mpeg2 video darkness question

[phxstudio]

I have been experimenting with mpeg2 with the svcd specifications. I've run into a problem that seems odd to me. I've made some SVCD's burned them and all. They look fine on my pioneer dv-c503 player, BUT if i play them on the puter with say powerdvd or windvd, i've tried both the image from the videos is CONSIDERABLY darker then its source image.

I've tried adjusting the brightness and contrast but neither seem to help in the end result. Is this normal? Has anyone else had this problem and found a solution?


-phxstudio-

[Christrati]

Dark DVD playback on the monitor? This happens all the time for me, everything I playback on the monitor always looks dark. I believe the big difference between the monitor and the TV is one thing: Brightness and Contrast. Honestly, I set my brightness and contrast fairly high on a TV, so anything that playback is always nice and bright. On the computer monitor, that's a different story, I usually knock down the the brightness quite a bit and the contrast as well.

Of course, if you want to change the MPEG2 capture, you could always up the brightness and contrast on the capture, this would boost your recording levels and "lighten" up the picture, but if you playback those files on a TV (even though they look great on the monitor), you'll probably find the image a bit too bright.

Just my thoughts, hope this makes some sense.

Chris

[AndrewDV]

Hi,

What video card are you using (NVidia, ATI, Matrox, etc.)? My experience with NVidia and ATI is that playback on the monitor is excellent, but requires some tweaking of settings.

[phxstudio]

Nvidia Geforce 2 MX. But the thing is I've shared a few videos with friends and they say they are darker then they should be as well, but the source files are fine. Their graphics card was a voodoo3.

My capture card is a Wintv go, i used to use a marvel g200 but needed better 3d. I've tried upping the brightness and contrast before which barely helps (meaning the difference is hardly noticable).

What annoys me the most is that i can put it in the dvd player and it looks good, put it in softdvd and damn is it dark. I usually have to adjust the brightness on the software to a much higher setting or even the max on windvd.

Thankyou for your comments.

-phxstudio-