Washed out export of Sony a7iv footage w/ ProColor5

[imnotspock]

Hi,

I have had a very annoying issue for months now that I can't find a solution for anywhere else on the web. It's driving me nuts.

Basically I am shooting on a Sony a7iv and Sony 24-105mm G lens for work, using the "Venice" PP from ProColor5. It's wonderful straight out of the camera – brilliant colours and lovely high dynamic range. 

When I drop it onto a timeline in Premiere Pro 2024, by default the colour space it reads it as is Rec. 709. Fine. 

I then cut my nice video and export using H.264. I adjust the bitrate and audio, but otherwise leave all the other settings as default. 

Then when I preview the exported .mp4, it has a very distinct "washed out" look. As if there has been a +0.8 adjustment on the exposure on the timeline.

Am I doing something wrong here? Should I be changing the colour space on both the sequence settings and the export settings? 

Any help would be much appreciated. 

Thanks

See example below. The first screen grab is what it looks like on the Premiere timeline and the second is the export.

[Kubrickian]

https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro-discussions/quot-why-does-my-footage-look-darker-in-premiere-quot-color-q-amp-a/td-p/4788414

[kye]

In Cullen Kellys most recent livestream he mentioned that he's working on a guide for Resolve around the "why don't my exports look the same on YouTube as they do in Resolve" question, and he said that it's a recurring problem because it's actually about 20 problems and you need to make sure that every step is correct.

I suspect that most of these issues will apply to any NLE, not just Resolve.  It might actually be more difficult for other NLEs because serious Resolve users will purchase BM hardware to get a clean video out signal that bypasses all the OS colour profiles etc, whereas I don't know how available/popular such a setup is with other NLEs, so Resolve likely skips some of the issues on other packages.

[Andrew Reid]

When you say Preview the exported file are you referring to Finder's preview on a Mac, or are you using a player like VLC?

It looks like either the NLE or your OS is misinterpreting the full 0-255 luma range of the file. This can also happen in 10bit.

This is the fix: https://www.eoshd.com/dynamic-range-enhancer-H264-H265/

To see if this is the case, export as a .mov and see what happens. If it is still lighter looking than in your NLE, then the culprit is that your NLE is crushing the blacks and chopping down your dynamic range.

Once that is sorted you can more accurately grade the files and reintroduce however much contrast you prefer.

[imnotspock]

 

6 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

When you say Preview the exported file are you referring to Finder's preview on a Mac, or are you using a player like VLC?

It looks like either the NLE or your OS is misinterpreting the full 0-255 luma range of the file. This can also happen in 10bit.

This is the fix: https://www.eoshd.com/dynamic-range-enhancer-H264-H265/

To see if this is the case, export as a .mov and see what happens. If it is still lighter looking than in your NLE, then the culprit is that your NLE is crushing the blacks and chopping down your dynamic range.

Once that is sorted you can more accurately grade the files and reintroduce however much contrast you prefer.

Yes sorry I did mean the Apple Finder preview (i press spacebar over the mp4 in Finder). 

Thanks for the link – i will have a proper read. Also good suggestion re exporting a .mov. 

One other possible solution I thought I'd try is switch to PP11 on the A7iv which is the new(ish) Sony S-Cinetone. It's not as nice as ProColor Venice in my opinion, but maybe it is designed to be universally interpreted the same way? Not sure if that's correct thinking but worth a shot.

7 hours ago, kye said:

In Cullen Kellys most recent livestream he mentioned that he's working on a guide for Resolve around the "why don't my exports look the same on YouTube as they do in Resolve" question, and he said that it's a recurring problem because it's actually about 20 problems and you need to make sure that every step is correct.

I suspect that most of these issues will apply to any NLE, not just Resolve.  It might actually be more difficult for other NLEs because serious Resolve users will purchase BM hardware to get a clean video out signal that bypasses all the OS colour profiles etc, whereas I don't know how available/popular such a setup is with other NLEs, so Resolve likely skips some of the issues on other packages.

I haven't used Resolve but my instinct is that it's not an issue with the NLE as such, but maybe other programs misinterpreting the mp4. When the edited mp4 is broadcast on TV here in Australia, it looks fine, but on YouTube it looks very dark. 

14 hours ago, Kubrickian said:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro-discussions/quot-why-does-my-footage-look-darker-in-premiere-quot-color-q-amp-a/td-p/4788414

Thank you very much! I will read closely today.