Film-Tech Cinema Systems
Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE


  
my profile | my password | search | faq & rules | forum home
  next oldest topic   next newest topic
» Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE   » Community   » The Afterlife   » AWESOMELY crappy video clips -- how to fix

   
Author Topic: AWESOMELY crappy video clips -- how to fix
Frank Angel
Film God

Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999


 - posted 10-10-2006 07:22 AM      Profile for Frank Angel   Author's Homepage   Email Frank Angel   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
While I have always proclaimed to the world my disgust at anyone who would watch the godaweful images that are produced from internet downloads, and that no one but Philistines would actually watch a MOVIE on a computer screen, I actually broke down last night did just that because I was interrupted by a long phone call after watching only 10 min of the new show STUDIO 60 (NBC), and I wanted to see the rest. I heard the announcer say that it would be seen in its entirety on line. So I sat meself down in the wee hours of the morning to watch it.

I found an image that was so dark and devoid of contrast that I could barely see anything in the dark scenes. It jumped and jittered, stammered and stuttered, and worst of all, had horrific strobing on any movement enough to give anyone an epileptic seizure. I figured all the stuttering and jittering was because my older computer hardware, which was high-end 4 years ago is not anymore. But as for the lack of brightness, surely that should be correctable with some sort of controls in the player, yet, I have not seen an media player that actually has a brightness or contrast controls, something even a $60 TV will have. There aren't any media players that have such a basic control...or are there? Surely NBC who is streaming this stuff must realize that Windows Media Player and the rest of them have no way to do make the image watchable. It certainly isn't what they are looking at when they send out the signal, where does the brightness get lost -- everything around the video image on the screen is perfectly bright, but the video box is not. Is there no way to adjust the basic video parameters to get a decent picture.

BTW, not having any experience watching video on my computer, I looked at other sources, even played a DVD and it's ALL the same -- terribly under lit images. What's the fix?

 |  IP: Logged

Wayne Keyser
Master Film Handler

Posts: 272
From: Arlington, Virginia, USA
Registered: May 2004


 - posted 10-10-2006 10:23 AM      Profile for Wayne Keyser   Author's Homepage   Email Wayne Keyser       Edit/Delete Post 
You're a brilliantly technical guy, so I apologize for an untechnical answer, but ... it's a monitor thing.

I've made several DVDs from video I edit on the computer, and after countless hours of looking at the same video on the computer monitor and later on the TV, I can tell you that the computer monitor displays video just as you described. UNLESS (I hear) you have some high-end monitor designed and ajusted for exactly that use.

That doesn't address your reasonable complaint: if they're gonna serve up video to watch on the ol' IBM, couldn't they serve up WATCHABLE video or make a player with that capability? Heck, it's all 1's and 0's, so let's make it happen, people!

I do find that the Quicktime movie trailers downloadable from the web tend to be more watchable (though they still are pretty dark) - maybe they take the "monitor factor" more into account, though that doesn't explain why it's not obvious to other video creators.

 |  IP: Logged

Robert Minichino
Master Film Handler

Posts: 350
From: Haskell, NJ, USA
Registered: Dec 2005


 - posted 10-10-2006 12:36 PM      Profile for Robert Minichino   Author's Homepage   Email Robert Minichino   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
The fix is correctly calibrating the black and white levels of your monitor (poorly named as brightness and contrast respectively), and gamma correction.

The classic test pattern for calibrating the black/white levels is a gray-scale step from pure black to pure white. You decrease the brightness control until the darkest gray block disappears, then bring it up until it just comes into view. Then you adjust the contrast control so that the display is acceptably bright but the pure white block is neither blooming (CRTs only) nor indistinguishable from the just-below white block. You may have to go back and forth between the brightness and contrast controls .

You can try using this SMPTE test pattern: http://brighamrad.harvard.edu/research/topics/vispercep/smpte/smpte.gif

You should be able to see the difference between the inner and outer blocks in the 0/5% and 95/100% in the center of the test pattern next to the 0 and 100% blocks respectively.

As far as gamma correction goes, that's not available on all systems and the means of adjusting it differs; getting the white and black levels right is a good start, though. In any case, a higher value of gamma correction (greater than 1) will make things more "washed-out" (lighter mid-tones) and a lower value (less than 1) will make things more "contrasty" (darker mid-tones).

EDIT: Windows Media Player 10 (and maybe other versions) does have brightness and contrast controls: View menu, Enhancements, Video Settings. Depending on how you have the player configured, you may need to right-click on the title bar to get the menu.

[ 10-10-2006, 02:09 PM: Message edited by: Robert Minichino ]

 |  IP: Logged

Brian Michael Weidemann
Expert cat molester

Posts: 944
From: Costa Mesa, CA United States
Registered: Feb 2004


 - posted 10-10-2006 06:47 PM      Profile for Brian Michael Weidemann   Author's Homepage   Email Brian Michael Weidemann   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Studio 60 is definitely a show to catch all of. Good, good show. [Wink] [thumbsup]

 |  IP: Logged

Charles Greenlee
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 801
From: Savannah, Ga, U.S.
Registered: Jun 2006


 - posted 10-11-2006 12:23 AM      Profile for Charles Greenlee   Author's Homepage   Email Charles Greenlee   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
I simply put on a THX movie in my DVD drive, and ran the Optimisers on it, and adjusted to that. I wasn't much off, but it did make a little difference. Ran the sound one too since I have a 5.1 card and 5.1 speakers.

 |  IP: Logged

Dave Macaulay
Film God

Posts: 2321
From: Toronto, Canada
Registered: Apr 2001


 - posted 01-11-2007 10:23 AM      Profile for Dave Macaulay   Email Dave Macaulay   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
You can try this, some video drivers have an adjustment and some do not.
Open up display properties (assuming you have a Windows PC) then the "settings" tab, and the "advanced" button.
Look through all the tabs for "video inlay", if you have it you should be able to adjust the brightness and contrast for video images.

 |  IP: Logged



All times are Central (GMT -6:00)  
   Close Topic    Move Topic    Delete Topic    next oldest topic   next newest topic
 - Printer-friendly view of this topic
Hop To:



Powered by Infopop Corporation
UBB.classicTM 6.3.1.2

The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.

© 1999-2020 Film-Tech Cinema Systems, LLC. All rights reserved.