WMV Colors are not correct ?

WMV Colors are not correct ?

10-24-2007 9:20 AM |

Hi, I have Expression Studio and I convert my videos to WMV.

In my web site I have a white background. In my original videos I have white background. When I convert to WMV I have gray background (white with gray opacity?) !! So I can't integrate my videos in site web correctly and cleanly. (Gray > White buurkk!!)
Have you got any ideas ?

Thanks,

Marc

Re: WMV Colors are not correct ?

10-24-2007 9:31 AM |

For more information :

I have test any codec Expression Encoder & Camtasia and same result.
When i see video in player the color are good. When I integrate in silverlight animation color are dark...
They are not white and black we have really color, but seems alpha gray opacity on video...

Ideas ? 

Re: WMV Colors are not correct ?

07-10-2008 12:31 AM |

 Hello,

Did you ever find a fix to this ?
I've experience the same issues where WHITE in a video file plays back with no problem in Windows Media Player, but looks gray when played back in a Silverlight 1.0 Media player.

I have been able to get my video to white using the Expression Media Encoder and selecting one of the high bandwidth settings, however I need to be able to do my transcoding from PRX file through the Windows Media Encoder agent.

RE-ENCODING all media assets is not quite an option at this point, but would be good to know what settings to use going forward. 

I've tested different profiles but to no avail.

Any suggestions / solutions out there ?

Thanks 

Re: WMV Colors are not correct ?

10-14-2008 8:23 AM |

Hi

I'm having the same problem. I'm using the WMV9 codec with Quality VBR. For encoding I use the Windows Media Encoder.

When playing back the video in Silverlight, the white colors all look gray-ish, but when playing the same file in Windows Media Player, white colors are correct. Other colors are a bit distorted as well when playing in Silverlight, but it's most obvious with the white color.

I made a screenshot with the silverlight video on the left and media player on the right, the difference is obvious.

 Is this any different in the RTM version of Silverlight 2.0?

Are there any plans to fix this issue?

Re: WMV Colors are not correct ?

10-14-2008 10:35 AM |

Hey there, Well I have not see a difference with the 2.0 release which I installed this morning. In investigating this greyed out issue further over the last few months, I've found that this happens to any video file where the overall video size resolution is past a certain limit. FOR example Using Expression Encoder 2, if I convert the file to a Silverlight profile for playback on LAN, the video looks great (pure white) but resizes to 640*480. If I adjust the resolution to 1024*768, no other change to the profile, I get the greyed out effect in Silverlight, but OK in WMP. Every setting I've experimented with (higher bit rate, different settings in the profile) all results in greyed out video if I use a 1024*768, the resolution I would like to maintain since we are talking about screencapture videos which always look best at native resolution. I have not tested extensively, to determine the exact maximum resolution the media rendering engine of Silverlight will be able to accurately reproduce the color pallet, but the resolution of the video seems to be the variable which causes this greyed out effect. MS, please fix this or please let us know what the maximum resolution (HD, 720p??) we can use to get proper color pallet rendering for all our WMV video media.

Re: WMV Colors are not correct ?

01-15-2009 12:39 AM |

Anybody got a fix for this? My screencasts look pretty bad ...

Re: Re: WMV Colors are not correct ?

01-15-2009 12:55 AM |

So the same video file when played on WMP shows white, but in a mediaelement in Silverlight shows gray?

 Hmmm... just a question, what's the color of the background BEHIND your media element? Is it black? Also can you show us the XAML that's hosting your mediaelement, maybe your parent element might have a partial opacity on it.

Re: Re: Re: WMV Colors are not correct ?

01-15-2009 12:59 AM |

I can't test it right now but can one of you tell me the destination profile settings you have used to make the final video that's to be played by Silverlight?

Re: Re: Re: WMV Colors are not correct ?

01-15-2009 1:14 AM |

Click here to play the screencast w/ Media Player:
http://silverlight.services.live.com/1097/screencast/video.wmv 

1. Capture a screencast with Camtasia at 1024 x 768 resolution.
2. Render to AVI using TechSmith codec at captured resolution (1024 x 768), all settings default.
3. Using Expression Encoder 2 SP1, compress to WMV with the “Screen Encoding” profile, all settings default (although for the example above I used the “Best” advanced codec settings preset)

Re: Re: Re: Re: WMV Colors are not correct ?

01-15-2009 3:30 AM |

Hmmm.. I see that your video is encoded using the VC1 codec. I wonder if that's the cause? Just try and reencode using the WMV9 codec for a test? It looks like a bug to me but I'm not experienced with VC1 to know if it's anything to do with it.

Re: WMV Colors are not correct ?

01-15-2009 5:06 AM |

 hi,

If in your web site you have a white background and  your  original videos also have white background. so plz you have black background for your original videos.

Thanks,

-----------------

neetu

----------------------

Re: WMV Colors are not correct ?

02-20-2009 1:38 PM |

I'm dealing with this as well - and it just looks bad. media player shows it stark white - SL player - shows it dingy gray. I have 100's of screen casts, showing visual studio, and they all look bad. sample. http://scottcate.com/tricks/026/ Thank you for the updates. -=- Scott Cate

Re: WMV Colors are not correct ?

02-27-2009 1:39 PM |

Im having this exact same problem. Using Camtasia, screen capture, to WMV, using Microsoft Encoder 9.

This really needs resolving ASAP Microsoft. Can someone PLEASE investigate.

Re: WMV Colors are not correct ?

02-28-2009 4:12 PM |

I have the same problem too at first time.

It was the problem with encoding config ( details ). When I choose the best quality, there wasn't such problem.

Re: WMV Colors are not correct ?

03-23-2009 2:27 PM |

Unfortunately this is a problem with video where the height is greater that 576 or the width wider than 1024.

We will address the issue for the release of Silverlight 3.

Re: WMV Colors are not correct ?

05-19-2009 8:48 PM |

It looks like this was not fixed in the Silverlight 3 beta. Will this be fixed before the official release? This is a fix that would be very very important as my company encodes VGA/DVI video at high resolutions using VC-1 for Silverlight playback.

Re: WMV Colors are not correct ?

05-20-2009 10:01 AM |

The fix didn't make it for the beta, but will be in the RTW release.

Re: Re: WMV Colors are not correct ?

05-26-2009 12:41 AM |

 This is fantastic news!

Re: Re: Re: WMV Colors are not correct ?

07-09-2009 11:19 PM |

I just tested this in Silverlight 3 and it seems to be fixed.