Windows 7 HTPC weirdness

General questions or discussion about HandBrake, Video and/or audio transcoding, trends etc.
Post Reply
nathug
Bright Spark User
Posts: 204
Joined: Fri Apr 11, 2008 10:21 pm

Windows 7 HTPC weirdness

Post by nathug »

I have been using HB for a very longtime now, so I have many files converted from DVD and BluRay to the AppleTV and Universal Presets encoded with many versions of HB. Recently I've been playing around with a Home Theatre PC to try and replace many external devices, but have found a strange problem I can't find an answer for.

I have a Panasonic TV calibrated with a SpyderTV using my PS3 via the one and only HDMI input. Via this input I feed my PS3, ATV, Roku Box, and the HTPC using a HDMI switch. Now in the Home Theatre PC running Windows and OSX, I have used a Spyder 3 Elite to calibrate this end. Image looks fantastic in the HTPC with correct gamma, color etc set to D65 and 2.2. Then having the video card control contrast and brightness playback setting in all my video software (PowerDVD, Windows 7 media Player etc) I rechecked the video with the SpyderTV with the internal DVD. Only small tweaks were needed, and I ended up with an amazing picture. With me so far?

Here is the problem, its the same for all my ATV files which I have over 300 of.

If I play any ATV files in Windows Media Player and VLC, the image looks darker than when played in the latest Quicktime for Windows. This has got me a little stumped because of one reason. I still have the original discs for my encodes, so I ran some of them in Power DVD, and found that the color etc. in Power DVD matches the encoded files when played back in VLC and Windows Player, but not Quicktime. Quicktime looks like the gamma is wrong? and brighter.

I also get the same results in OSX, playing a DVD is very close to what I see playing the same DVD in Windows 7. But, playing the encoded file in Quicktime in OSX gives me a seemingly brighter picture.

I believe the problem lies with Quicktime but I can't be sure why. Watching a BluRay in PowerDVD looks better than direct from the PS3 because the computer has a much more accurate Color, Gamma etc. Getting results from the Spyder 3 Elite shows I get a gamma of 2.3, and a D number of 6565K, Luminance is around 120 and black level is 0.3(I believe), running the SpyderTV in PowerDVD shows the same results. Perfect setting for this test right?

Has anyone any ideas whats going on?

Nathan
Post Reply