video with the appropriate color space during encoding to convert your video first. This will cause the color to shift in the same amount in reverse in hue, meaning instead of the reds looking more orange than original, it will look more magenta than the original. So when it is imported back into After Effects, the colors will offset back to original. I highly recommend using the FFmpeg codec. You might need to be familiar with command prompt to use it.
-DO NOT import AE-exported videos back into AE to work with (unless it is an SD video)

Also if you’re going to upload your videos to Youtube, exporting it this way should not cause color shifts when viewed on Youtube.

This might sound like a crude fix but this is the best solution I’ve found so far.

https://youtube.com/jessthedragoon

[Shoukei Tam]

The lossless MOV doesn’t get displayed with the wrong colors anywhere because it is lossless. Only HD encoded videos get displayed with wrong colors in VLC and AE. As for MPC-hc player, anything bigger than 640×360 gets displayed with the wrong colors. Display stats is disabled on my MPC-hc. I don’t know why.

I don’t think it’s a player issue. The HD and SD videos were all rendered in the same format and encoding. Only different dimensions. The codec info in VLC all display the same thing for all those videos, which is H264 – MPEG-4 AVC (part 10) (avc 1). The only difference is the size of the video. I noticed one thing though. In VLC the Decoded format for those videos is Planar 4:2:0 YUV whereas for the lossless MOV it is 32 bits RGB. Can this possibly affect the colors? Also, is it possible to view version/settings for OpenGL in windows?

https://youtube.com/jessthedragoon

[Shoukei Tam]

Library filter? I just imported the video in and exported it. I did nothing else. How do I check if there’s a library filter set somewhere in AE?

https://youtube.com/jessthedragoon

[Shoukei Tam]

Your test results sound like what happened when I used my laptop to export and view the video. The colors look correct on VLC and AE. The only place where the colors look wrong on my laptop is on Youtube.

Also, I did one more test and I found something else. This test was all done on my desktop PC. I rendered the MOV I sent you in different dimensions. With VLC output set to Automatic, all of them are displayed with correct colors. I then set my VLC output back to OpenGL to play back those videos and found out that only those that are smaller than 720p are displayed in correct colors. The ones that are 720p and above (meaning HD) are color-shifted. Same goes when I import those videos into AE – HD videos, wrong colors in preview. Smaller than HD videos, correct colors in preview. However, on youtube, they all have the correct colors. I didn’t view them on Youtube on my laptop because I know they’ll most likely get displayed with the wrong colors.
I then did a 2nd pass export test. I imported a 1080p video from the test above back into AE, which obviously had wrong colors in AE’s preview, and exporting it out in the same format. The product had seemingly twice the amount of color hue shift. Here’s a screenshot:

1) 1080p MP4 h264 video that was exported out of AE earlier
2) Video no. 1 exported out of AE. Has more amount of color shift
Does AE export exactly what is shown in its preview? If it doesn’t then it is more than just a display issue and maybe has something to do with AE’s exporting codec. If it does, video no. 1 and 2 should have the exact same colors.
Could it be a hardware problem or some kind of OpenGL setting that I missed? What do you think?

https://youtube.com/jessthedragoon

[Shoukei Tam]

Ok. Here’s the file: https://www.mediafire.com/file/j6pgpbw818hc3fd/myrice_colortest_ANIMATECC.mov

This is a lossless file so it should look the same when imported into AE. Export it into mp4 (or video with any other encoding) and then import that encoded video back into AE and see if the colors are still the same.

https://youtube.com/jessthedragoon

[Shoukei Tam]

The colors are wrong when vlc is set to OpenGL. I’ve never changed any color settings or used any filters in VLC. What data is causing AE to see the colors wrongly?

https://youtube.com/jessthedragoon

[Shoukei Tam]

I tried simulating output but the different color management options only affect the brightness and gamma of the video. The colors still look off. Utility profile converter uses the same working space options as color management so I guess it won’t be any different from trying color management.
I never use color management at all in After Effects and is turned off by default. My NVDIA Graphics setting is already set to 0-255 so I guess AE already renders my videos in 0-255.
If a solution cannot be found, the only way is to work around this by not importing After-Effects-converted videos back into After Effects to work with. What do you think?

https://youtube.com/jessthedragoon

[Shoukei Tam]

In VLC, after setting the Output setting from OpenGL to Automatic the colors were still off. I updated my VLC thinking that it could be a player version issue. After updating it, there were a few changes in its settings. In the new version of VLC, there is an additional setting called “Use hardware YUV->RGB conversions” on top of the OpenGL setting. Since it is a color issue I’m experiencing, I decided to uncheck that option and the colors displayed correctly!

Thank you for pointing me to the output setting in VLC, Chris.

Now that this problem is practically solved, I could just move on from here but there are still a few questions I’d like to address:
1) Some videos that I convert using other video encoders like Avidemux don’t have this color issue with the “Use hardware YUV->RGB conversions” option enabled or disabled. How come this setting affect videos converted using After Effects?

2) I did further testing to the AE exported versions by importing them back into AE (as you suggested earlier, Chris) and the colors looked incorrect – like in the screenshot on the right in the image I posted earlier. But when I export it again after importing it, the colors look correct on VLC. Versions exported by other video encoders show the correct colors when imported into AE. Here is a screenshot of the video codec info of the exported videos imported into AE.

The infolist on the left is the codec info of the AE exported video, which shows incorrect colors when imported back into AE, whereas on the right is the codec info of one that was exported using FFmpeg command prompt, which shows correct colors when imported into AE. It seems like a display problem in AE. What is causing this and how do I get AE to display the colors correctly?

-Shoukei

https://youtube.com/jessthedragoon

[Shoukei Tam]

Thanks for the reply guys!
@Dave
I don’t think compressing files is to blame. I’ve tried exporting the .MOV lossless with Avidemux into the same MP4 H264 format but the colors didn’t change.
@Chris
I use VLC to play the video files. The screenshots here were taken from VLC playing those files. I practically searched the whole internet to find the solution (or at least the cause) and what I found was the color space (or color matrix?) of the exported video was not BT 709. So I tried exporting the lossless video into a MP4 h264 in ffmpeg command prompt with the colormatrix=bt601:bt709 setting and there was no color change in the exported video. I’m not sure if color space has anything to do with “16-235-from 0-255” you mentioned.

I discovered something else last night. I played the MP4 with wrong colors on my Lenovo laptop(also has an NVDIA graphics card) and the colors looked correct! I even test-exported the .MOV on my laptop using AE and the exported product had the correct colors too! However, when I uploaded the exported MP4 to Youtube from my laptop, the colors looked incorrect on Youtube on my laptop, but correct on Youtube on my computer. I played the MP4 converted on my laptop on my computer and the colors looked correct on my computer. I couldn’t be any more mystified.

I imported all those exported videos back into AE and the colors are as they look on VLC. Can this still be a problem with AE? Or system graphics settings on my devices??

-Shoukei

https://youtube.com/jessthedragoon