Washed out colors on recording

[Desoroxxx]

So I want to start recording my IntelliJ Idea, but for some reason my OBS recording is extremely washed out.

This is the recording:

And here is a screenshot:

I tried using three different video players and none helped.
Tried using a different color format I444 which fixed the issue but it was either getting converted back in washed out everywhere else or it just did not work has anybody a fix for this?

 

[AaronD]

Except for the player overlay, your two screenshots look the same to me. Is there a better way to capture what you're seeing?

 

[koala]

Make sure you did not activate any "video optimizations" within your graphics driver. Such optimizations change color, brightness and contrast for media players while media playback only and might be the reason for what you experience.

 

[Desoroxxx]

Make sure you did not activate any "video optimizations" within your graphics driver. Such optimizations change color, brightness and contrast for media players while media playback only and might be the reason for what you experience.

Already checked everywhere I could think of and I did not find any display/video "enhancement" that where turned on

 

[Desoroxxx]

Except for the player overlay, your two screenshots look the same to me. Is there a better way to capture what you're seeing?

I have made a clearer example of the washed-out colors.

Do not pay attention to resolution or weirdness, just colors since I had to scale the screenshot and I made it quick so things are not perfectly aligned.

The Orange & Yellow (Right is the recording & Left is the screenshot):

The Yellow (Right is the recording & Left is the screenshot):

The Green (Right is the screenshot & Left is the recording):

 

[Desoroxxx]

Also, we can use a color picker to look at the colors more clearly

Recording #a37752:

Screenshot #bf7237:

 

[koala]

The colors are slightly different because of the 4:2:0 color space (color resolution is half of luma (brightness) resolution). This is unavoidable for most workflows where the final product is consumed through streaming/video on demand services like Youtube. If you use color space i444, the color resolution is the same as the luma resolution, so this doesn't happen, but every postprocessing step has to explictly support and actually use that color space as well.

The other thing is the blurriness. It seems your output resolution is not the same as the original resolution of your source, so some rescaling takes place. This makes the output slightly blurry, and for high contrast content like colored text on dark uniform background, this is changing colors as well, because it merges colors from the background to the border pixels of the letters.

 

[Suslik V]

Sometimes a specially crafted color test charts (tables) can help to find where exactly the color error is: on displaying, on conversion, on recording or decoding.

There were some Color Format test charts (8-bit) in the Resources>Guides (Studio) section of the forum:

Guides (Studio)

Guides for OBS Studio

obsproject.com

 

[Desoroxxx]

The colors are slightly different because of the 4:2:0 color space (color resolution is half of luma (brightness) resolution). This is unavoidable for most workflows where the final product is consumed through streaming/video on demand services like Youtube. If you use color space i444, the color resolution is the same as the luma resolution, so this doesn't happen, but every postprocessing step has to explictly support and actually use that color space as well.

The other thing is the blurriness. It seems your output resolution is not the same as the original resolution of your source, so some rescaling takes place. This makes the output slightly blurry, and for high contrast content like colored text on dark uniform background, this is changing colors as well, because it merges colors from the background to the border pixels of the letters.

The blurriness is only due to Gimp Scaling

 

[Desoroxxx]

So I guess I am just going to live with it

 

[Cferrari]

This is unavoidable for most workflows where the final product is consumed through streaming/video on demand services like Youtube. If you use color space i444, the color resolution is the same as the luma resolution, so this doesn't happen, but every postprocessing step has to explictly support and actually use that color space as well.

What? how do I find out what "color space" I 'should' be using for a 4K footage?

Why is this 'unavoidable'? isn't oBS the most widely used footage-recording software for games?

 

[koala]

It's unavoidable due to the memory layout how the video data is stored. OBS is just using the standard (NV12). Every other recording software using the same color format will show the same. (btw. I made a small mistake in terminology: I talk about Color Format, not about Color Space)

 

[Suslik V]

What? how do I find out what "color space" I 'should' be using for a 4K footage?

It depends on source and target display device.
For YouTube (uploading encoding settings, SDR and HDR, as for now):

YouTube recommended upload encoding settings - YouTube Help

These features are only available to partners who use YouTube Studio Content Manager. Contact your YouTube Partner Manager to get access. Below are recommended upload encoding settings for your

support.google.com

Upload High Dynamic Range (HDR) videos - YouTube Help

You can upload High Dynamic Range (HDR) videos to YouTube. HDR videos show higher contrast with more colors than standard digital video. Viewers can watch HDR videos on compatible mobile devices

support.google.com

As for today, the NV12 and rec709 (BT.709) at limited color range are OK for the 8-bit content in all stages of your production.