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When uploading a video to Vimeo the video is transcoded by Vimeo and in the process red gets a bit more saturation and the contrast is increased a little. As I chose Vimeo as my platform I have to live with that and hence compensate for it during my video production.
How would I determine the exact amount of red desaturation and contrast decrease? Can I overlay the screenshots somehow and calculate a difference? Is there maybe a plug-in for Premiere Pro that compares two videos and outputs a suggested colour correction?

I know I can do this by trial and error, but I'd rather have an automatic solution. Here's an image showing the effect: enter image description here

Note the difference of skin tone between Safari and Vimeo HD file. The latter is the intended colour.

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  • Did you try to download the file re-encoded by vimeo and compare it locally in the same player? AFAIK all browsers nowadays are color managed so that could be an issue as well. – Hans Meiser Mar 13 '16 at 4:45
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Unfortunately, even if you could get an exact amount of the difference, it is highly unlikely that adjusting by that amount will fix your problem. Since a lossy compression is being used, the codec is deciding to alter the color to something that is more easily stored in a small space. You will likely get a different color artifact if you try to correct for this one. Your best bet would probably be to look in to the formats that Vimeo uses and try to encode it yourself such that Vimeo won't have to transcode it. This would give you control over the compression itself and you might be able to use a better encoder that would maintain color more accurately.

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  • As far as I know Vimeo always transcodes, so that's not going to work. But thanks for the suggestion. – Saaru Lindestøkke Feb 27 '13 at 16:02
  • @BartArondson - yeah, sadly then, there is no way to ensure the color ends up the way you want it if it is changing as an artifact of the encoding. I highly doubt that they are intentionally shifting the color, so you probably can't compensate for it. Certainly not easily. – AJ Henderson♦ Feb 27 '13 at 17:32
  • @BartArondson - have you tried using the settings as described by Vimeo? – AJ Henderson♦ Feb 27 '13 at 17:34
  • Yes, those are the settings I used for the original file (far right in the screenshot). – Saaru Lindestøkke Feb 27 '13 at 18:10
  • @BartArondson - one other thought, though I doubt it is the case, is that it is possible that something about the browser is causing a change in color, either by gamma or some color profile. It isn't likely that it is the case, it is most likely the compression being used, but it is a possibility. – AJ Henderson♦ Feb 27 '13 at 19:10

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