Thumbnails, Timeline and Preview too dark

Hi all!

I'm new to DaVinci Resolve. I have some experience with other video editing solutions, but never encountered a situation like this:

We did recently some shootings with a Blackmagic Production Camera 4K, including some rather dark scenes.

When viewing the footage on a computer with VLC media player (version 3.020 Vetinari), we were quite shocked because the scenes were not dark but almost pitch black. Like you saw almost nothing.

After our initial panic subsided, we found out that the videos look as intended in QuickTime Player (Version 7.7.9). By "as intended" I mean: The very same level of brightness and exposure as we saw on the camera's screen and on a rather big external control monitor during the shooting.

We shrugged this off as a VLC player quirk and moved on.

But now when I wanted to start editing in DaVinci Resolve 18.6, I was pretty surprised: The footage is in DaVinci's thumbnails, timeline, and preview as black as in VLC media player and not as we saw it in QuickTime Player.

I'm very confused by this situation. The scenes are so dark in DaVinci that I cannot edit them, let alone publish them. How come? What can I do that the footage looks in DaVinci as it does in QuickTime?

Step one is to make sure you're seeing the footage unaltered...

Do you have a short clip that you can put on Dropbox or Google Drive and post a link to it? If so I am happy to look at it on my system, and I'm sure others will as well.
Video players like VLC and Quicktime don't always interpret footage the same way.

Step one is to make sure you're seeing the footage unaltered...

Thanks for that hint, but I don't really get it TBH. We've tested this on three different computers, the outcome is always the same: Different players show the footage with different level of brightness/exposure. So, to me this like like a software problem. Sorry, I really don't understand how an I/O device would help here?

Do you have a short clip that you can put on Dropbox or Google Drive and post a link to it? If so I am happy to look at it on my system, and I'm sure others will as well.
Video players like VLC and Quicktime don't always interpret footage the same way.

Many thanks!

Sure! I've selected a clip. Sorry, I'm not allowed to post links due to forum restrictions. Please remove the *: https*:*//drive*.google*.com*/*file*/d/1Hs_7JM986XfGvuAcGDmucpA1EAfbYi7b/view?usp=sharing

(This was just a test clip, it's blurry and out of focus, it won't make it to the final video anyway, the point is just the different level of exposure.)

Here's how it looks in QuickTime (and again, that's what we saw on the camera screen and the external control monitor as well):

screenshot_quicktime.jpg (154.36 KiB) Viewed 443 times

And that's the same frame in DaVinci:

screenshot_davinci.jpg (929.24 KiB) Viewed 443 times

Would be so nice if you could have a look! Many thanks in advance!

Christian, I'm having problems trying to open that link. Can you post it again with just a gap near the front and no asterisks?

Further to my PM, here is what I get with some quick tweaks in the Color page. This is across my three screens.

Many thanks! Really appreciate your help!

But again: I'm still confused. I worked with quite a few cameras, video codecs, and editing software in my live. But I've never encountered the situation that different software would show the same video file with different level of exposure. I know that different screens/settings, graphic drivers etc play a role. But I wasn't aware that software players make the video appear differently as well.

So, my question was not about exposure settings in DaVinci etc. My questions are:

1. Why do different players render the exposure differently?

2. Is there a way to "tell" DaVinci to show the footage the way QuickTime does? I mean if I increase the exposure in DaVinci, render it out and open the result in QuickTime it will still appear lighter in QuickTime than in DaVinci. So, my question is not about exposure manipulation in DaVinci but rather about DaVinci preferences etc. But I'm afraid there is no setting like that?

Not only do various video players have adjustable parameters, but they tend to put their own slant on color interpretation as well. That is why when color grading you need a monitor that is calibrated to a known standard so that at least the original is correct. When it goes out into the world of TVs, phones, tablets, and computer displays, etc, there is no guarantee that they will show it the way it was intended. That is just the way it is.
There is no way to interfere with how Resolve shows you the original video before you start adding other parameters, which is a good thing. You have to be able to trust something as a starting point.
When I did those rough tweaks on your clip I was using a calibrated display with Video Clean Feed. If I was doing coloring for movies or broadcast I would be using a very color accurate (read expensive) monitor being fed by something like a Decklink card, which bypasses the computers GPU and any other influences the computer may impart.