Plain white background is impossible, it's always #fefefe

Hey DaVinci Resolve fellows,

we encountered a very strange problem, which have cost us many days and nerves of experimenting already. So many, that we even think this might be a bug - and it really drives us crazy.

So here is the thing: It seems to be impossible, to export a H.264 encoded video with a plain-white (#ffffff) background. It always becomes light-grey (#fefefe). And no: the "Retain sub-black and super-white data" option is NOT the solution, because it creates more issues than it solves (see more below).

Lets break it down, maybe someone of you have an idea or can reproduce the issue.

The old video (our reference)
We have an old video, which was produced with an amateur video-editing tool ("Filmora"). Even if its a simple amateur tool, it seems that it works well: the background is plain-white, even after exporting it (see image 1). The video data:

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Video: h264 (High) (avc1 / 0x31637661), yuv420p(tv, bt709), 1920x1080 [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], 4746 kb/s

Image 1: Old reference video which has a nice plain-white background like it should

white-video-old-ffffff.png (100.86 KiB) Viewed 243 times

The new video (issue)
Now, we want to produce some new videos, matching the exact same style and quality like the existing old ones - using DaVinci Resolve.
But no matter how high we increase the lightning/saturation in the coloring panel: the white video background (which is plain-white #ffffff in DaVinci if we check the color) becomes #fefefe after encoding. Even if we use a white solid-color plane, the #ffffff becomes #fefefe after encoding! (see image 2) The video data:

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Video: h264 (High) (avc1 / 0x31637661), yuv420p(tv, bt709, progressive), 1920x1080, 1907 kb/s,

Image 2: New video encoded with DaVinci Resolve where white becomes a light-grey background after encoding

white-video-new-fefefe.png (88.83 KiB) Viewed 243 times

There is this option "Retain sub-black and super-white data": if we enable this, the video becomes real white (#ffffff) on most common displays and mobiles. Great, we thought this is the solution! But playing the video e.g. on an iPhone 14 becomes even worse: there will be a very bright white (lets say more white than white) box around the video, which is way more visible and disturbing on a white website than the light-grey box!

Image 3: New video encoded with DaVinci Resolve with enabled "retain black/white" option is more white than white on iPhone 14

ios-issue-retain-black-white.jpg (215.23 KiB) Viewed 243 times

The base questions is: How to export a H.264 video with white #ffffff background from DaVinci Resolve, which is displayed as normal white on ALL devices?

Or in more technical terms: How to export a H.264 video with yuv420p(pc) setting instead of (tv), which might resolve the issue?

(The setting yuvj420p is NOT a solution, since this is a deprecated value based on multiple sources)

We're using DaVinci Resolve 20 Studio (yes, currently in beta, but this shouldn't be the issue?!).

We appreciate any help and hope, that we didn't made a very stupid mistake here

Are you aware of Full Range vs Video Range encoding and the display issues when comparing outside of Resolve? I think this may be your issue.

Thanks for your reply. If you mean with "Full Range vs Video Range" the difference between "yuv420p(pc) vs. yuv420p(tv)" then yes, we're aware of that.

The thing is, we couldn't find any option to force the encoding to Full Range / yuv420p(pc). Every video is always encoded with (tv), no matter what we've tried so far.

We thought, maybe the "Retain black/white" option is for this, but that results in the above described iOS issue.

So here is the thing: It seems to be impossible, to export a H.264 encoded video with a plain-white (#ffffff) background. It always becomes light-grey (#fefefe). And no: the "Retain sub-black and super-white data" option is NOT the solution, because it creates more issues than it solves (see more below).

Does it have to be H.264? What if you used another format, like H.265 or ProRes or DNxHR? How do those measure up?

Have you checked this on multiple phones and devices? The problems with web content include a) you have no control over the playback engine in the website, b) you have no control over the changes the user's operating system make to the image, and c) you have no control over the user's actual settings. There's a lot you can't control. You can target one specific device -- take an iPad Pro, bless it, and call it "this is our internal standard" -- and everything can theoretically look good on that. But once you mix in a hundred different devices, things are going to change. That's just the way things are in the world.

I consider it a small miracle if I look at a project I worked on, on a device like an iPhone or an iPad, and I say, "well... it doesn't look too far off." A few pixels here and there... it's going to happen because it's an imperfect world.

If I can control every aspect of a presentation -- like I can provide the monitor, I control the format, I can control the player, and I can control the playback format -- then I know it will be 100% predictable and acceptable to the client. Everything else is not always going to be perfect.

Thanks for your reply. If you mean with "Full Range vs Video Range" the difference between "yuv420p(pc) vs. yuv420p(tv)" then yes, we're aware of that.

The thing is, we couldn't find any option to force the encoding to Full Range / yuv420p(pc). Every video is always encoded with (tv), no matter what we've tried so far.

We thought, maybe the "Retain black/white" option is for this, but that results in the above described iOS issue.

It's under Deliver -> Video -> Advanced Settings (At the bottom) -> Data Levels: Auto, Video, Full