My friend also showed me that you can take prerendered videos from a game disc and play them via a file format called .bik. You can also use freeware tools to extract PNG screenshots of these prerendered videos. The first thing I thought was "let's compare what the developer intended to the Sony HDMI output". In a perfect world they should be the same. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Maybe someone else knows more about this than me so if so, please comment.
To get an accurate comparison, I'm using two capture cards. First the PEXHDCAP and then the Elgato Game Capture HD which has "lab-certified" color reproduction. Any discrepancies shown in one card can be backed up by the second. The PEXHDCAP is capturing in YUY2 mode using Lagarith and the Elgato is capturing at its highest quality setting. I should mention that I am capturing at 16-235 but the Full range setting of the PS3 showed identical results. The PEXHDCAP and Elgato screenshots were taken using MPC and madVR for the highest quality output.
First up is Heavy Rain (2010).
Here's what the .bik PNG gives us (remember you can click to enlarge and use arrow keys to navigate past each picture).
PEXHDCAP:
Elgato:
Overlay (.bik vs PEXHDCAP): Link
Overlay (.bik vs Elgato): Link
Even though the lossy compression really hurts the Elgato in this comparison, it's clear to see that the PS3 output appears to be putting an orange tint over the image. That's strange. I feel like I've read something like this before. Oh yes, here we go. "Movies lately have decided the only two colors they need are teal and orange".
Is Sony trying to make video games follow every Hollywood movie now? Based on this first comparison, this might be true.
Let's move forward in time to 2013 with Beyond: Two Souls.
First, the .bik PNG:
PEXHDCAP:
Elgato: (Screenshot soon)
Overlay (.bik vs PEXHDCAP): Link
This one is quite hard but you can see a slight tint. I think it might be over exaggerating to call this a blue/teal tint but there definitely is some modification again to the HDMI output.
Regardless of why Sony did this, it's pretty interesting to think about. Bear in mind these are the only two games I could get the .biks from (supplied by my friend). Other games (or from other developers that are not Quantic Dream) might be completely different.
To get an accurate comparison, I'm using two capture cards. First the PEXHDCAP and then the Elgato Game Capture HD which has "lab-certified" color reproduction. Any discrepancies shown in one card can be backed up by the second. The PEXHDCAP is capturing in YUY2 mode using Lagarith and the Elgato is capturing at its highest quality setting. I should mention that I am capturing at 16-235 but the Full range setting of the PS3 showed identical results. The PEXHDCAP and Elgato screenshots were taken using MPC and madVR for the highest quality output.
First up is Heavy Rain (2010).
Here's what the .bik PNG gives us (remember you can click to enlarge and use arrow keys to navigate past each picture).
PEXHDCAP:
Elgato:
Overlay (.bik vs PEXHDCAP): Link
Overlay (.bik vs Elgato): Link
Even though the lossy compression really hurts the Elgato in this comparison, it's clear to see that the PS3 output appears to be putting an orange tint over the image. That's strange. I feel like I've read something like this before. Oh yes, here we go. "Movies lately have decided the only two colors they need are teal and orange".
Is Sony trying to make video games follow every Hollywood movie now? Based on this first comparison, this might be true.
Let's move forward in time to 2013 with Beyond: Two Souls.
First, the .bik PNG:
PEXHDCAP:
Overlay (.bik vs PEXHDCAP): Link
This one is quite hard but you can see a slight tint. I think it might be over exaggerating to call this a blue/teal tint but there definitely is some modification again to the HDMI output.
Regardless of why Sony did this, it's pretty interesting to think about. Bear in mind these are the only two games I could get the .biks from (supplied by my friend). Other games (or from other developers that are not Quantic Dream) might be completely different.
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