Comparing the two screenshots (100% JPEG compression) below, you may notice some difference between the two. The one on the right looks better while the one on the left looks a little bit washed out. (If necessary, download them by right-mouse-clicking on the screenshots.) These screenshots both come from the same source. They both come from the projection of the same QuickTime VTC we have previously produced. The difference depends on how we played back the video file. The one on the left is from Safari, and the one on the right is the projection of the same video on Firefox.

This QuickTime 7 and H.264’s brightness issue has been extensively discussed elsewhere. Apple seems to recognize the issue and claims that the problem resides in Core Video. Because Firefox doesn’t rely on Core Video, the screenshots above look different. We are not sure if Apple is going to fix this gamma issue. Until then, if the color problem impairs your work, you may want to encode video with Sorenson 3.