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User profile for user: Michael_Lin
Michael_Lin Author
User level: Level 1
5 points

Quicktime player color less saturated with h264 than original prores422 footage

My gears:

Macbook Pro 15" late 2017

Macos Catalina 10.15.3

Davinci Resolve 16.2


Problem:

A short footage of my daughter shot by my iPhone xs native camera app. I did some simple color grading in Davinci Resolve 16.2 with pretty much the default color management settings. Then I delivered output in Prores422. After I transcoded the prores422 footage into H264/H265 with Handbrake, the weird thing happened - the h264/h265 footage looks less saturated than the original prores422 footage in Quicktime player. Then I tried VLC and Elmedia Player with no such issue (h264/h265 footage color matches prores422). So this seems a pure Quicktime player issue. Anyone knows how to solve this issue besides simply quit using QT player? Thanks.H264/h265

Prores 422

MacBook Pro 15", macOS 10.15

Posted on Mar 21, 2020 9:56 AM

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User profile for user: Kurt Lang
Kurt Lang
User level: Level 9
62,184 points

Posted on Mar 21, 2020 10:10 AM

This is common. I've never been able to figure out which one is displaying color incorrectly. But only very rarely have I ever seen QuickTime and VLC play even exactly the same video with the same color. Usually, VLC is more saturated.


Though part of it is just the color mode difference. Video to an actual TV is Y’CbCr color. Computer monitors are RBG. This is why HDMI is a poor choice for connecting a monitor to a computer. HDMI tries to default to Y’CbCr when the monitor is expecting RBG values.


This is also why professional video is not viewed on a computer monitor. Pros view the video apps on a monitor connected to the computer via DisplayPort (RBG), and a separate HDMI output to a color balanced TV. Then, you don't pay attention to how the color looks in the editing software, but how it looks on the TV.

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User profile for user: Kurt Lang
Kurt Lang
User level: Level 9
62,184 points

Mar 21, 2020 10:10 AM in response to Michael_Lin

This is common. I've never been able to figure out which one is displaying color incorrectly. But only very rarely have I ever seen QuickTime and VLC play even exactly the same video with the same color. Usually, VLC is more saturated.


Though part of it is just the color mode difference. Video to an actual TV is Y’CbCr color. Computer monitors are RBG. This is why HDMI is a poor choice for connecting a monitor to a computer. HDMI tries to default to Y’CbCr when the monitor is expecting RBG values.


This is also why professional video is not viewed on a computer monitor. Pros view the video apps on a monitor connected to the computer via DisplayPort (RBG), and a separate HDMI output to a color balanced TV. Then, you don't pay attention to how the color looks in the editing software, but how it looks on the TV.

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Quicktime player color less saturated with h264 than original prores422 footage

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