How does Vimeo's encoding affect the colors in your video?

Mine defo looks lighter

Yes- I've noticed mine losing some contrast and saturation. I've been overcompensating in both departments in Final Cut so when I put it on Vimeo it looks normal.

same - I add more contrast (usually by adjusting levels & curves) and generally export darker and more saturated than I do for home viewing on TV or computer screens

I rendered out an h.264 file and uploaded it to Vimeo. After Vimeo's conversion, the resulting file was noticeably darker and contrastier. The file in the timeline, and the output file from windows media player, both looked identical, but the vimeo playback was seriously darker.

I tried replacing the file but the same thing happened.

I then guessed there must be a gamma or range bug happening, perhaps the video was being stretched by Vimeo from 16-235 to 0-255 or something, so I tried exporting the file from my NLE using a different (i.e., non-h.264 codec). I exported it as Windows Media 11 .wmv file, and uploaded that. The result is that Vimeo's conversion now looks identical to my timeline and the Windows Media Player version.

I suspect that there is a bug in vimeo's conversion specifically related to h.264 content.

Here's a side-by-side comparison of one of my newest videos to see if this was the case. The file playing locally is a full quality ProRes LT file.

There is definitely a noticeable difference between the two.

Just for good measure, I included a screencap of the same YouTube video.

I would say in terms of accurate colour (for online) YouTube is winning this one... I wouldn't say that in terms of sharpness though.

Vimeo vs Source vs YouTube: cl.ly/D6mQ

This is definitely interesting, and I hadn't noticed it before. I will ensure to make corrections via MPEG Streamclip's built in contrast and brightness adjustments in the future.

Same problem: after uploading video looks darker and contrasty. Exporting from After Effects with recommended preferences and CMS off. Plus red channel slightly shifted.

Yip same problem..... upload is darker than the original with a considerable loss of colour....will try to upload using another codec.... will let you know results

Hi, I'd like to add my experince of the colour/gamma issues.....

When I share a video to Vimeo straight from FCPX I am noticing a gamma/colour shift.
My uploaded videos look darker than they did in FCP.
This obviously makes grading a nightmare as I have to guess-grade my footage to take the problem into account.
I decided to test this by measuring the RGB values of a greyscale chart at each stage of the process.
Here's what I did:

I used a jpeg of a greyscale bar chart for this test.
The first thing I did was open the chart in Photoshop and measure the RGB values for each 'bar' of the chart with the eyedropper (from black RGB 0,0,0 to peak white RGB 255, 255, 255)
Next I Imported the jpeg into a new FCPX project's timeline and took a screeshot of it in the FCP viewer, then measured the RGB levels in Pshop
Next I shared the project to vimeo, waited for the upload and took a screenshot of it playing back on vimeo and again measured the RGB levels of the screenshot.
Then, I opened the 'shared' movie file from my FCPX project folder, played it, took a screenshot and measured the RGB values again.

Here are my results:

The RGB levels for the greyscale chart's bars are consistent in everything except the Vimeo video.

Basically, the source material (chart jpeg), FCPX viewer and shared file are all the same correct gamma/exposure.

However, the Vimeo video does not. It has darker midtones and a slight colour-shift with slightly higher G values than R or B. I have left the video up on my Vimeo page so you can see for yourself.

Any ideas why or what I can do to ensure consistent colours from camera to Vimeo?

thanks

Sam,

vimeo.com/34664674 increased contrast after vimeo's encoding. Original was compressed to MainConcept AVC, main profile, with Vegas 10.

BTW. privacy settings are still not working correctly with ie8: default setting is still checked as nobody can comment on a video.

I think that the problem is not with vimeos encoder but with peoples workflow. My videos looks exactly the same, and im guessing alot of others aswell.

There are many different players/codecs that display video differently. It could be that your player is displaying the wrong colors and vimeo the right ones.
My windows media player totaly crushes blacks from full range h.264 in a .mov container etc.

I think that there are two stages were this can go wrong:
1. DSLR fotage is in 0,255 PC range and it could be badly converter to 16,235 at some stage (brightness shift).
avisynth.org/mediawiki/Luminance_levels
2. The wrong coefficients is used when converted from RGB to YUV (color shift).
avisynth.org/mediawiki/Colorimetry

But Olly Newport example is weird, that the youtube version looks like his source and not the vimeo one...

Sam,

vimeo.com/34673528 same Vegas project as vimeo.com/34664674 but compressed to WMV rather than MainConcept AVC. Still a slight increase in contrast by the vimeo encoder/Flash player but it looks much closer in terms of contrast to the originals :)

Is anyone actually comparing the final product on Vimeo to what the video looks like on a real broadcast monitor? That's the only way to figure out if Vimeo is really affecting your video. What you see in Quicktime or your editing program is a (sometimes very) rough approximation of what the video looks like. I understand that to those who don't own a broadcast monitor, the results from a test like that would be irrelevant, but the point is that probably no solution will fix the gamma shift for everyone.

Saturation and contrast are heavily reduced. Adjustments don't make much of a difference, it still looks like a pale sheen over the entire thing. Doesn't seem to be as big an issue for black and white videos.

I don't encounter the problem with YouTube or Facebook so it seems Vimeo specific.

Ive notice the image goes slightly to green in the whole videos I`ve uploaded.

ive been doing these tests for months now and looking for a solution- unfortunately youtube i have also found maintains the color that i export whereas vimeo is a drastic contrast darker and gamma shift- ive experimented with mov vs mp4, h264 vs quicktime, premier vs ae, all give different results. to the best test so far to maintain color ive gone with premier to ae (for color grading and effects), then dragging the seq file directly to media encoder and processing a h264 via that way.

I'm afraid I don't have the tech knowledge that many people involved in this discussion have, but I've also noted the last film I compressed and uploaded has lost contrast and saturation. Used Final Cut Express and vimeo compression guidelines, but have not had this problem with any previous uploads (same editor and compression settings), tho hadn't uploaded for a year or so. I've played the film in vimeo (compressed version) and final cut express (original) windows at same time, and can clearly see the difference between the 2. In Vimeo version have lost deep tones of red background and have 'gained' bleached out highlights on the hands where only had lightish patches in orginal - vimeo.com/34682388

Editing FCP X and output to h.264 on iMAC look great but after upload, much darker highlights (white background is yellowish) skin tones darker and blacks crushed. Very disappointed -- now youtube looks better! Uploading large files with high bit rates. I have two Pro accounts. I am having to adjust the video to compensate but it should look very similar to the source h.264 on my computer (same file size). Can provide comparative frames if necessary.

hallo have anyone a solution how to have the same colours ho see in your screen with fcp x when you publish it it looks darken and not the same colour

I encode in QT7 Player directly and upload the x264 encoded MP4 files from my Mac. When viewing Vimeo on my Mac, it looks okay ... but I go to a Windows machine, and they are *very* very dark.

YouTube just makes my videos dark all the time, but I am now using their "editor" feature and boosting with the "fill light" feature set to +2. That seems to do it.

Just a tip -- everyone who's uploading from Mac, check out your Vimeo pages on Windows. It may be an unpleasant surprise.

EVERYBODY, remember, not all monitors are color-corected.

We are experiencing a contrast change as well as everything going towards red. Especially bad in flesh tones. Also, smooth vignettes are banding.

SAM- Does Vimeo have any work arounds to suggest so far?

we're having the same contrast and saturation change too.

tinyurl.com/6vtwg6s

the colors are much more saturated and it definitely gets darker. it also strangely goes on the green/blue side. we recently uploaded a video that underwent the same process color-correction-wise and we never had the contrast and saturation problem. it took me a couple color edits to get what we more or less wanted upon upload on vimeo. any advice how to deal with this?

I uploaded an MP4 HD video recently and ran into the same issue. My original plays fine on my PC and my Samsung 46" TV. The original has the light levels that I wanted. The version rendered by Vimeo is considerably darker. It looks darker on Vimeo, like I had improper lighting.

I'm using Sony Movie Studio 11, rendering as MP4 using XDCAM HQ 1920x1080 24P 35Mbps.

Link: vimeo.com/35895316.

Thanks, Bill

"We are experiencing a contrast change as well as everything going towards red. Especially bad in flesh tones."

Same problem with all recent uploaded video's.

I have the same problem??? like Shoe Talk "Editing FCP X and output to h.264 on iMAC look great but after upload, much darker highlights (white background is yellowish) skin tones darker and blacks crushed." and i'm very disappointed too.. I paid for this service and now doesn´t work...

hello, I recently uploaded two videos, one an mpeg4 and the other h.264 and both were alot darker than the original video.

This is really strange. My HD video looks fine on my computer but shows a small color shift from blue to slight green after uploaded to vimeo. It's even stranger because sometimes the change is there and sometimes it's not...same video...

Thanks,

Michael

In the vast majority of cases, when the Adobe Flash Player browser plugin used by Vimeo (and YouTube, Facebook, JW Player etc.) plays back your video it maps the level range 16-235 in the H.264 file to 0-255 RGB on your display. This is the same as what a DVD player/TV will do to an MPEG-2 file, and, depending on how you viewed your video before uploading, it effectively increases contrast and clips highlights and shadows. In my opinion it is correct behaviour because it means one only has to grade video once for broadcast, DVD, Blu-ray and web output.

The best way to deal with it is to conform black to 16 and white to 235 in your video, referencing the video scopes in your NLE. If you don't do this, anything in your uploaded video that is outside the 16-235 range will get clipped to flat black or flat white. Bear in mind that most cameras that are predominently designed to shoot stills, including dSLRs, use the whole range 0-255. Most more traditional video cameras shoot 16-255.

More info here: bubblevision.com/underwater-video/YouTube-Vimeo-levels-fix.htm

and in this video: vimeo.com/24640614

The problem coud be to do with rec601/rec709 having different luma coefficients.

Vimeo's back-end conversions (for example if they used ffmpeg or similar) 'may' be converting our video's with the incorrect coeffiencients.

If this sounds baffling there's a good explaination here: glennchan.info/articles/technical/rec709rec601/rec709rec601.html

I've experienced this problem with my own vimeo uploads and recently attended a course (I'm a BBC engineer) where rec601 - rec709 were compared with respect to HD/SD conversion. I think this could be related.

Also, we have a video system at work that was designed using ffmpeg (same thing that VLC is built upon) and I beleive that a software patch or update had to be added as ffmpeg was running in the older rec601 and messing with colour/gamma.

I'd like to do some further testing with this as it should be possible to prove using a table of YUV values for each set of coefficients. It may take a while though as I'm V.busy.

Maybe someone at vimeo could investigate too or maybe publish their findings so far?

Also, it'd be great to know if any of these issues were addressed with the 'new vimeo'. I'd personally be happy to stick with the old style if I could guarentee colour consistency!

R

I find colors from my Keychain camera are very bad on Vimeo IF I have edited the clip with AVS VideoReMaker. If I have not edited the clip before posting they are much better. They are also fine after editing, straight after they come out of the editor before posting to Vimeo.
Examples
Clip that was not edited before posting: vimeo.com/37252797
Clip that was edited before posting:
vimeo.com/37260721

Hi,

I'm new here and I'm having the problem with my first video, contrasts are increased as you can see on this screenshot : img708.imageshack.us/img708/8919/vimeoissue.jpg

I hope you'll be able to fix that issue soon.

Dom

i saw that it has slightly more contrast and on the image, specially in the blacklevel and there is kind of noise reduction filter on footage.

Same here, was considering pro account, and totally disappointed. Color looks less saturated, whereas on my other machine (both monitor calibrated using colorimeter) it looks pretty much the same (the original, before uploading to vimeo).
Slightly off-topic — to add to my disappointment, the audio off sync by about 3 frames, and I painstakingly synced the video to audio beat on my edit bay. Go figure … all the emotional I intended for the audience to feel just gone … all because vimeo reencoding.
I'll delete the video now. I thought this was a coincidence, didnt know that this is a known issue and still no resolution for at least 2 months for color issue, and 2 years for sync issue.

vimeo.com/38192198 - still a a little more contrast than I would like but it does reduce picture noise :)

We actually like the colors a tad bit more after Vimeo upload. Seemed to have boosted the saturation a little.
vimeo.com/38388606

I used to have the same gamma/color shift problem especially in h264, but since I started rendering in 32bit I haven't had a recurrence of the problem. I actually started that practice to try and get some of my effects and transitions to come out cleaner after uploading, but I found that being able to change the compositing gamma in 32bit made the difference as far as the 'darkening'. Im sure having the full 32bit image when uploading gives the transcoders more to work with also.

Our videos look less contrasty, lighter and less saturated when uploaded to Vimeo. To try and correct this I add more contrast and saturation to each video file and bring the brightness down. It helps a bit but not much.

I also have the "dark video - bad fleshtone" problem.
My workflow:
Cannon XHA1
Capture to iMac H.264 using Blackmagic VIDPROREC H.264 Pro Recorder
Import to iMovie
Export to Vimeo directly, or through Vimeo web uploader

It looks great on the computer, until uploaded to Vimeo. Then it gets dark.

My embedded files look different than the ones on vimeo. I instantly noticed banding and different colors, saturation etc. I have a screenshot :

Link: fly-byradio.com/vimeo.png

I have the same issue with Sorensen Squeeze 8. Always lose 10% saturation/contrast. Over compensate in FCPX.

For me, it seems like the shots are less saturated, the blacks are not as darr, yet some of the mids are darker. I use the X.264 codec to address the gama shift out of quicktime, but then it shifts more toward what it looks like when i export to h.264.
hope that helps

Having terrible problems with this. Im a fine art photographer and all my images are focused on colour - it is vital. Im trying to upload a video about these works but the final stills of the finished pictures look absolutely dreadful. the colour is desaturated and washed out, with a blue tint and the quality of the picture is lousy too. I upgraded to a pro account and its been a waste of money. Very frustrated, very upset

+1 on everything said above. Frustrating.

Colour, contrast and gamma seem true with my x264vfw AVI source files.

+1
same here
used the PremierPro Vimeo Codec.

for me, it looks like I'm having the opposite problem.

My video looks much darker, more contrast, and more saturation to the point where everything looks green like the Matrix.

I am an AVID editor so once I export my film out as an mov, it looks fine. I then use mpeg streamclip to convert the video into an mp4 or a quicktime mov (Both are H.264 codecs). Both show up dark, contrasty and saturated when uploaded. I have to change adjustments in all departments by at least 10%.

Michael,

Can you export from AVID using x264vfw encoding in an AVI container with mp3 audio? I've had some very good results using x264vfw (from VirtualDub) - seems to be closely compatible with vimeo's encoding settings - and I'm only using a single pass.

An AVI container and mp3 audio is not ideal but if vimeo's encoding is a good match to the original file it might be worth a try - sourceforge.net/projects/x264vfw/

I can not add much to the conversation apart from saying that I am also getting completely crazy with this issue.

Working on a Mac with FCP7, exporting to .h264, and once uploaded on Vimeo it becomes dark and the skin is horrible, and I'm getting ashamed to show the video to the customer.

Is Vimeo having any hope to fix the issue, or is it mostly something you cannot solve?

I notice a bigger shift towards magenta. My skin tones look great uncompressed, then compressed to h.264 but then uploaded to vimeo it had a strong magenta shift.

My video came out considerably darker than my original h264 file. Vimeo said there is nothing they can do. It is a hassle, but I guess I just fix the problem in post and lighten up the shots that are darker. This should get fixed though for sure

My videos, esp. whiteboard videos, have darker shadows than the original. Embedded videos are are worse, so bad that I can't used them to show in public. My workflow is from FCP7 to H264 via Compressor or Adobe Media encoder. I would love to see a fix for this issues.

It is sad that my free uploads to youtube are fine, and my paid uploads to Vimeo are so much worse. This thread has been running for a long time -- where is the solution?

After Uploading, brightness increases and contrast decreases. As a result the picture is more whiteish and looses the crispness in the video.

I rendered to H.264 from After Effects and uploaded. I found most colours to look ok but he big noticeable change for me was that my 100% white opening screen came out a dullish yellow. This obviously can't be made any brighter to compensate. Hope a solution is found soon.

We have the same issues as most users here. After uploading and processing videos look darker, too contrasty and desaturated. There is also a definite hue shift (skin tones do not look natural any more). Vimeo, please fix that!

Desatured and lighter after upload from this path: iPhone-FCP7-Vimeo

Hi

Small contribution. I've read EVERY possible thing on the internet, listened to the most pro advices. One of them beeing to use x264 encoder instead of Apple H264 encoder, the other beeing to export as a jpeg animated sequence.

Nothing worked. I still get a difference in colors (darker, with a bit magenta skin) after uploading to Vimeo.

I give up, I just hope you guys can find a fix soon.

Thanks a lot!!!

I have been having a problem with the colour of the titles being changing during the process of my videos being uploaded to Vimeo. I have included a couple of screen shots to illustrate the problem. The first shows the original video and the version after it has been added to Vimeo with the change in colour. The second screen shot shows the same video uploaded to You Tube, where the problem doesn't occur.

Vimeo Example
flickr.com/photos/43585570@N02/7246036926/

You Tube Example
flickr.com/photos/43585570@N02/7246037320/

The video has been exported to specifically using the guidelines set out in the Vimeo Exporting Guide. I have tried a number of work-arounds including producing the video on different editing systems (FCP & iMovie) with the same result. My SD videos are unaffected by this problem.

I thought I would throw this into the discussion so see if anyone else has experienced anything simliar.

We use FCP X 10.0.04,

Once video's editing is completed, we do a ProRess 422 HQ. Looking at the video then and comparing it with what is shown in FCP X is same. Which is what we expect, of course.

If I convert my ProRes for HD Vimeo settings in Compressor, result is still good when looking at it on computer.

But...

As soon as I upload it on Vimeo, contrast increases a bit (I would say by 10%) but more important, flesh tones drastically increases. Reds are oversaturating.

It is the same thing if I use the Vimeo settings in the share menu in FCP X.

(I am presently converting a ProRes using a tutorial on VImeo; I'll know in a few minutes if thses two problems disappear once uploaded... Stay tune!)

P.

Here's the link that will show a comparison between original and Vimeo after upload...

singenu.com/compare.jpg

"We are experiencing a contrast change as well as everything going towards red. Especially bad in flesh tones."

"As soon as I upload it on Vimeo, contrast increases a bit (I would say by 10%) but more important, flesh tones drastically increases. Reds are oversaturating."

Same problem with all recent uploaded video's. Using FCP X.

Same thing here, we're noticing over saturated reds, especially in skin tones. We're color correcting on calibrated monitors and our workflow is: FCP7 - ProRes 422 - Adobe Media Encoder (Vimeo HD Preset) - Upload

We were thinking it's possibly a YUV to RGB issue.

I output from Final Cut Pro X at h.264 and when played on the flash player it looks darker and over saturated, and when played on the HTML5 player it looks closer to my output. Unfortunately it seems the embedding plays off the flash player so I have to lighten the output to get it to look as I intended.

Link: vimeo.com/43550117

I'm using Squeeze to convert a Prores -> X264 or H264 file and they all have a colorshift.
The only program that does things right is free, mpeg streamclip. It converts to mp4 with the same luma/chroma.

Post number six in the link below has the answer.

Link: cinematography.com/index.php?showtopic=56262&st=0&gopid=372768&#entry372768

It has been 5 months since this post started. I didn't see any change ! Still colorshifts and contrast shifts. I hope a solution will come soon. Meanwhile I use Facebook and youtube ?

From what I've noticed is that every player, or viewer has different settings which represent our videos. I noticed when I exported my video out of Final Cut to ready it for Vimeo my video seemed to become under saturated. It resembled to me a bleach bypass look. When I watched it in Quicktime it looked different from my Final Cut canvas viewer. I realize that through encoding things can get screwy if you don't have the proper experience, or equipment in turn I am not a professional and have minimal equipment. I did notice though that the Couch Mode player from Vimeo's default player resembled my Quicktime viewer. My screenshot includes:

Upper Left: Couch Mode Upper Right: Vimeo Default

Lower Left: Quicktime Lower Right: Final Cut

Link: flickr.com/photos/80963680@N02/7420271026/in/photostream

After I upload my video and it's been compressed, there's a green line that shows up on the right hand side which wasn't there in my compressed version.

Still doesn't work for me. I tried lots of things, from Final Cut Pro 7 and X, to Adobe Premiere CS6, to Handbrake, to x264 encoder with Gamma 2.2 checked, etc. and colors are always faded, darker and desaturated that the original. Looks at those two full screen shots. The first is the original in Quicktime h.264 and the second is the fullscreen from safari on Vimeo.

Links: avant-post.ca/original.png, avant-post.ca/vimeo.png

The color in my film has desaturated considerably, especially in the red's and the black's. Workflow: Compressor (Pro Res 422 HD) Final Cut 7, Quicktime conversion, upload
vimeo.com/44781457

My video got considerably darker, I think Vimeo should integrate an "after upload" settings adjustment that includes at least Saturation, Brightness, Contrast and Hue

same problem here, my uploaded videos look horrible on vimeo, all is darker, desaturated and with a lot of green. in the images with artificial lights it's a totally mess!
I tested a lot of workflow but nothing, definitely the dead of colours.
Well, after all this time and all this posts, I think is a shame that vimeo didn't make anything.
I don't care a lot of yours "cool" graphics and all the alternative stuff for alternative videomakers, I just want a good site to share my videos in the correct way!
I loved vimeo once, really loved it, and I still love it afterall, but for now youtube is way better in every aspect, maybe only the sharpness is still better there.
Ant this is a shame, shame, shame.
VIMEO WAKE UP!!!

I'm making my videos in FCP 7. They look good until I export them into a Quicktime movie. That is when they degrade in color. If I open them in QuickTime Pro 7 with the "Enable Final Cut Studio color compatibility" selected in the preferences pain, it looks just fine. The sub text on that setting is, "When enabled, video is not displayed using Colorsync. Source colors are read with 2.2 gamma and are displayed in a color space with 1.8 gamma.

So, It would be a blessing if you had a one click solution like QuickTime Player 7. That would allow me to make my videos still look as good as they do in Final Cut Pro.

Link: vimeo.com/44538725

My production company has Vimeo Plus.
The video's we make look great in FCP but once uploaded on Vimeo, they look horrible.
the collors shift to a GREEN and PINK/REDish type of feel. because of this we had to go back to youtube, wich shows our video's the way they are graded.
PLEASE fix this !!!

Sam, any thoughts and solutions out there from Vimeo? This discussion has been going on for 7 months now.

Yes, please come back with thoughts - am spending hours of wasted time testing different grades and it's driving me crazy. And I'm paying for PRO, which I'm now reconsidering. Many thanks

I agree. I just paid signed up for Vimeo Pro, uploaded a video and compared it to the movie I exported from FCP and the color and gamma shifts are off. I did side by side screen shots of my exported video and the video that I uploaded and they were noticeably different.

This is a big problem for me two. I am in my second year of Vimeo Pro which will be my last if this is not corrected. Thanks for any new information toward a fix.

Downloading the original file seems to show truer more natural colours of the sky, water, pastel buildings etc. No doubt about it. I am referring here to my second video entitled "For a drive".

Perhaps it is a matter of the compressor. When I locally compress AVCHD to MP4 program Handbrake colors are identical. Literally identical. When doing the same operation program FFmpeg colors look very different, contrasting different, much less red, more green.

The same situation can be on a server vimeo.

My latest vimeo uploads look terrible.
It only seems to affect skin tones. They all look pink. Really really pink. It looks awefull.

This is only a problem i have experience in the past month. Previously, my videos were fine.

Then again, i am not holding vimeo entirely responsible.... for some reason the MP4, H.264 file create from PP CS5 is now coming out much more pink than it used to. Although when played in QT Pro, the skin tones are normal. Played in Windows Media Player, the skin tones are horribly pink again.

I am lost.

yep, same problem here - video uploads directly from mountain lion from FCP X H.264 export are dark. Guess I have to find an alternative solution as no one seems to be acting on this...

Here's the difference for me. Orange and coal are pretty important to the brand on this project. Vimeo crushes them way too much.

Here's the difference: cl.ly/J9oW

Fiddling with brightness and contrast filter I can get pretty close to normal: cl.ly/J8QI

Going to try to alter export/compression settings to be able to compensate for this.

I always FEEL like my junk becomes less vibrant and brighter, but I see a lot of people are saying it goes darker. Hm. I'll do some screen shots for myself.

Why do we get that horrible banding in wide shots of sky during the day? Is there a way we can shoot to avoid this later or is it purely a compression issue. It only seems apparent in shots of the sky???

Just uploaded with two different profiles from Adobe Media encoder. both h.264. First was 3.1 Main and second was 5.1 High. vimeo handled them both completely differently even though the sources were similar. Contrast seems to be correct, but the 5.1 h.264 pushed the skin tones are strange pumpkin color. 3.1 was closer to correct. Ill try 4.1 too.

Also, I just realized that with adobe media encoder in PP 5.5, cropping the video to 2.35 changes the skin tones even before upload to vimeo. I was blaming vimeo, its the encoder.

Editing in Avid 5.0 and exporting in H264 we have exactly the same problem "once uploaded on Vimeo it becomes dark and the skin is horrible".. I just tried to change brightness and contrast before export so that less info is lost but it looks real bad.. Hope there is a solution soon.

Has anyone tried TurboHD to encode and than upload? I shot an iPhone video today and yes it looks darker and flesh tones are off.

ffs
i just read all this on no fix
im getting that washed out black thing happening
encoding on windows, uploading via mac - not that that matters

ah ffs no staff presence here - prob too busy clicking like on fucking dull videos of people walking around in forests of some triangle motion shit

must be a unfixable issue

and i just bought a plus membership...

ffs

Dear nice friendly people at Vimeo... can we get a reply to this issue please? Footage edited in a 601 / 709 colour space is definitely getting messed about on upload to vimeo. If theres no fix your end, we'd really appreciate the compressor settings for 'fixing' the output. I'm assuming a gamma tweak as well as a sat tweak and a brightness contrast tweak.

For everyone else, I've found that if you use compressor, and you tick the correction on sat, gamma and brightness contrast, and change ever so slightly, you get an improved result - not perfect and we'd really love vimeo to perform this correction on our behalf.

brightness +1.0, contrast, -0.5, Sat +1, gamma 1.08.

Cheers, looking forward to a Vimeo reply to this thread...

I've noticed this more recently, but some of my HD videos have these odd sort of wavelength like patterns mostly in the sky. This only occurs when I follow vimeo's compression guidelines, the quicktime files look fine and it's not in every video or shot, just in some random places. I don't really know how to describe them other than weird looking waves. The colors are different enough shades that they are noticeable and distracting. They're also a bit pixel-like. It may be how I'm exporting the video from final cut pro, but it's been driving me insane and no one seems to be able to explain this issue. In the below link these things appear

Link: vimeo.com/50269915

Hi, I'm using AE on OSX and have a 75% solution for those suffering from videos that are darker, higher contrast and with a slight red shift:

In AE:
1. Export a Prores quicktime or a few representative stills (for reference later)
2. Set your working space to HDTV (Rec.709) 16-235 (things will look very dark)
3. Make and adjustment layer on top of the footage and use Levels, Color Balance and Sat to match the image to that of your reference. I wasn't scientific about this, but here are my settings:
Levels: Gamma 1.2
Color Balance: to taste
Hue Saturation: -3
4. Render h.264, upload to vimeo and you should see something much closer to what you see in AE.

Having a similar issue to those listed above, whereby all videos uploaded (in h.264 compression) are rendered with a hideous contrast adjustment. Just upgraded to Vimeo Plus also, but will certainly be requesting a refund if this isn't fixed.

For all the wonderful HD embedding/personalizing features Vimeo offer, it's all completely worthless if the video's aren't displaying in their true colours.

This issue is present when I upload mp4 o mov (h.264) files. The files that I uploaded are from a T3i. When placing those in Vegas, the histogram showed values from 0 to 255, so I activated the "Adjust levels from studio RGB to ..." on preferences, and in full screen it shows the same darkness as on Vimeo.

After some reading, I found that my preferred player (MPC) was showing those files in something close to 16-235 color space. I've changed the setting in the nvidia control panel: Dynamic Range to 0-255, and the mov videos from the DSLR showed as dark as in youtube or vimeo. So it seems that the videos needs some kind of adjust on the color space, before exporting them from the NLE.
I exported a .mov but with sorenson 3 codec, and after upload it to vimeo and youtube, it showed no darkness or color shift. We definitively need some input from the vimeo staff about this issue, in order to clarify a right workflow.

I use 16-235 codecs, I scope them, I use Vimeo and YouTube. Vimeo has definitely got an issue with its rendition - I could change my grading to make a 'special case' for Vimeo, but in my professional niche, I'd prefer to pay for a service that makes my videos look like they should from the get-go.

Below are two screen-grabs, showing standard colour bars and an image that contains a wide range of tones including the all-important skin tone and highlight compression.

Although some may say 'meh' - too subtle, we need consistency and predictability for professional video playback - Vimeo is currently wandering off the Professional reproduction.

1) Images taken from the ProRes version, H.264 encoded via Episode, H.264 from FCPX (now deemed 'colour accurate' unlike FCP7) and the Vimeo page taken from the FCPX version. It's not just darker, the colour rendition changes.

Links: mdma.tv/images/barsandvariations.jpg, mdma.tv/images/vimeoisdark.jpg

FYI: Flash Player 11.3 and later display color differently to previous versions of Flash Player (cooler).

Also we have noticed that HTML5 Player displays greens brighter than reds and blues. See this example video:

Link: vimeo.com/51914568

I have the same issue with four mp4 (in h.264 compression) videos I uploaded recently. All color seems more saturated and darker. Check the difference in the following videos. What can I do to make them look proper? Change the settings?

Links: vimeo.com/51753723, aquinetix.com

A video I uploaded this afternoon now exhibits strongly saturated reds - beefy red flesh tones and garish reds - that weren't present when they left here. This video was edited and color balanced in FinalCutPro X, and uploaded in H.264 at 1920x1080.

Once things return to normal in NYC after Hurricane Sandy, I'm looking forward to seeing if Vimeo can come up with a fix for this issue. Thanks very much. Here's a link to the video with the saturated reds:

vimeo.com/52478686

hello,
all my videos on vimeo has this problems, the contrast/shadows/highlight are different than my original file, it's a real problems for me.
the contrast and highlight are increase much more than my orignal file, so i lose details on my videos
thanks!

Slightly related, I've noticed that our videos often playback with sporadic frames of black fluttering throughout. It's not a full frame of black flashing in place of the video, but a flutter to the image as if it were an old film being projected or something. Stranger still, the phenomenon is not repeatable. If I rewatch a segment immediately after noticing it, it will invariably play fine the second time around. So it seems like a streaming issue, perhaps? But rather than the image freeze, while it's loading, it just flutters a bit. It's not choppy. The audio and video play continuously, but it's as if someone where messing with the iris for just a few frames every couple minutes or so. Weird.

The original files we uploaded (encoded using Compressor 4.0.5 with 1080p Sharing setup) do not have this issue, for what it's worth.

White text in black title card is Grey once uploaded to vimeo. Want the text to be White.

Link: vimeo.com/52767476

I have the same problem as many of you. It's been 10 months since Vimeo first posted this...why has it not been fixed yet? No point in publishing a demo video of my work that looks off...I will be judged by the look of my video!

I just noticed that the html5 player doesn't have this colourshift problem, but that it plays really jerky... what's up?

I am also very much having this problem, and really need an answer. My upload is MUCH darker than my original file. Is Vimeo helping this?

SO what's the story here people. Vimeo never had this problem before. Why. And please please please fix it. I am afraid this will make me have to redo everything. I mean my whole career. Fix please. It's not just darker but details in the brights are lost too. I can't strass enough. Fix fix fix. Please please please.

So really if this continues, I can't justify my plus account anymore.

Does anyone know where we can find updates on Vimeo's progress and what they are doing to fix the problem?

Hm, the Vimeo encoding is really off. My video's are definitely lighter and less contrasty. My blacks are not black anymore once it's uploaded to Vimeo. Once I noticed this I checked my other video's. And all of them look different on Vimeo than the Quicktime file. Even films I uploaded two years ago...

Also, when I download the converted HD file from Vimeo it's the same thing. So it's not the player/browser that causes this issues but the transcoder from Vimeo.

Signed up an hour ago, test clip H.264 darker, red, and all detail gone.
Strange, but glad I tested with a free account fist, saved $200

I've recently found that if you render everything 32bit and export in X.264 while keeping everything within broadcast limits, the color shift is very small. Still not perfect, but much better.

I'm a newbie here.. And regarding to you question sir.. i think it did a little color change.. But I totally like it it did turn my video like a pro..
And i think the color shift of the uploaded videos in the vimeo is due to where the Video was Rendered..

My color on vimeo is SUPER red but the quicktime file on my desktop is completely fine. PLEASE HELP! Pitching to a network next week.

Link: vimeo.com/54516680

The only thing that I've really noticed with my videos is just a little loss in quality.

I've got a pretty bad example here. Even when the source MOV is a lot lighter than it should be, the Vimeo compression darkens it massively. Looking at the histograms on the screengrabs, it's as if it picked the brightest spike and the darkest spike and remapped those to white and black.
Source MOV is MPEG-4 though, trying some different formats now...

Link: dl.dropbox.com/u/17696410/vimeo_contrast.png

Hi there,

To make your videos play consistently from a luma/gamma point of view in VLC, Quicktime 7, Quicktime X, Youtube & Vimeo.

Simply export you video from Premiere into a Quicktime .mov container with H.264 as a codec. Nothing fancier than the default settings.
We have to change the color profile metadata (color primaries – transfer function – color matrix) from 1-1-1 to 1-2-1 and specify a gamma of 2.2
To do this, download JES Extensifier from here jeschot.home.xs4all.nl/home.html
Launch JES Extensifier, open you video from the “manual” tab through “choose file …”
In the Color tab, set values of “gama” to change to 2.2 and “nclc” to change to 1-2-1.
Go back to the “manual” tab and click on “update”
Enjoy consistency :D

Note : it does not work when editing with Final Cut Pro X.

I will post a longer explanation about this soon.
In the meantime, please tell me if it works for you as well as it works for me.

R.

Have a try with JES Extensifier anyway if you have problems with gamma. It could work with Vegas like it does with Premiere.

I said it doesn't work with FCPX because FCPX uses Quicktime to display the video inside the program. And despite the QT workflow is consistent through all the chain and looks like properly color managed, this chain is not consistent with the rest of the world for whatever weird reason.

The QT workflow looks always slightly brighter. Thus one must grade in FCPX with around -3% on global exposure to assess the grading within the program, export with the global exposure reset back to 0%, and do the metadata change on the exported .mov file using JES Extensifier.

All that is only for gamma though. For color consistency, it's even more confusing because all players/browsers make different assumptions about what your video is and how it should be read from a color matrix point of view.

Check this benchmark for instance

forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=164378#post1564037

This is its conclusion:

"As you might have guessed, each software behaves differently. The best behavior was to use the video's flag and if the video was untagged, to use BT.601 for SD and BT.709 for HD. This happened in Windows Media Player and XBMC in Windows. Quick Time on Mac behaved almost perfect. Flash was a disaster. There is not way to guarantee what the end user will see. I hope adobe fixes this in next versions."

Which basically means that since you don't know what player will read your video on the viewer's side, you can't make more efficient assumptions than being sure that your HD videos are exported using BT709 color matrix. Which Premiere and FCPX do ... and I suppose Vegas also.

BUT, problem is, files from all Canon DSLR are BT601 except the new ones (5D3, 1DX and probably the 6D). Which leads to color shifts towards orange when read as BT709.

I can't see a single response from a member of staff in this 11-month thread!?

My issues are also gamma shift, everything is more saturated. I also notice artifacting in subtle gradients and fine detail. Annoyingly when I render to Vimeo's specifications the export looks fine until it's uploaded and goes through whatever further encoding process.

i can see huge differences between browser on the same machine (comparison between firefox 8.0.1 and safari 6.0.2 on an imac running osx 10.7.5). both browser are far away from the original. firefox adds saturation, safari subtracts it. at least, firefox seems to be closer to the the original.
another thing might be interesting: i use little snitch, and from time to time it asks for the follwing connection: "com.apple.qtkitserver.xpc would like to connect to player.vimeo.com" and sometimes for this one: "com.apple.qtkitserver.xpc would like to connect to mysite.com" (i used "mysite" instead of the real domain).
so my suspicion is, that the presentation of the video is strongly connected to the browser and the way/method it renders the video. in that case, it is not vimeos fault, but more likely related to the (old and pretty much annoying) fact, that all browsers display websites differently.

Basically, anything created in the domain of Apple (FCPX, Quicktime, Compressor, camera .mov files in full range) and played back thru 100% quicktime compatible will look fine. Open the same file up in a ffmpeg derivative player like Movist or VLC, WMP, or an upload to vimeo or Youtube will look shit (as described above - redder, darker, etc.).

Nothing can be done to achieve a 100% perfect match from an original Quicktime version outside of Quicktime /compatibles. You can adapt your videos by trying to grade around Vimeo but its second guessing.

In Vimeo's case they NEED to publish EXACTLY what is going on with their upload encoder process.

Vimeo? Over to you.

Vimeo?

Absolutely frustrating and not acceptable for me (I mean I pay for vimeo, right?).
I tried so many different ways, on mac and pc. I always get false color, false brightness and choppy playback in firefox when the cuts are a bit faster. I had to send a false color / choppy version to the client this week. Not very impressive...

This thread is a year old – I don't see any posts of the staff in here...

Staff? Vimeo? Can you please comment on this problem!!! ???

It seems as if the staff is not responding and has abandoned this issue all together. This is also exactly the reason why i will not pay for a Pro account. Not that my work is all that great or smashing, but i at least want what i upload to look right.

I just joined Pro tonight and uploaded my first video. It's basically a slideshow with only photos. The color is awful...too red.

looks like crap! why did I spend all that time grading my colour to have it turn out looking like crap

Anything that is not blatantly magenta or blue turns green - even if there's a hint of yellow or orange, it's green. Even when I upload a custom preview image, you can actually see the color shift happen when you click on the video - when the video loads, the image turns more green, as does the entire video.

I notice this thread is a year old...and no fixes yet??

My white background interviews look like they are yellowish tint on Vimeo.

Hello, I find once my videos are uploaded to Vimeo, the definition is not necessarily worse (I have been experimenting with different formats compressed in Sorenson Squeeze before uploading to Vimeo), but the colours are washed out and highlights are burned out.. Any thoughts?
BTW, I am cutting on Avid, exporting as a quicktime file (AVI looks better but I keep getting caught by the 2GB limit). Then compressing in Squeeze to a flash f9 .swf file and then uploading to Vimeo. De-saturation and lightening only occurs after upload to Vimeo.

I had a problem with a video I uploaded. The tones were changed pretty significantly. It appears that the gamma was darkened or it may just have been an automatic levels adjustment. This is a pretty bad problem esp. if you are using vimeo for professional work.

Yes I have the issue of my videos losing saturation and some contrast when uploaded but the more serious issue which has just started occurring in my last three uploads is a shift in brightness. The clip will play back normally then will darken for a few seconds then go back to normal. this happens randomly throughout the video. Looks terrible.

My videos are coming out with terrible quality and it seems like it takes way to long to load any videos on Vimeo right now.

Saturation and contrast go down slightly. But when using the HTML5 player (Safari 6.0.2), they go down a lot more.

Weird to hear from the folks that say they LOSE saturation. For me, when playing in HTML 5, There is quite a bit MORE saturation. Especially in the REDS and GREENS I find. I just uploaded a video, and it seems way saturated in HTML 5, though in Flash (I have Flash 11) it looks accurate.

Link: vimeo.com/59524581

For me the HTML5 Player does Red color shift. Flash Player shifts Yellows.

My videos look great on Vimeo but when embedding the colors are washed out and muted. HELP!

Same problem here... Magenta shift in skin tones... any solution?

I have experienced the same problem. On Vimeo my videos look darker and more saturated. If anyone knows how to solve this issue please let me know, thanks.

Hi, my last uploaded videos have too much margenta, a lot too much margenta - the skintones looks awefull! In FCPX and also as a mov.file it looks good and normal - but when I upload this, directly from FCPX as well as an upload from my desktop - I can not use the video in a professional way.
It was a little problem all the time, but the last two uploads I can not publish in any way!
Can I do anything?

Link: vimeo.com/59986515

I use sony vegas and on export I have the levels plugin which when set to Computer RGB to studio RGB corrects the levels for vimeo and youtube. This is because these video sites do a levels expansion and without correction highlight and shadow detail is lost with more contrast.

Same problem... :/

I'm glad you guys are taking in all of effects Vimeo's encoding....thank you.

My issue: Export out of FCPX in ProRes 422. Upload to Vimeo. Reds, pinks and yellows are over saturated and blacks are crushed. Issue is noticed across all browsers.

Quick fix: Upload same video but with saturation decreased by 20%, and it seems to be much more faithful to the color corrections I made and the video I exported out of FCPX. Crushed blacks are still an issue but not as badly as the original version.

Link: vimeo.com/38458459

I have the same issue, with Youtube/Vimeo and Quicktime! My colour are washed out and desaturated and pink in Vimeos case ...

IS ANYONE FROM VIMEO GOING TO REPLY? This thread is 1 year old!! Your said :

"Once we compile enough information, we are going to take steps to correct the problem so that your videos' colors stay as true as possible on Vimeo."

Do you STILL not have enough information to give us an answer?

It seems that the files Vimeo generates for download are not color shifted. It's possible to color correct for web viewing fairly well by screwing it up in the opposite direction, but then you are having to do a separate grade just for online display. If you download that file, it looks equally bad but in the opposite way.

I sent the Vivoom folks a note to see if they can make a correction filter. They're the ones behind Vimeo's "Looks", AKA "The Enhancer". Vivoom is a startup of GenArts, makers of Sapphire, an EFX software for the major editing platforms, so they should be able to handle it (hopefully).

I experienced the same issues as many. After Uploading, brightness increases and contrast decreases. As a result the picture is more greyish and looses the crispness in the video. We just got on Vimeo pro for High quality. We are a bit confused.

I didn't knew we needed to upload a special version for Vimeo in order to grab normal color :-/

vimeo.com/62014394