Deliver Settings for Consistent Color in Various Players

Has anybody discovered the magical settings in Deliver that outputs a file that will LOOK the same in various players on Windows? I initially used Vimeo's (web site) recommended settings, or Rec709, which is what my project output space is, and h.265, but that crashed DR repeatedly. So I opted for h.264 Rec709.

When I use MPC-HC and turn on its Color Management (the only player I've found to be color aware), the video matches my viewer in DR perfectly. However, Windows Media Player, Windows 10 Movie Player, and VLC all show a more saturated version, with a magenta overcast, and some blooming in saturated colors. Interestingly, the three latter players all looked very similarly wrong, compared to DR and MPC-HC. Oh, and forget about Quicktime Player on Windows. It shows its typically blah, low-gamma rendition.

I initially took this to be about Color Management, and that the latter three were assuming they were getting sRGB, not Rec709. So I reexported the file with sRGB as my project output space, but get the same results.

The difference is between what I graded and a "bad" looking, over-saturated video. I know we don't have control over end-user environments, but surely we can export to a form that color-ignorant apps can render semi-correctly, right?

Now I have to take another drink. This has been discussed hundreds of times in past messages.

Read these:

"Grading for Mixed Delivery: Cinema, Home, and Every Screen in Between" by Cullen Kelly
https://blog.frame.io/2019/10/14/gradin ... -delivery/

"How to Deal with Levels: Full vs. Video" by Dan Swierenga
https://www.thepostprocess.com/2019/09/ ... l-vs-video

and
"A Deeper Look at Consistent Color with QuickTime Tags From Resolve To YouTube & Vimeo on Wide Gamut Apple Monitors" by Dan Swierenga
https://www.thepostprocess.com/2020/07/ ... ktime-tags

and I think they cover the issues and the solutions very well. Understanding color management is also helpful:

"Color Management for Video Editors"
https://jonnyelwyn.co.uk/film-and-video ... o-editors/

My simple method: always export a second or two of SMPTE color bars at the very head of the project, and then check them on scopes in whatever player you're using to see how it looks. If there's a shift (video level or hue or chroma), you'll see it very quickly in bars.

Thanks Marc. I think I've probably read all hundred of those messages, as you've helped me with color in the past. I have a pretty good handle on Color Management and the Color Pipeline. This isn't about viewing on different systems, or even from the web at this point, but in different applications on the same system and on the SAME monitor, playing the same file. The players show differing color renditions and the color differences are beyond what I would expect from apps using a slightly different transfer function or Gamma 2.2 vs 2.4. I also verified the correct tags are in the file being played using MediaInfo (not that some of these apps care).

The only thing I found that truly addressed my original question was this from the Color Management for Video Editors link:

"render to SRGB, simply because there are more SRGB displays out there and if the player is not colour managed and just streams the native RGB values you’ve got a higher chance that the colours will look right."

which is exactly what I tried. I was hoping that perhaps I was missing a particular setting in DR that someone could point to, but I guess there's still no silver bullet. I'm starting with Rec709 2.2, and have that set for my Input, Timeline, and Output spaces. I changed the Timeline and Output spaces to sRGB in the final try. Same result. I'm seeing the same shift to magenta pointed out in the Consistent Color article, although I'm on Windows.

Here are a few screen grabs from DR and Windows Media Player that were run through Photoshop.

DR Edit Page Viewer (sRGB) and Photoshop "Don't Color Manage"

DR.jpg (92.42 KiB) Viewed 999 times

Windows Media Player (?) and Photoshop "Don't Color Manage"

WMP.jpg (69.47 KiB) Viewed 999 times

Windows Media Player (?) and Photoshop "Assign sRGB Profile"

WMP (sRGB Assgn).jpg (67.51 KiB) Viewed 999 times

Notice how when I assign the sRGB profile to the file in PS, it looks very similar to what I see in DR. This is what I would expect in WMP. This file is exported as, and tagged with, sRGB, so I'm not sure how WMP (or VLC or Windows 10 Video Player) is interpreting this data, but it apparently is not sRGB. But you should be able to see the increased saturation and magenta color shift.

a file that will LOOK the same in various players on Windows?

That may not be possible. Players can and often do alter the image. That's why you can't QC on a computer.

You're chasing a unicorn here.

Players can and often do alter the image

For what purpose would a video playback program change the look of a video - without user input? The easiest possible means for programming such an app is to do absolutely nothing to the source data. Just play the raw bits, and if the bits are sRGB, then it should look like sRGB, right? Or at least close to it; and these are even close.

That's why you can't QC on a computer.

QC'ing on a $50,000 P3 studio monitor won't help solve this problem any more than me doing it on my PC. If I can't get the same results on the SAME computer with the same file, how is spending 50 grand going to help? Plus, the "standards" don't even work for actual theaters anymore. I found that out when testing a DCP and every single theater looked and sounded different. Few were calibrated as they should have been.

There is a simple reason why this is happening. Even if I can't control it, at least I can understand it.

For what purpose would a video playback program change the look of a video - without user input?

It's not so much about 'purpose'. The default settings of a player may not be correct for the system, or material.

If I can't get the same results on the SAME computer with the same file, how is spending 50 grand going to help?

Because the $50 Grand will ensure that you're seeing the image as it really is. It removes the variables which can and do affect the image, such as the OS, GPU driver and media player.