Help! Washed Out Picture When Watching Video

[mikinho]

Very true, a combination of persistence settings and optionally cleared ones sounds like it would be optimal.

[SJMaye]

[quote=”Skirge01″]
Turns out that CCC resets the pixel format when you upgrade your drivers and it apparently doesn’t save that particular setting to the profile.  In turn, I went in and named the profile using the correct pixel format, so I wouldn’t forget next time.  [/quote]

Well,  my picture is looking so good I saved the profile as you suggested only to read more closely and see it does not save pixel format settings.  Although the pixel format may not be saved it is the only YCbCr setting I saw.  So, if I update drivers I just reselect this profile and ensure I have the pixel format at YCbCr?

[George L. Schmauch Jr.]

I haven’t verified what other settings aren’t saved to the profile, so there may very well be other things which get reset.

[SJMaye]

Its been a while since I last posted.  All the points here helped me a lot working with ATI CCC.  Although things have been good for a while something odd has been happening that up to now I wasn’t sure if it was my imagination or not.  As of this morning (1am) I am sure it is not my imagination. 

The the PQ issue I just can’t stand is this washed out look.  Within CCC I have been able to get good results with Full Dynamic Range and controlling the Gamma.  Strange thing is periodically the picture would appear to have that washed out look again.  I would go to CCC to poke and prod around and Viola! it would look good again.  I thought it was losing settings. 

This morning I was playing a show where the washed out or overcast look was there again.  This time I paused the show, put MC in a restore sized window and opened CCC side-by-side.  After opening CCC I literally made no adjustments.  Touched nothing except the scroll bar looking at the adjustments. In the MC window I started playback again and the overcast look was gone.  Maximized the MC window and it continued to play well though the rest of the show.

Is that odd or what?

[babgvant]

Have you tried setting NominalRange (dword) = 1 @ HKLMSOFTWAREDebugehPresenter.dll (or download and run this reg file)?

[SJMaye]

No.  I have not tried that.  What does it do?  I tried looking at the reg link but it does not work.

[babgvant]

It tells the MC EVR presenter to set 0-255 instead of 16-235 on the samples.  This is a consistent issue with AMD’s GPU drivers.

FWIW, I like to turn off most of their VPP.  The defaults blow out the colors and perform way to much NR; it’s great for HQV, but in practice it looks over processed.

[SJMaye]

Now that is cool.  Thanks, Andrew.  I am on the road now, but will try when I get back this weekend.

[phoneguyinpgh]

[quote=babgvant]

It tells the MC EVR presenter to set 0-255 instead of 16-235 on the samples.  This is a consistent issue with AMD’s GPU drivers.

FWIW, I like to turn off most of their VPP.  The defaults blow out the colors and perform way to much NR; it’s great for HQV, but in practice it looks over processed.

[/quote]

I agree.  The default ATI PP is far too agressive.  I wish it were set off by default.  Also don’t forget to turn off “dynamic contrast”, it was causing my brightness to flash up and down on some programing.  Turning “dynamic contrast” off and setting the registry value above solved the issue.

[SJMaye]

[quote=babgvant]

It tells the MC EVR presenter to set 0-255 instead of 16-235 on the samples.  This is a consistent issue with AMD’s GPU drivers.

FWIW, I like to turn off most of their VPP.  The defaults blow out the colors and perform way to much NR; it’s great for HQV, but in practice it looks over processed.

[/quote]

It has been a couple weeks.  For other reasons I decided to do a reformat and re-install of the OS.  I thought I would evaluate for a little to make sure any video issues were not related.  Still the same issues.  It appears Dynamic Range periodically switches from my setting of FULL back to LIMITED.  All I do is flick the Dynamic Range on/off off and on again and all is good.

So, I understand about setting the registry value you supplied.  This will permanently set this value to full regardless of what I have in the CCC?

As for PQ, I appreciate the thoughts on turning them all off.  I have been playing with all the settings trying to understand their effects.  Since my beginning with MC years ago I have always been trying to achieve the same PQ as a cable or satellite set top box.  Sadly, not successful yet.  Granted I will never get a 42″ plasma image on my 73″ DLP, but I know it has been better with STBs in past.  Colors more vivid and sharper image.

I will keep working on it.

[babgvant]

[quote=SJMaye]

It has been a couple weeks.  For other reasons I decided to do a reformat and re-install of the OS.  I thought I would evaluate for a little to make sure any video issues were not related.  Still the same issues.  It appears Dynamic Range periodically switches from my setting of FULL back to LIMITED.  All I do is flick the Dynamic Range on/off off and on again and all is good.

So, I understand about setting the registry value you supplied.  This will permanently set this value to full regardless of what I have in the CCC?

[/quote]

No, changing Dynamic Range still affects luminance, but as you’ve observed it’s not a stable feature.  With it disabled the driver uses Full (which is broken, but that’s another topic) the NominalRange setting just tells MC that the content has been expanded.

[quote=SJMaye]

As for PQ, I appreciate the thoughts on turning them all off.  I have been playing with all the settings trying to understand their effects.  Since my beginning with MC years ago I have always been trying to achieve the same PQ as a cable or satellite set top box.  Sadly, not successful yet.  Granted I will never get a 42″ plasma image on my 73″ DLP, but I know it has been better with STBs in past.  Colors more vivid and sharper image.

[/quote]

I don’t recommend turning them ALL off, just the ones that blow out the colors (Dynamic Contrast, Flesh Tone Correction, Brighter Whites, etc.).  DI is essential and so is SOME noise reduction (NR), but when it comes to NR the defaults are way too aggressive for my tastes so I dial it back significantly.

If you’re looking for a more vivid picture you may want to leave the settings that create unrealistic colors alone, that’s why they are there.

[SJMaye]

Understood.  I added your reg file to the registry and switched dynamic range OFF in CCC. Will monitor MC playback to see if it stays in FULL.

As for colors.  Thanks for the tips.  I just need to play with it.  Being color deficient I never know how the colors look to a normal person 🙂

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