New Computer = Worse Quality?

[BlackLolitarose]

Hi! I'm very new to this forum. I'm not new to editing, but I've found myself having no one to ask about this.
The laptop I've always edited with has broke and I just got a new one. The new one is a nice Asus and it has better screen quality than my last laptop, which was a Gateway. The thing is, even though the screen is "better", now anything that is less than HD quality looks terrible on this computer! Actually, even HD doesn't look that great. It seems that unless I'm watching something that was professionally made, every pixel is very noticeable. AMV editors don't usually have footage that is of Bluray quality, so having a screen issue like this is the worst. Not only that, but shadows are a lot darker and even the colors are slightly different. I'm just wondering, has anyone run into something like this before? Is the answer to actually downgrade and get a computer with less video quality so that poorer quality footage will look better??

And while I'm here, I've also run into a massive issue with my AVI codecs. My AVIs always worked on sony vegas in my old computer when I used the DivX codec but I can't get AVIs to work on the new one. Is there a thread you can link to me that deals with codec issues with sony vegas? (I use sony vegas pro 9, but I don't think that matters.) Anyway, sorry for being so high maintenance! Thanks!

[Qyot27]

The thing is, even though the screen is "better", now anything that is less than HD quality looks terrible on this computer! Actually, even HD doesn't look that great. It seems that unless I'm watching something that was professionally made, every pixel is very noticeable.

This is rather vague. Do you mean you notice macroblocking more (which is in the video itself and can only be mitigated by having a decoder or video player apply a smoothing filter when displaying the video), or the aliasing artifacts of a poor screen upscale* (can sometimes be resolved by having the video player do more precise upscaling before it hits the screen), or that the video is marred by splotchy blobs of macroblocking (the tell-tale sign of trying to play back 10bit video without decoder support)?

*this is mostly obvious if the problem only appears when the video is fullscreened, but not when it's playing back at its native resolution in a window.

Both the mplayer family (preferably mpv - if you need a GUI, then use Baka MPlayer) and VLC can do the kind of filtering I'm referring to, as well as not having to rely on external codecs to do the work since libavcodec covers it. As long as you make sure they're updated, they can play all the most common formats, and a very significant chunk of lesser-used and obscure ones.

AMV editors don't usually have footage that is of Bluray quality, so having a screen issue like this is the worst.

Maybe on YouTube they don't, but around here most videos that get announced in the Announcements section have been near-transparent at 720p or 1080p for the last few years. Whether they're being sourced from actual Blu-ray Discs or not is an aside, even though for ethical reasons let's just assume it is Blu-ray.

Not only that, but shadows are a lot darker and even the colors are slightly different.

This sounds like the configuration of your graphics driver might need adjusting. The gamma could be set too low, for instance.

And while I'm here, I've also run into a massive issue with my AVI codecs. My AVIs always worked on sony vegas in my old computer when I used the DivX codec but I can't get AVIs to work on the new one. Is there a thread you can link to me that deals with codec issues with sony vegas? (I use sony vegas pro 9, but I don't think that matters.) Anyway, sorry for being so high maintenance! Thanks!

Use lossless formats when editing, which DivX is not. I have no experience with Vegas, but I assume it uses VfW to load codecs, so Ut Video should probably work fine. If you were using DivX to provide raw YV12 decoding, then it's advisable to move to the standalone Helix YUV codec(s). Other than those, just install LAV Filters and ffdshow's VfW interface and you'll have most of this covered. You may need the DirectShow Filter Tweaker tool in order to allow a couple of these to work right on newer versions of Windows, which might be what's tripping you up.

[BlackLolitarose]

Thanks for such a detailed reply! But wow, I barely understood a word you said. I'm sorry, I know some when it comes to computers but I guess compared to a lot of people online I'm a beginner.

By saying the picture looks worse, I mean that the picture looks a little more pixelated. This is most noticeable with my liveaction videos - i didn't mention that I'm actually a liveaction editor because I'm on the AMV forum which is for anime editors - sorry for not being clear! I posted this question a week ago and since then I have gotten new liveaction clips that look much better. Unfortunately I still have an issue with shadows being a bit dark, although this could just be the nature of an LCD screen. As far as the gamma on my graphics driver, is there an easy way to adjust it?

My main problem is with the codecs and my avi files not working. What is Ut video? And what does the Helix YUV codec include?
I tried ffdshow before ever reading this post and it didn't seem to do anything.
Thanks for the help!

[Qyot27]

Ut Video is a video codec: http://umezawa.dyndns.info/wordpress/?p=5514

It's lossless, meaning that mathematically, it can be decompressed to an identical copy of the original video. Stuff like DivX (more properly, MPEG-4 Part 2 Advanced Simple Profile) or H.264 cannot be restored to a mathematically-identical copy after decompression - in layman's terms, DivX and H.264 are lossy because of this, because they try to remove parts of the video information that their compression algorithms determine is junk or not catchable by human vision. This makes the files they output a lot smaller in size, and suitable for distribution and viewing, but not for editing. Editing with them can incur generation decay, the same way that you wouldn't take a VHS tape and copy it and then copy the copy and then copy that copy and so on. The copies would look progressively worse every time. A lossless format can be copied like that over and over and over again and not degrade any, but the files are a lot bigger.

The Helix YUV codecs simply provide the ability to decode certain types of uncompressed video (specifically, YV12, possibly YUY2, YV16, and YV24 - I'm not entirely sure on the non-YV12 ones). They're only really necessary if another codec isn't doing that job - DivX, Xvid, and other codecs have sometimes offered the ability to be used as a generic YV12 decoder, but sometimes that approach is a bit buggy. That's why the Helix codecs exist, or are as known as they are.

ffdshow is mostly useless these days. One, because on Windows 7 and higher, the operating system is set up in such a way that other decoders take priority (this is why I mentioned the DirectShow Tweaker Tool, which can force ffdshow to a higher merit and allow it to be used instead). Two, because it's really outdated, and has been surpassed in virtually every area by LAV Filters (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=156191). LAV Filters would be fine for watching things so long as you're using Media Player Classic-Homecinema. ffdshow is still marginally useful for its Video for Windows interface (which you have to explicitly enable when you install it; it's not installed by default), since LAV Filters doesn't include a VfW interface, and non-linear editing programs can almost be always assumed to open stuff through Video for Windows.

My suggestion to use Ut Video is simply because then that's the *only* thing you have to worry about when trying to open things in Vegas. Convert your files to Ut Video before putting them in Vegas, do your editing, export with Ut Video, and then use a program like, say, Handbrake, to convert the exported version to a smaller file with H.264. You can then play it back with MPC-HC by using LAV Filters, or use Baka MPlayer or VLC if you don't want to bother with Media Player Classic or making sure codecs are installed for playback.


As to whether there's an issue with the graphics, that really depends on which graphics card (or chip) you have. There might be a configuration dialog somewhere in Control Panel, or it could be provided as a third-party program with the driver (Nvidia does this with their own Nvidia Control Panel). I don't know how Intel and AMD handle this type of configuration for their integrated CPU/GPU chips, but there might be an option somewhere for it. Laptops probably don't use higher-quality screens like standalone monitors do, which might be where the issue is coming from. You could hook the laptop to a regular monitor or TV using an HDMI cable and see if the problem persists. If you want to get a good IPS monitor with LED backlight to work on for important projects, they'll probably cost around $180 (or at least mine did, and I bought it in December 2013 - the prices may have come down quite a bit by now).


For future reference, you'll probably want to look at Doom9's forum, which is not anime-specific and also has more of a knowledge base for the troubles you're having. If you sign up, there's a two-week (or was it one week?) waiting period before you can post, in the interest of you reading up on the forum rules and getting a feel for the atmosphere of the place, and to deter spambots.