The Speed Runs look too dark on my monitor!

2004-11-03 09:03:29 pm

Mega Flare

While watching speed runs, I occasionally find it difficult to see what's going on in some of the darker areas of the game. Even when I turn the brightness on my monitor to the max it's hard to make out. It's possible that others have had this problem as well. So, my request is, in future speed runs, please increase the in-game brightness before beginning the run.

Thread title:

nate

2004-11-03 09:21:01 pm

or you could buy a new monitor and refrain from causing other people to ruin the brightness calibration in their runs. ;)

Kridly

2004-11-03 09:28:27 pm

That's strange........I've never had that problem.

Inferno_Metroid

2004-11-03 09:56:14 pm

Which run have you been watching, the segments of my run was darker compare to the other runs.

Yoshi348

2004-11-03 10:10:08 pm

PAGE BREAKER

Ready and willing.

You checked the contrast too, right?

Daniel, Lord Bahamut

2004-11-03 10:39:37 pm

Mega Flare

Quote from Inferno_Metroid:

Which run have you been watching, the segments of my run was darker compare to the other runs.

Watching your run is the reason I posted this.

Quote from Yoshi348:

You checked the contrast too, right?

Yes indeed. My screen is glaringly bright, but the vids are still rather dark. Even the segments in Phendrana, which is covered in snow and should make me snow-blind, are dark.[/quote]

nate

2004-11-03 11:23:45 pm

okay, since there has been explosion of interest in this topic over the past few minutes, i'll try to provide a little insight into why certain things look dark on certain computers.

SIGNAL LOSS: NEVER TWICE the SAME COLOR

the images you see on your screen when you view speed runs have arrived at their destination after a long and harrowing journey, which repeatedly put their very livelihoods at risk. put less dramatically, the picture elements (brightness, contrast, sharpness, hue or color and saturation) have had several opportunities to be altered or otherwise lost.

in stages:

[1] the picture's journey begins when the analog signal comes out of the game system. at this point, under ntsc, a sickening amount of color has already been lost (due to ntsc's extremely imprecise and inconsistent method of conveying color information). in pal, the situation is better, but there is still some loss of information due to noise introduced into the video cable. recording using an s-video cable can help this situation markedly, but few, if any of us have vcrs with s-video inputs.
[2] exponentially more information is lost when the signal is recorded to vhs (and played back for capture). at this point the signal can easily be distinguished from the original in terms of inferior color reproduction and sharpness. the signal being analog also means that areas of low contrast are particularly vulnerable to being lost, such as slight changes of tint that indicate where the light sources are coming from in a dark room in metroid prime, or the different colored pixels on the doors during room transitions in metroid fusion, for example. this means that a room that is black except for a few places which are almost black will probably be misinterpreted as being entirely black (and there is no going back to the correct picture after such information has been lost, of course).
[3] the capture stage is particularly difficult on the picture, because the capture device is attempting to translate an analog signal drawn with interlaced lines on an analog tv to a digital signal drawn with progressive lines on a digital monitor. reducing the framerate by a factor of two (as i do in the medium and low quality segments) can alleviate problems with scanning, but half of the motion information in the game is lost, and this also introduces the "invisible hurt samus" problem in games like super metroid. the "smart bob" filter used for the high quality segments is indeed smart, but it can't replace everything that was once there (if you were to watch the original on a tv and the smart bobbed version on the computer, you would have to agree that it looked better on the tv). for this reason, you should buy the runs on dvd if possible! gimme $$ woot

MEAN BRIGHTNESS: TV vs CRT

another problem that is probably more directly related to problems with brightness in speed runs is that of a difference between tvs and computer monitors in terms of "mean brightness." the brightness didn't wake up on the wrong side of the bed; i'm just saying that pictures are generally brighter on a tv than they are on a computer. since a tv offers a far inferior picture to that of a computer monitor (ever tried reading size 12 font on a tv?), most people don't realize how horribly the brightness is skewed on tvs.

allow me to explain this further. in the computer paradigm, the monitor tries to show you black as true black (i.e. turning off the monitor would not change the color of a black area). in the tv paradigm, it just kind of ... does whatever. most of the time this means that black is actually several shades lighter than the screen when the tv is turned off. you can see this yourself if you play a movie on your tv and turn the tv off during the opening credits when it's just white text on a black background (you should notice how bright the "black" the tv is showing really is). since there is no true black on tvs, the picture and, by extension, the experience is said to be inferior to that of playing games on the computer, when you actually feel like you are there in those dark areas, rather than just looking at a poor graphical representation of being in a dark area. thus, the xbox was a really bad idea.

all this (tv vs. monitor) assumes a perfect monitor showing a perfect signal in a perfect world. of course, we don't live anywhere near perfect, so there is going to be some mutilation of the intended image by the monitor, and when it comes to crts, the mutilation will more than likely occur in such a way that the image "looks too dark." my friend radix had such a big problem with this that he had to download a gamma adjustment program to crank up his brightness enough to watch runs and the like. finally his monitor got so bad that he sought a "new" (used) one. the truth is that cheap, consumers crts are never going to show signals as they should (or could ideally) be shown, and that any crt will start to lose what definition it did have the first day you turn it on. i hate to be depressing, but as near as i can tell, these are facts of life when it comes to viewing runs.

i do know that non-crt monitors (i.e. lcd screens) are much better at showing you all of the brightness originally found in the picture (although sometimes at great cost to the color). if you really find yourself thinking that most runs seem too dark to you, you should consider investing in a good lcd monitor. in fact, i use my lcd monitor to make the final determination as to whether detail was lost in capture (though it basically never is anymore with the all in wonder card). the technology and methodology i use to capture runs have improved dramatically since I first started capturing over a year ago.

the final point i would like to make is that i am sometimes aware that the 'products' i produce (i.e. digital versions of speed runs) cannot be viewed properly on most monitors out there. i release these files even though i cannot make out details in them because i have seen them on my lcd monitor and i know that the detail is indeed there in the file. technology is always improving, and someday those files will look just spectacular on any old monitor. compare that to the alternative, which would be cranking up the capture brightness to accomodate today's cheap or old monitors at the cost of color and sharpness. i would be disadvantaging those in the future if i did that, and since people doing that is something of a pet peeve of mine, not to mention the fact that the runs are stored in a freaking online library, means that people with crappy monitors will just have to deal with less than satisfying image quality for now. i also don't want to be capturing things more than once, if possible, of course. ;P

summary: tvs are too bright and monitors are too dark, but there are many other factors besides this that can cause runs to look too dark. hope that clears some things up.

okay, since there has been explosion of interest in this topic over the past few minutes, i'll try to provide a little insight into why certain things look dark on certain computers.

SIGNAL LOSS: NEVER TWICE the SAME COLOR

the images you see on your screen when you view speed runs have arrived at their destination after a long and harrowing journey, which repeatedly put their very livelihoods at risk. put less dramatically, the picture elements (brightness, contrast, sharpness, hue or color and saturation) have had several opportunities to be altered or otherwise lost.

in stages:

[b][1][/b] the picture's journey begins when the analog signal comes out of the game system. at this point, under ntsc, a sickening amount of color has already been lost (due to ntsc's extremely imprecise and inconsistent method of conveying color information). in pal, the situation is better, but there is still some loss of information due to noise introduced into the video cable. recording using an s-video cable can help this situation markedly, but few, if any of us have vcrs with s-video inputs.
[b][2][/b] exponentially more information is lost when the signal is recorded to vhs (and played back for capture). at this point the signal can easily be distinguished from the original in terms of inferior color reproduction and sharpness. the signal being analog also means that areas of low contrast are particularly vulnerable to being lost, such as slight changes of tint that indicate where the light sources are coming from in a dark room in metroid prime, or the different colored pixels on the doors during room transitions in metroid fusion, for example. this means that a room that is black except for a few places which are almost black will probably be misinterpreted as being entirely black (and there is no going back to the correct picture after such information has been lost, of course).
[b][3][/b] the capture stage is particularly difficult on the picture, because the capture device is attempting to translate an analog signal drawn with interlaced lines on an analog tv to a digital signal drawn with progressive lines on a digital monitor. reducing the framerate by a factor of two (as i do in the medium and low quality segments) can alleviate problems with scanning, but half of the motion information in the game is lost, and this also introduces the "invisible hurt samus" problem in games like super metroid. the "smart bob" filter used for the high quality segments is indeed smart, but it can't replace everything that was once there (if you were to watch the original on a tv and the smart bobbed version on the computer, you would have to agree that it looked better on the tv). for this reason, you should [url=http://dvd.metroid2002.com/]buy the runs on dvd if possible[/url]! gimme $$ woot

MEAN BRIGHTNESS: TV vs CRT

another problem that is probably more directly related to problems with brightness in speed runs is that of a difference between tvs and computer monitors in terms of "mean brightness." the brightness didn't wake up on the wrong side of the bed; i'm just saying that pictures are generally brighter on a tv than they are on a computer. since a tv offers a far inferior picture to that of a computer monitor (ever tried reading size 12 font on a tv?), most people don't realize how horribly the brightness is skewed on tvs.

allow me to explain this further. in the computer paradigm, the monitor tries to show you black as true black (i.e. turning off the monitor would not change the color of a black area). in the tv paradigm, it just kind of ... does whatever. most of the time this means that black is actually several shades lighter than the screen when the tv is turned off. you can see this yourself if you play a movie on your tv and turn the tv off during the opening credits when it's just white text on a black background (you should notice how bright the "black" the tv is showing really is). since there is no true black on tvs, the picture and, by extension, the experience is said to be inferior to that of playing games on the computer, when you actually feel like you are [i]there[/i] in those dark areas, rather than just looking at a poor graphical representation of being in a dark area. thus, the xbox was a really bad idea.

all this (tv vs. monitor) assumes a perfect monitor showing a perfect signal in a perfect world. of course, we don't live anywhere near perfect, so there is going to be some mutilation of the intended image by the monitor, and when it comes to crts, the mutilation will more than likely occur in such a way that the image "looks too dark." my friend radix had such a big problem with this that he had to download a gamma adjustment program to crank up his brightness enough to watch runs and the like. finally his monitor got so bad that he sought a "new" (used) one. the truth is that cheap, consumers crts are never going to show signals as they should (or could ideally) be shown, and that any crt will start to lose what definition it did have the first day you turn it on. i hate to be depressing, but as near as i can tell, these are facts of life when it comes to viewing runs.

i do know that non-crt monitors (i.e. lcd screens) are much better at showing you all of the brightness originally found in the picture (although sometimes at great cost to the color). if you really find yourself thinking that most runs seem too dark to you, you should consider investing in a good lcd monitor. in fact, i use my lcd monitor to make the final determination as to whether detail was lost in capture (though it basically never is anymore with the all in wonder card). the technology and methodology i use to capture runs have improved dramatically since I first started capturing over a year ago.

the final point i would like to make is that i am sometimes aware that the 'products' i produce (i.e. digital versions of speed runs) cannot be viewed properly on most monitors out there. i release these files even though i cannot make out details in them because i have seen them on my lcd monitor and i know that the detail is indeed there in the file. technology is always improving, and someday those files will look just spectacular on any old monitor. compare that to the alternative, which would be cranking up the capture brightness to accomodate today's cheap or old monitors at the cost of color and sharpness. i would be disadvantaging those in the future if i did that, and since people doing that is something of a pet peeve of mine, not to mention the fact that the runs are stored in a freaking online library, means that people with crappy monitors will just have to deal with less than satisfying image quality for now. i also don't want to be capturing things more than once, if possible, of course. ;P

summary: tvs are too bright and monitors are too dark, but there are many other factors besides this that can cause runs to look too dark. hope that clears some things up.

Red Scarlet

2004-11-04 12:24:05 am

I('d) like to watch (some MP3 runs)

I have the same problem in every video. All I do to fix it is adjust the brightness in Media Player or my Divx player (my monitor's brightness is up all the way already), and then it's fine.

Most MP runs have brightness up all the way; I know my TV was set to max brightness when I did my stuff.

Inferno_Metroid

2004-11-04 01:16:56 am

I know this only happened on my run because none of the other runs i've seen have it. So is there any way to make it, so its not dark besides the ajustments.

Red Scarlet

2004-11-04 02:09:59 am

I('d) like to watch (some MP3 runs)

If your TV is already decently bright, and you changed the in-game brightness to max, then that's all you can do on your end.

nate

2004-11-04 10:44:00 am

or he can download that thing that you used to make it brighter on your monitor. that would probably help a lot. i don't know where to get that thing, though.

trh

2004-11-04 10:53:20 am

Google: "Get Brighter Monitor "Program"", Second hit = http://www.softpedia.com/public/cat/12/1/12-1-29.shtml

Bullseye.

Daniel, Lord Bahamut

2004-11-04 02:45:11 pm

Mega Flare

Quote from njahnke:

A bunch of technical stuff

All right, point taken. It's too much of a pain in the rear to accomodate those with old monitors. Hence Nintendo releasing MP2 in 60 Hz PAL. I'll quit complaining.

Radix

2004-11-04 06:29:25 pm

You didn't understand... the point is to not cater to people with faulty displays because that makes them bad on the good displays. It's like tv shows in the 60s staying in black & white instead of changing to color.

The gamma adjuster program I used worked quite well, it was called QuickGamma. It might not work with your video card though, for me it worked only under win95 and not win2000.

Red Scarlet

2004-11-04 06:32:38 pm

I('d) like to watch (some MP3 runs)

The video was darker than normal, but I just cranked up the brightness a little more. The video itself though, moved rather slow and couldn't keep up with the sound, almost as if the video was at half speed/slow motion.

StarmanHaxor

2004-11-04 07:46:06 pm

Hi there. When i first recorded my clips, my darkness was a prob too. Now that i have raised it, It's fine. Like with a few of the pics on the site, I can't see them. I have pinnacle PCTV, and it is a great piece of software. If you see any of my clips in the future, you can tell I turned the contrast up, with no de-syncronizing. But i suggest you guys look for it. I don't know how expensive it is, but I don't imagine more than 20-50 bucks.

nate

2004-11-04 07:59:06 pm

the irony ... good to see someone else likes the pctv as well as trh and i do.

USBCD36

2004-11-04 09:41:39 pm

Quote from Radix:

The gamma adjuster program I used worked quite well, it was called QuickGamma. It might not work with your video card though, for me it worked only under win95 and not win2000.

Quote from njahnke:

my friend radix had such a big problem with this that he had to download a gamma adjustment program to crank up his brightness enough to watch runs and the like

Gamma is not quite brightness because it adjusts the 3 primary colors of light seperately, but I believe that there was never a brightness problem in the beginning. Radix has the right idea. You should adjust your gamma. On Macs, adjusting gamma is relatively easy. Just (under OS X) go to System Preferences>Displays, click the Color tab, then click calibrate. In the setup process, you can change your gamma at a certain step. (The one you want for REALLY dark runs is linear gamma) I have a ColorSync profile that I use solely for dark speed runs.

nate

2004-11-04 10:15:06 pm

hahahah, awesome, that is bad ass, usbcd36. another reason to get a mac if possible imo.

RT-55J

2004-11-05 12:25:34 am

Armor Guardian

Quote from njahnke:

Techniclal stuff that I understand but is insanely boring.

thus, the xbox was a really bad idea.

Techniclal stuff that I understand but is insanely boring.

The only part that's is worth mentioning.

Jaytality

2005-05-18 04:38:38 am

I'll add a tidbit here.

Settings on most CRT monitors and TVs are very misleading. The brightness control adjusts the black level, and the contrast control effectively adjusts the brightness. You should, generally, set the contrast control to 100%, and the brightness control then needs to be calibrated (mine calibrates to exactly 50% on this 19" iiyama Vision Master 1451, and it's pretty close to perfect). Here's a link to a very nice calibration page:

http://www.ltlimagery.com/monitor_calibration.html

GSGold

2006-11-13 12:03:58 am

Quote from nate:

a lot.

If you just wanted to say "too bad for you, not our fault, buy better stuff or get bent" just say so.

Tahngarthor

2006-11-13 12:37:50 am

Bangaa Bishop

Most video cards have color correction and gamma adjustment features that are specifically for video playback. Go into advanced display settings in windows and try playing with them (or use your driver's control panel like CCC or Nvidia control panel.) These may prove helpful in combination with your monitor settings.

UchihaSasuke

2006-11-13 01:25:32 am

my umbrella goes directly to Bankai

heh i noticed that when i recorded my FZX runs. they looked very dark on my monitor.

i also have that problem with speed runs. i crank up the brightness of the monitor when i watch a speed run.

i also notioced that watching the sjless mp2 run on a laptop at university gave no brightness problem. i was actually wondering why at the time but looks like i found the answer today.

nate

2006-11-13 01:49:24 am

grenola ftw.