OBS recording too bright

[Shadowrider]

I had an earlier post, but it got too complicated with everything I have tried over the past 3 days (54 hours wasted without successful recordings has been REALLY frustrating.) I now think that the problem is just that the video is WAY too bright in obs. I can somewhat fix it by adding a chroma key to filter to the display capture, but then other colors get messed up. I could at least get everything to be darker by turning down the brightness using a chroma key... but that will mess up whatever the key color type is. Screenshots are not cooperating at the moment, but I can describe it now. Also, this only happens when I have a game running AND when it is up on the main monitor. Colors on primary monitor look fine, but everything looks bright in obs, not just recordings, but live in obs (Preview and Program). Dark parts of the image show as flickering pixels, and everything else is bright/blown out. HDR is disabled in game and on my OS (launching a game reactivates it, but it eventually turns back off.) Monitors are plugged into the GPU via 2 HDMI cables. This rig is a beast, so recording is not too demanding. I have changed some settings to get the image to have enough detail due to recording in 2k 120fps, and outputting as 1080p 60fps. Here is a log file just showing the settings. (The last entry should have been me adding the chroma key to see what it was called.)

 

[fatmatrow]

Try instead adding a color correction filter and turn the gamma or brightness down. Works great.

 

[Shadowrider]

I had to lower the file size to upload them on here. OK, so the first image shows that the colors are a bit too bright. Everything looks too bright, but the corners show that something is a little wrong... The second image shows that darkening the image helped, but at the cost of a green yoda becoming something scary. The third image shows how the game used to look when just recording with a 1080p monitor. (4 months away from a game can do a lot to your skill...that's hard enough for people to have to watch without the game looking very weird.)

 

[fatmatrow]

I had to lower the file size to upload them on here. OK, so the first image shows that the colors are a bit too bright. Everything looks too bright, but the corners show that something is a little wrong... The second image shows that darkening the image helped, but at the cost of a green yoda becoming something scary. The third image shows how the game used to look when just recording with a 1080p monitor. (4 months away from a game can do a lot to your skill...that's hard enough for people to have to watch without the game looking very weird.) View attachment 65088View attachment 65087View attachment 65089

are you using HDR?

 

[Shadowrider]

are you using HDR?

With this pc, I can't tell. Technically, no. HDR is off in both my OS and the game. Launching the game turns it back on for a few seconds, and then the game looks like the recording until it turns itself back off. Also, the little notification that pops up when you adjust your volume causes it to turn on until that notice disappears.

 

[Shadowrider]

Well, turning both the brightness and gamma down by 20 pretty much did it. Things on screen that have a gradient (like the blue around a planet where it's in the shadows to where it is visible or the coloration around smoke/steam) still have a definite line rather than a smooth change, but it is far less noticeable. But without a game open, I can barely see what is recording on obs. It's strange that it only looks different from the main monitor when it is showing a game. The other monitor can't even show HDR, but it seems like it tries to record something like it. Thanks for the help fatmatrow.

 

[koala]

All 3 images look good for me, although the middle one seems manipulated to me: the top right corner is too dark, as well as the black flying figure at the left. They have no detail, they are simply black. You say you darkened it - with this, you didn't improve the quality, you broke it.

To tell if an image has proper brightness, load it into a painting app and search for the darkest and for the brightest parts. Inspect the color of these. In your first picture, the darkest part is the lower left corner. The darkest part has the color 0x010102, which is as good as black (0x000000) but not artificially black. So the black of this picture is ok. The brightest part is some of the clouds near the orange letters, it's 0xECECF1, which is very bright but not completely white. So the white is ok as well, since there is still space for a color even more white (0xffffff).

Your second picture has large completely dark places (0x000000) with no detail and the brightest thing are the 2 laser swords with 0xEBEFF1. I asssume these once were at near white (0xffffff), but distorted due to you darkening the picture.

A similar analysis can be made for your 3rd picture - it has correct brightness levels like the 1st picture.

So from my point of view, your original pictures are correct and your manipulated picture is wrong.

Your eyes may play you a trick, and you might have set the brightness/contrast of your monitor improperly. Also keep in mind, some games have a gamma correction setting that is applied only if you play a game real fullscreen. May be you adjusted that setting, but this setting is not applied if you view a recorded video.

Monitors tend to be too bright, and you might have adjusted the game to appear a bit darker. Instead of doing this, reduce brightness of your monitor.
In fact, reduce the contrast and not the brightness. With brightness, you actually set the darkness level, and with contrast, you actually set the brightness level. Or with other words: with brightness, you set the lower limit for the darkest parts, and with contrast, you set the upper limit for the brightest parts. There are apps to help calibrating a monitor, you can use the "Color Calibration" Tool in Windows itself - search for "Color Calibration" it in the Windows start menu search or Windows settings search.

 

[fatmatrow]

Well, turning both the brightness and gamma down by 20 pretty much did it. Things on screen that have a gradient (like the blue around a planet where it's in the shadows to where it is visible or the coloration around smoke/steam) still have a definite line rather than a smooth change, but it is far less noticeable. But without a game open, I can barely see what is recording on obs. It's strange that it only looks different from the main monitor when it is showing a game. The other monitor can't even show HDR, but it seems like it tries to record something like it. Thanks for the help fatmatrow.

Dude, I know how frustrating these things can be, i spent over 50 hours over a week and like 1300 dollars upgrading my rig to fix a stutter. little things make you not trust your stream/recording and make it hard to get comfortable.

 

[Shadowrider]

All 3 images look good for me, although the middle one seems manipulated to me: the top right corner is too dark, as well as the black flying figure at the left. They have no detail, they are simply black. You say you darkened it - with this, you didn't improve the quality, you broke it.

To tell if an image has proper brightness, load it into a painting app and search for the darkest and for the brightest parts. Inspect the color of these. In your first picture, the darkest part is the lower left corner. The darkest part has the color 0x010102, which is as good as black (0x000000) but not artificially black. So the black of this picture is ok. The brightest part is some of the clouds near the orange letters, it's 0xECECF1, which is very bright but not completely white. So the white is ok as well, since there is still space for a color even more white (0xffffff).

Your second picture has large completely dark places (0x000000) with no detail and the brightest thing are the 2 laser swords with 0xEBEFF1. I asssume these once were at near white (0xffffff), but distorted due to you darkening the picture.

A similar analysis can be made for your 3rd picture - it has correct brightness levels like the 1st picture.

So from my point of view, your original pictures are correct and your manipulated picture is wrong.

Your eyes may play you a trick, and you might have set the brightness/contrast of your monitor improperly. Also keep in mind, some games have a gamma correction setting that is applied only if you play a game real fullscreen. May be you adjusted that setting, but this setting is not applied if you view a recorded video.

Monitors tend to be too bright, and you might have adjusted the game to appear a bit darker. Instead of doing this, reduce brightness of your monitor.
In fact, reduce the contrast and not the brightness. With brightness, you actually set the darkness level, and with contrast, you actually set the brightness level. Or with other words: with brightness, you set the lower limit for the darkest parts, and with contrast, you set the upper limit for the brightest parts. There are apps to help calibrating a monitor, you can use the "Color Calibration" Tool in Windows itself - search for "Color Calibration" it in the Windows start menu search or Windows settings search.

The first 2 images were previous attempts at changing the settings. I adjusted the settings like fatmatrow suggested, and it looks fine again. I did not post a screenshot post final changes. These monitors come only with settings that change settings (vibrance, gamma, brightness, all that) so I can't see what it looks like without color changes.

 

[Shadowrider]

Dude, I know how frustrating these things can be, i spent over 50 hours over a week and like 1300 dollars upgrading my rig to fix a stutter. little things make you not trust your stream/recording and make it hard to get comfortable.

I mean, I dropped 4k, with deals from cyber monday, on this rig so I could finally record what and how I want to. I knew this rig was good enough to record the game, it was just weird because my last rig had no issues with colors in the recording.

 

[fatmatrow]

New rigs come with new kinks. I'm running a 3700x with a 3060 TI, I'm gonna use my old 1700x and 1070 and turn it into a dedicated encoding rig so I can not have to worry about proper resource allocation. Single PC Streaming comes with a host of potential issues, even game to game, that I am tired of dealing with. I long for my console/capture card days where it would just always work for thousands of hours of streaming.

 

[Shadowrider]

New rigs come with new kinks. I'm running a 3700x with a 3060 TI, I'm gonna use my old 1700x and 1070 and turn it into a dedicated encoding rig so I can not have to worry about proper resource allocation. Single PC Streaming comes with a host of potential issues, even game to game, that I am tired of dealing with. I long for my console/capture card days where it would just always work for thousands of hours of streaming.

Yeah, the i9 can handle everything I'm doing and not run over 40%, but the gpu is still being used heavily by the better graphics. Having a setup like that should help you a lot.

 

[Shadowrider]

So, just in case anyone has any feedback on this interesting thing I discovered. Recording a game with just one monitor connected results in...OBS recording how the game looks on that monitor. Connecting 2 results in OBS being WAY too bright. Why? I still don't know. Another problem I started having after finally getting the colors fixed (as best I can considering how much they are changed) is the primary monitor or both monitors go black for a few seconds occasionally. They were both plugged into one surge protector for power, but now one is and one is plugged into a wall socket (I didn't know if it was too much power for the surge protector) and they are both connected to the 3080. GPU has the most recent update. It happens both in and out of games, but when the main monitor goes black, OBS continues to show the screen, like it should. It happens more when running a demanding game like Anthem (ooo yes I still play it) but it does happen when I am not playing anything. Could gpu load do this? I have spent hours searching, and I have no idea if its more likely to be cords, the gpu, or the monitors that were working fine the first day. The old monitor has worked fine for years, yet it does sometimes go black now. I have been unable to record or even enjoy having the new computer the first 4 days now due to all these issues.

 

[Shadowrider]

I tried Anthem with just the main monitor connected. It went black. But I don't know where the problem is since this happens in and out of games, and sometimes to both or just one monitor.

 

[fatmatrow]

So, just in case anyone has any feedback on this interesting thing I discovered. Recording a game with just one monitor connected results in...OBS recording how the game looks on that monitor. Connecting 2 results in OBS being WAY too bright. Why? I still don't know. Another problem I started having after finally getting the colors fixed (as best I can considering how much they are changed) is the primary monitor or both monitors go black for a few seconds occasionally. They were both plugged into one surge protector for power, but now one is and one is plugged into a wall socket (I didn't know if it was too much power for the surge protector) and they are both connected to the 3080. GPU has the most recent update. It happens both in and out of games, but when the main monitor goes black, OBS continues to show the screen, like it should. It happens more when running a demanding game like Anthem (ooo yes I still play it) but it does happen when I am not playing anything. Could gpu load do this? I have spent hours searching, and I have no idea if its more likely to be cords, the gpu, or the monitors that were working fine the first day. The old monitor has worked fine for years, yet it does sometimes go black now. I have been unable to record or even enjoy having the new computer the first 4 days now due to all these issues.

have you checked you nvidia control panel settings in regards to what controls colors?

 

[Shadowrider]

have you checked you nvidia control panel settings in regards to what controls colors?

I have it set to video player settings, not NVIDIA settings, but the colors are messed up either way as long as I have both monitors connected.

 

[Shadowrider]

I'm creating a new post about OBS causing my monitors to go black. I tested the most demanding game I have and it was fine without OBS running.