Dark video off DVD
 

When I view my video from the P-Pro-2 timeline on my NTSC monitor (via - Canopus ADVC-100) it looks great! After I burn to DVD using Mainconcept MPEG encoder in P-Pro-2 the video looks very dark. The photos used in the video look great.

The video was shot with a Canon XL2. Most of the video was shot in the dark with an light mounted on the camera. My IRE levels acording to Color Finesse are as follows:

Two examples..

Example #1 - 5 to 60 IRE
Example #2 - 0 to 30 IRE

I'm wondering if my PC monitor and NTSC monitor are fooling me. Perhaps a encoding issue?

Any suggestions?

Are you viewing the finished DVD on your PC, or on your TV? PC monitors do not display video in the same manner as a television set.

Christopher,

I'm viewing on the TV - Several tv's. All are dark.

External monitor
 

Have you calibrated your Computer monitor with your TV? Its important to throw bars up on your computer monitor and on your Television and match those as closely as possible. I have a monitor hooked up through a DV Deck hooked up to my computer, yet I still routinely check my match.

Try this and see how far apart your settings are!

Hope this Helps!

Bryon!

Bryon brought up a good point, though given the differences between computer monitors and television sets I'm not sure how much good calibrating a computer monitor with NTSC color bars will do. In any case, the important question is, have you calibrated your NTSC monitor connected to your Canopus ADVC-100 with NTSC color bars?

Chris / Bryon

Thanks for the help.


First of all I use a commodore 1702 for an NTSC monitor. However, I can (and have) calibrated to the color bars generated on my XL2.

I took you advice and attempted to match the display of my PC monitor to my NTSC. No matter what I do the computer PC looks darker. More like what I am seeing after I burn to DVD.

Perhaps it's time for a real NTSC monitor?

if your IRE levels only go up to 60 (or worse 30), your pic. is very dark to begin with. I am not an expert but your video looks dark based on your levels. Try using a color corrector tool to fix your IRE levels to spread them out more to get a good balanced range 0-100. (I'm a vegas user not a pp2 user so can't say which ones, but you could try a levels filter if there's one avail..brightness would also do it but everything will wash out, but at least you'll see what's happening). Not sure why the one monitor looks ok, maybe that one is calibrated too bright. Hope this helps a little..good luck!

Hmm, found a photo of the back of the Commodore 1702. I notice that it has separate inputs for luma and chroma. This might be contributing to your problem. How exactly do you have the 1702 hooked up to your Canopus ADVC-100?

Can't say I'm surprised. It's been my experience that computer CRT monitors display video darker than television sets.

It's always best to use an NTSC broadcast monitor, especially for color correction.