Color range not honored on 4:3 content?

[numgi5]

I am capturing old VHS videos, de-interlacing and up-scaling to 1080p, converting color space from Rec.601 to Rec.709, and encoding with FFmpeg into MP4.

For some reason smplayer is displaying the resulting MP4 files with too much brightness (video looks washed out) compared to VLC and also other media players like Windows 11 built-in Media Player. I'm assuming smplayer sees a 4:3 aspect video and somehow treats it differently? Colors look fine, perhaps smplayer just is doing something to the color range (limited vs full)?

Love smplayer for everything but can’t use it for these videos.

MediaInfo reports the following:

Format : AVC Format profile : High@L5 Format settings : CABAC / 8 Ref Frames Format settings, Reference frames : 8 frames Codec ID : avc1 Bit rate : 2 799 kb/s Width : 1 440 pixels Height : 1 080 pixels Display aspect ratio : 4:3 Frame rate mode : Constant Frame rate : 59.940 (60000/1001) FPS Color space : YUV Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0 Bit depth : 8 bits Scan type : Progressive Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.030 Stream size : 40.1 MiB (94%) Color range : Limited Color primaries : BT.709 Transfer characteristics : BT.709 Matrix coefficients : BT.709 Codec configuration box : avcC Writing library : x264 core 164 r3099 e067ab0 Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=8 / deblock=1:-1:-1 / analyse=0x3:0x133 / me=umh / subme=9 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.15 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=2 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-3 / threads=30 / lookahead_threads=2 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=25 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=60 / rc=crf / mbtree=1 / crf=22.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00

[smplayer-dev]

Try selecting another the video output in preferences -> general -> video and see if it makes any difference.

[numgi5]

Thank you, I had selected "direct3d", selecting "default" solves the issue with color range. However, the reason I had selected "direct3d" is because any of the other options seem to ignore the orientation tag on my GoPro videos.. basically if my GoPro was upside down during recording (which it is when I have it mounted hanging down from something) then that video plays upside down when "default" is selected. If I change to "direct3d" then the video is correctly flipped and I can watch it right side up. If I open the same GoPro video in VLC, it plays correctly, ie right side up and not upside down. Should I open a different ticket for this issue?