Excessive Saturation and Contrast Issue in OBS – Is This Normal?

[Sam-HTG]

Hello everyone,

I am experiencing a video quality issue in OBS, where the saturation and contrast of my videos are affected (see attached). I’m using an ATEM Mini connected to two GH5 cameras, which are plugged into my MacBook Air M1 via USB-C. I also tested a Logitech C922 webcam via USB, and I’m facing the same problem.

Software are up to date and you can consider I've already deeply investigated the topic...Cameras settings and OBS settings are matching in terms of resolution etc.

Issue observed:​

When I use a software like Zoom, the video output matches what I see on my monitors. However, as soon as I switch to OBS, whether using the ATEM Mini or the webcam, the image appears degraded: there is excessive saturation, high contrast, and the overall quality is lower (see attached). This does not reflect what I see on my monitors or capture with Zoom.

Details of tests performed:​

• No color correction filters have been added to the video source options in OBS. I’ve tried to fix the issue by applying a color correction filter myself, but despite testing various settings, I still don’t get satisfactory quality. Moreover, this doesn’t address the question of whether OBS is applying some kind of filter that alters the image quality.
• My GH5 color profile settings are on "normal"
• Resolutions: I have verified that everything is properly set to 1080p at 59.94 fps.
• Color format: I am using the standard Rec.709 color space.
• The issue persists regardless of whether I use the x264 encoder or Apple VT Hardware.

Additional point:​

I have also played around with the calibration of my external monitor (Asus PA278QV) (adjusting brightness, contrast, gamma, etc.), but this has not changed the video quality in OBS. In some cases, it even made things worse.

My question:​

Is it normal for OBS to apply some kind of saturation and contrast filter that could explain this difference in image quality? If so, how can I disable it to match the quality I see on Zoom or directly on my monitor? I’d like to understand why there is a discrepancy between what I see in OBS and what my cameras actually capture.

Thanks in advance for your feedback and suggestions!

 

[AaronD]

A common pitfall is the Color Range setting. Limited or Full. Mismatching that can result in brightness and/or contrast errors.

Limited exists because of analog TV broadcasts. Nothing is ever equal in analog - just arbitrarily close, with increasing cost for smaller values of "close" - and so they overdrove it slightly to ensure that full-black and full-white at least, were displayed correctly. When that signal is digitized, it's important to keep the overdrive as part of the digital range, which means that the display can only handle a limited amount of what can be encoded.

Full means that you're encoding directly what the display should do. But not everything uses that yet. Industry inertia is strong with this one.

Every source should have its own Color Range setting in its Properties, with those two options, and OBS's output has one too, in Settings -> Advanced.