Submit Hint Search The Forums LinksStatsPollsHeadlinesRSS
14,000 hints and counting!

How to fix an H.264 video conversion 'wash out' issue System
I often use QuickTime Pro to convert video clips from my digital camera (which stores them as AVI files) into H.264-encoded clips, suitable for sharing on our family's blog site. The size reductions are notable, dropping a near-two-minute clip from 186MB down to anywhere from 5MB to 12MB, depending on the quality settings I use. However, for most of the last year, I've been bothered by a horrendous amount of wash out in the converted video, as seen at right (click the image for a larger, high quality version in a new window). The left half of the image is the source AVI, and the right is the H.264 conversion. When others viewed the clips, however, they saw no such washout, so I was pretty sure I had a local problem -- so I kept putting off trying to resolve it.

The other night, though, I finally got frustrated enough to go searching for an answer. After too much time with Google, I finally came up with the cause and the solution. The cause seems to be a combination of QuickTime Player's use of Core Video for playback, and my use of the sRGB color profile in the Color tab of the Displays System Preferences panel. (I found a player called NicePlayer that let me disable Core Video. Playing the same washed-out video in NicePlayer with Core Video disabled, the colors were perfect.)

The solution? Create a new color profile. When I did that, my problems (mostly) disappeared. I still have a small amount of visible washout, but I can probably fix that by just tweaking the profile a bit. I wrote about this in more detail in this macworld.com blog post. Keep in mind I know absolutely nothing about color profiles, ColorSync, and the entire professional world of color -- so I apologize in advance for any technical errors. All I do know is that creating a new color profile mostly solved the washout problem, which makes me quite happy.
    •    
  • Currently 3.20 / 5
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  (5 votes cast)
 
[20,167 views]  

How to fix an H.264 video conversion 'wash out' issue | 5 comments | Create New Account
Click here to return to the 'How to fix an H.264 video conversion 'wash out' issue' hint
The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.
How to fix an H.264 video conversion 'wash out' issue
Authored by: cosmo on Dec 01, '06 09:13:24AM
This is neither a QuickTime Player nor a Core Video problem. The posters trouble was, to assign a workspace colorsync profile to his display. The sRGB profile isn't meant to be used as display profile. With a standard setup you will most likely see the "Colour LCD" or "CinemaDisplay" profile in your monitors' settings prefpane.
Anyone who isn't absolutely sure about what a colorsync profile is meant for and which one to choose for what should leave these settings alone.

Btw. if you're german-speaker you can find some pretty good and understandable information on the following site: CLEVERprinting

[ Reply to This | # ]
Color profile confusion
Authored by: gabester on Dec 01, '06 06:09:16PM

It sure would be nice if color profiles not intended for display weren't made available to select for display. I mean, there's no reason, when choosing a color profile for any internal or external monitor, that "Apple Color Stylewriter" should even be an option.

But then, I'm enough of a color atheist to incite: how reliable can color selection be when ANY human being can see two different color palettes simply by closing one eye for 30 seconds, looking at an image with the open eye, then swapping eyes. And what about those people who have extra cones that allow them to see extra colors imperceptible to the normal, "average" human eye (each of which is genetically unique anyway)?



[ Reply to This | # ]
How to fix an H.264 video conversion 'wash out' issue
Authored by: twisted on Dec 01, '06 06:53:53PM

I'm not sure, but I never noticed any "washed" colors when encoding through ffmpegx, afaik it's also faster then Quicktime Pro, and all the movies I've ever encoded with Quicktime Pro also didn't play on my iPod...



[ Reply to This | # ]
How to fix an H.264 video conversion 'wash out' issue
Authored by: Unsoluble on Dec 03, '06 03:29:34PM
Instead of just picking a profile out of the list, spend the two minutes or so that it takes to calibrate one. That way it'll actually be based on your eyeballs, which I hope are what you'll be using to view the screen. :)

[ Reply to This | # ]
How to fix an H.264 video conversion 'wash out' issue
Authored by: ccedit on Jan 04, '07 03:54:45PM

I have also searched high and low for a solution to the "washed out" look. After an almost sleepless night I came across the fix without having to mess around with color profiles. I'm working from a PC so some of the commands might be slightly different.

After you create the QuickTime/h.264 file, open it up in QuickTime and select "Show Movie Properties." Highlight the video track then click on the "Visual Settings" tab. Towards the bottom left you should see "Transparency" with a drop-down box next to it. Select "Blend" from the menu then move the "Transparency Level" slider to 100%. Right after that, choose "Straight Alpha" from the same drop-down and close the properties window. AND finally, "Save."

So far, it's worked like a charm for me; hope it does the same for you.



[ Reply to This | # ]