Video Gamma Shift On YouTube / Facebook in Firefox & Chrome

Hi all !

New user on this forum so pardon me if this has been asked before ...

My videos look darker when viewed on Youtube (and Facebook) when using Firefox & Chrome - but not Safari.

I'm using FCPX to output some photos as video. The original photos have SRGB colour profile embedded and I import (and optimise media) into FCPX then output as h.264.

The videos look great in FCPX and they look great when viewed using Quicktime 7 or Quicktime X after export ... But as soon as they are on YouTube (or Facebook), they go darker and appear to have some sort of gamma shift.

Any idea why this is ? Can it be fixed ... I've tried everything so please help !

Thanks in advance.

Yep! That's just Youtube. It will gamma-shift FCPX-exported video for some reason. However, the shift isn't as bad with FCP7-exported video for whatever reason. The best results I've been able to achieve are to export video from FCPX. Import into FCP7, apply gamma filter to adjust for gamma shift that happens when you do this. Export. Make MP4 with MPEG Streamclip. Upload to Youtube. Gamma shift isn't anywhere near as drastic. I wish Youtube would get their act together.

Safari may compensate for this being from Apple, but nobody uses Safari. It's the most useless web browser out there. I guess that's one thing it gets right.

Thanks Redifer ... appreciate your input.

I did wonder if it was my set up, but I find that 360 video straight from my Theta S also have the gamma shift. I've not put these files through FCPX or 7 so I'm guessing it's a YouTube problem not FCPX - but not sure.

I've also posted on YouTube forum but you are the first person to reply.

I'm guessing that, with these facts, it's a Yutube issue for 360 video on desktops as it's not a problem in YouTube app and VR headset.

groups.google.com/a/googleproductforums....il&utm_source=footer

Thanks Redifer ... appreciate your input.

I did wonder if it was my set up, but I find that 360 video straight from my Theta S also have the gamma shift. I've not put these files through FCPX or 7 so I'm guessing it's a YouTube problem not FCPX - but not sure.

I've also posted on YouTube forum but you are the first person to reply.

I'm guessing that, with these facts, it's a Youtube issue for 360 video on desktops as it's not a problem in YouTube app and VR headset.

groups.google.com/a/googleproductforums....il&utm_source=footer

Yeah the problem is definitely with Youtube. But for whatever reason it likes video exported from FCP7.

There are definite issues with color profiles and some players ignoring them, but I didn't know that browsers were also treating things differently.

In terms of players, QuickTime Player X and quick look in the Finder both look just like FCP X. QuickTime Player 7 looks fine on default settings, but too dark if you turn on Final Cut Studio compatibility in the preferences. VLC looks too dark. MPEG Streamclip looks too dark too.

On PC, playback consistency is a big problem, because there's no widely used playback mechanism except VLC, which is probably wrong.

Essentially, the NLEs all use some kind of color profile to make sure they're showing the right colors, but nobody agrees on the playback side. Many people blame QuickTime, but it's really down to its interpretation by players, and I think it's largely to do with some players guessing what the profile is, and other actually using the accurate profile. Phones and tablets apparently don't use color management at all, and so treat everything the same.

www.color-management-guide.com/web-brows...olor-management.html

Comparing some of my videos on both YouTube and Vimeo, I see only a very subtly darker image in Chrome vs Safari, nothing that two different computers with two different screens wouldn't show anyway, so it's not a big deal in practice. Only people watching through different browsers might notice. There's also a potential difference between Flash and H.264 playback methods.

But today, I'd definitely use FCP X/Compressor all the way through, and avoid older QuickTime-based tools like MPEG Streamclip. I suspect that eventually the other browsers will switch to supporting color profiles, as happened in print. The browser makers are trying to improve color profile support (see the link above for more) but I guess it's not there yet.

Thanks Funwithstuff too ... At least i know this is a common issue.

It seems to be worse with 'reds' and the blacks get crushed. As i said, more obvious in some browsers than others ... Safari looks great but the most popular btpwsers Chrome and Firefox look bad.

They were alway darker in Safari as well for me. Now it's been a while since I uploaded anything to youtube so not sure if things have changed since then...

I think I have come to conclusion.

it seems like browser that uses HTML5 and does not support MSE & WebM VP9 (you can check here www.youtube.com/html5 ) Like Safari and Firefox preview the video without any gamma shift.

The only browser does support MSE & WebM VP9 you guess it chrome.

You can install disable HTML5 with this extension.
chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/disabl...opnpdogpldapoc?hl=en

Both Firefox and Chrome support everything Youtube can currently offer. Safari doesn't. Even an old version of Opera supports everything. It boggles my mind that Safari still exists. People use that? I mean... willingly? I can understand if they don't know about Chrome and Firefox and that's all that's installed on their computer, but there are people who are aware of Chrome and Firefox who choose Safari? Why?

I use Safari. It's faster than alternatives, it shares history, bookmarks and passwords between all my devices, it takes less battery life on my laptop… yeah, it's fine. It's not perfect, but it's good.

I switched from FireFox to Safari a couple of years ago and haven't looked back. Yep, lots of myths about how bad Safari is. I find no issues with it at all. Only issue is with Flash, which should be burned at the state ASAP and never heard from again.

But to the OP, all apps, browsers included, will have some unique gamma shift. Every online service will introduce some gamma shift. It's not avoidable. What my friend Iain is saying is totally true.

" I'd definitely use FCP X/Compressor all the way through, and avoid older QuickTime-based tools like MPEG Streamclip. I suspect that eventually the other browsers will switch to supporting color profiles"

I agree totally!

Open the link for the html5 and you'll see what is supported

Comparison

Firefox has supported WbM VP9 for nearly a year, maybe longer. You should update your Firefox.

Anyway just for fun I tried making an MP4 with Compressor and MPEG Stremclip, then uploading to Youtube. Both were too dark in Firefox. Both looked fine in Chrome. It also looks mostly OK in Safari... better than Firefox. There's not really much of a difference between making the MP4 with Compressor or MPEG Streamclip. Input file was ProRes 4444 exported straight from FCPX.

It's really frustrating that video looks different everywhere. Sometimes I get Youtube comments like "Why does it look like you have an excessive tan?" and I have to respond "Because you're watching in Firefox and not Chrome".