The VideoLAN Forums

Version 3.0.11

By actual measurement, luma levels of 235 are forced to 255 and luma levels of 16 are forced to 0. Input file is flagged as "full range". I cannot find a way to defeat this behavior. This makes VLC 3.0.11 useless to me.

Please allow users to configure VLC to defeat this behavior. I had to revert to version 2.2.8 which leaves 235 at 235 and 16 at 16.

ffplay leaves 235 at 235 on the same file in both the player and waveform modes.

I have tried all of the remedies mentioned in the above-linked post and none of them worked.

Version 2.2.8 of VLC handles video levels just fine without applying any external fixes.

You should create a new ticket on the VLC Trac with the links to some sample files and to this thread:
https://trac.videolan.org/vlc/