Videos in Firefox always low in contrast
On YouTube and other video sites, most videos are always way more low in contrast then in Internet Explorer and Chrome.
A animation I made is a good example of that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OlrLzNj4z0
In Firefox the contrast is too low ... or the black is bleached, I don't know the right English words for it.
But the same video in Internet Explorer is as it is suppose to be, it is showing like the original on my PC. And both are in HTML5 view.
This is not only on my PC (Windows 8.1 64 bit): at work I see the same behaviour too on Windows 7 64bit.
Hope this is hoping to be fixed soon?
Modified by meegja
Chosen solution
I just did discover the cause: when I turn off "Use hardware acceleration when available" the videos are just fine. When I enable that and I restart Firefox, then it all is like I described: bleached, less vibrant, less contrast.
Curious now what hardware Firefox is using to "accelerate": CPU, GPU or both?
All Replies (8)
Are you viewing the video using Firefox's built-in HTML5 video player or the Flash plugin? You usually can distinguish them by right-clicking the video and looking for an "About" item toward the bottom (example screen shot attached).
Don't know if it is build in or not but yes, I do see the same as what is in your screenshot. This I also see in Internet Explorer.
Wanted to try Flash but it seems YouTube is forcing HTML5 if that supported by the browser.
Yours has the same menu as mine but the black background is less black? Could you post a screen shot?
This article has tips on screen shots: How do I create a screenshot of my problem? Please blur or cut out anything sensitive before attaching the image file to your reply.
Here are 2 screenshots with the HTML5 menu. But you can also see clearly the difference: Firefox screenshot video is bleached, IE video is black. Checked it today at my work too, Firefox there has no add-ons active and there too the video is bleached / low contrast and good in IE. Btw: the language you see is Dutch :)
Modified by meegja
Here 2 other screenshots to show/proof that it is not the fault of my own video's but also with other videos. In this case form https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rV1C58zuiU just randomly YouTube choice.
Video from IE is just way more vibrant, more contrast and in Firefox it's "dull", bleached, washed out.
Also, it takes Firefox forever (in computer terms) to change the Quality: I choose 720p HD and have to wait 10 to 15 seconds before the change takes place. In IE that same change is almost instantly.
Oh and some extra info: did the check on https://www.youtube.com/html5 and there it says for Firefox that only "MSE & WebM VP9" is not supported. When I check with IE it says that "WebM VP8" and "MSE & WebM VP9" are not supported.
Modified by meegja
Chosen Solution
I just did discover the cause: when I turn off "Use hardware acceleration when available" the videos are just fine. When I enable that and I restart Firefox, then it all is like I described: bleached, less vibrant, less contrast.
Curious now what hardware Firefox is using to "accelerate": CPU, GPU or both?
That was a good thing to test. Hardware acceleration uses your GPU, so the reduced quality suggests a problem with Firefox's compatibility with your current graphics card/chipset driver software. Sometimes a driver update will fix that, but other times it indicates some settings or equipment difference that was missed in testing and needs to be addressed in a future Firefox update.
Mmm, that has been going on for some time then. The video problem is there for rather a a while and I always keep my video drivers up to date. In my case that's the NVidia drivers. Do developers keep an active eye on this forum or is it best in this case to do a bug report?