Color Range

Range says which code values mean black and white. Limited range (also called tv, studio, broadcast or MPEG range) puts black at 16 and white at 235 in 8-bit video; full range (pc or JPEG range) uses 0–255. ffprobe reports it as color_range=tv or color_range=pc.

Code values	8-bit limited	10-bit limited	8-bit full	10-bit full
Luma black–white	16–235	64–940	0–255	0–1023
Chroma	16–240	64–960	0–255	0–1023
Neutral chroma	128	512	128	512

Delivered video — Blu-ray, UHD Blu-ray including HDR, broadcast, streaming — is limited range almost without exception. Full range turns up in screen recordings, some phone and webcam footage, JPEG-derived video and RGB sources. Limited range exists for historical analog reasons; it costs very little precision at 10 bits, and following the convention avoids playback problems, so encode delivery copies as limited range unless you have a reason not to.

Values below 16 or above 235 can legitimately appear in limited-range video (overshoot from cameras and filters). Players clip them on display, but encoders and filters normally keep them, so don’t clamp a source just because it has them.

Recognize a range mix-up

Samples are	Player assumes	What you see
Limited	Full	Washed out: black is gray, white is dull
Full	Limited	Too contrasty: shadows and highlights crushed and clipped

Before changing the file, rule out the player and display: GPU drivers and TVs have their own range settings that produce the same symptoms.

Check the tag and the samples

ffprobe -v error -select_streams v:0 -show_entries stream=pix_fmt,color_range -of default=nw=1 input.mkv

yuvj420p (and the other yuvj formats) is FFmpeg’s legacy way of saying full-range 8-bit; current FFmpeg still decodes full-range 8-bit H.264 and HEVC to it.

To see what the samples actually use, measure a scene that should contain black and white, such as credits:

ffmpeg -ss 00:10:00 -i input.mkv -frames:v 100 -vf "signalstats,metadata=mode=print:file=-" -f null - | grep -E "YMIN|YMAX"

YMIN near 16 and YMAX near 235 means limited; values down to 0 and up to 255 mean full. A dim scene has neither, so a single frame proves nothing.

Retag or convert

The samples are right but the tag is wrong (for example limited-range video tagged pc): retag with setparams, or fix the bitstream without re-encoding:

ffmpeg -i input.mkv -vf setparams=range=tv -c:v libx264 -crf 18 output.mkv
ffmpeg -i input.mkv -c copy -bsf:v h264_metadata=video_full_range_flag=0 -color_range tv output.mkv

hevc_metadata has the same video_full_range_flag option; av1_metadata uses color_range. The bitstream filter doesn’t change the container, and from a Matroska or MP4 input FFmpeg copies the old range value; with -c copy, -color_range sets only that container field, so the two agree again. For an existing Matroska file, mkvpropedit output.mkv --edit track:v1 --set color-range=1 fixes it in place; remuxing with mkvmerge keeps the old value. If the input was 8-bit full range and decodes as yuvj420p, put format=yuv420p before setparams.

The samples need to change (for example full-range phone footage for a limited-range delivery): convert with scale or zscale:

ffmpeg -i full.mkv -vf scale=out_range=limited,format=yuv420p -c:v libx264 -crf 18 output.mkv

On a full-range ramp this maps luma 0–255 to 16–235 and tags the output tv. The format=yuv420p is required for 8-bit full-range H.264/HEVC input, which decodes as yuvj420p: without it scale changes nothing, and zscale=range=limited converts the samples but leaves the output tagged pc. In VapourSynth, core.resize.Spline36(clip, range_s="limited") does the same, using the clip’s _Range property (0 limited, 1 full) as the input.

Caution

When re-encoding, don’t rely on FFmpeg’s -color_range output option to tag or to convert. In current FFmpeg it asks the filter graph for that range, so it converts the samples in some cases and does nothing in others (for example with yuvj input). Use setparams to tag and scale/zscale to convert.

Range in standalone encoders and containers

Y4M can carry a full-range flag (XCOLORRANGE=FULL), and FFmpeg writes it. x264 and aomenc read it; x265 4.3 and SvtAv1EncApp 4.2 ignore it and tag their output as limited. Pass the range to those two yourself: --range full for x265, --color-range full for SvtAv1EncApp.

Matroska stores range in its own Range element with different numbers from H.273: 1 is broadcast (limited) and 2 is full. With mkvmerge that is --color-range 0:1 for limited; the H.273 flag in the bitstream uses 0 for limited and 1 for full.