0/255 or 16/235 output

subchaz wrote on 8/27/2010, 12:56 PM
Hi just wondering should i be rendering out my footage at 16/235 or should i be rendering out too 0/255

all the work i do is hdv pal

just lately ive been using the avv colour lab and ive been getting good results from setting the output to 16/235

but im not that sure if this is right for a PAL DVD

but at 0/255 ive found that alot of new hd tvs colours are over hyped
which makes the footage look crap

so if anyone can let me know what i should be rendering out at that would be great

Comments

musicvid10 wrote on 8/27/2010, 1:41 PM
PAL DVD "expects" 16-235.
You can generally fudge a little bit to keep the contrast up.

That being said, there is no way to predict how a particular player or TV is going to handle it, or how the user has set them up (which is often way too hot).

For instance, I have two players -- one bumps everything to "apparent" 0-255, even through the the analog outs! The other one gives what it gets, which can be too flat on an LCD.

Safest bet is always 16-235, since you can't get back blown-out RGB.
subchaz wrote on 8/27/2010, 2:10 PM
i kinda thought that was the case so cheers for getting back with that one

i agree i seem to be seeing lots of flat screen tvs at the moment running far to hot

which is very tricky to get around its hard to tell a client (can i reset your tv for you)

cheers nick
rs170a wrote on 8/27/2010, 2:17 PM
...its hard to tell a client (can i reset your tv for you)

I gave up on that a long time ago.
As long as it looks good on my calibrated CRT, I don't care what the client's TV looks like:)

Mike
musicvid10 wrote on 8/27/2010, 6:04 PM
There are guys who actually make money calibrating screens for high-end home theater users.

I found this lengthy article quite fascinating:

http://www.curtpalme.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10457
richard-courtney wrote on 8/28/2010, 8:07 AM
"As long as it looks good on my calibrated CRT, I don't care what the client's TV looks like:)"

Words of wisdom.

Before they can leave your office with your disc or tape (your payment in your hand)
you show how good it can look.

What the station(s) do with it or how poorly home tv screens are adjusted
is beyond your control.
rs170a wrote on 8/28/2010, 8:42 AM
you show how good it can look.

The problems comes when there's no way for the client to see my monitor.
For example, I was hired to do an editing job that was going to end up on the web.
One guy was in Ottawa, Ontario and another was in Vancouver, B.C.
All I could do was judge the final result on a few different computer monitors and keep my fingers crossed.
I can't even see how it turned out as I'm not a member of the organization so I don't have access to the web site.
No one complained though so no news is good news as far as I'm concerned.

Another example is the job I just got finished.
It's a very short video to be shown to incoming college students during Orientation next week.
It'll be shown on anything from a large monitor indoors to a video projector (a cheap one at that) and screen outdoors.
There's no possible way for me to know ahead of time how good or bad it's going to end up looking.
Once again, it looks good on my monitor and the people in charge liked what they saw in my edit suite so my job is done.

What the station(s) do with it or how poorly home tv screens are adjusted is beyond your control.

Agree 100%.
Which is why I don't lose any sleep after it leaves my edit suite.

Mike
subchaz wrote on 8/28/2010, 9:06 AM
yes the whole client tvs thing is a nightmare

always a worry if i have to take something around to a client house
not knowing what sort of tv is going to be there and just how bad its
set up

you would have thought that some clever spark would have come up with some software to emulate bad tv settings
musicvid10 wrote on 8/28/2010, 9:45 AM
The best we can do as content producers is to hit the sweet spot, where "maybe" 2/3 of home viewers will consider the picture "good" on their sets (regardless of what a trained eye might think).

The way to do this is to have a consensus, or target that everyone agrees on, at least in the same world region. So, the use of calibrated monitors, the appropriate color bars, gray scales, and levels adjustments will get us reasonably close to that target.

But the real test is how our disc looks alongside commercial titles that everyone acknowledges are "good." After all, anyone setting up their own home system is going to adjust their sets for pleasing playback (to them) of the best of these commercial movie discs, and be loathe to re-adjust their sets for discs that fall outside the norm.

Some DVD "reference" examples:
http://www.hometheatersound.com/features/reference/

Some Blu-Ray "reference" examples:
http://www.curtpalme.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9237

Remember, the big studios are way ahead of us in creating mass acceptance of their products, and they have arrived at a consensus the rest of us should follow. Same goes for audio. By the mid 1970's record producers had arrived at a consensus sound shape, and those classic albums are still used as a listening reference to this day (to digress a bit, my personal favorite audio reference is Abraxas played over a pair of vintage SB-7000a speakers with mid/hi settings at 2,1).

All good golfers faced with a long putt will try to put the ball in an imaginary 5 ft. diameter circle around the hole, rather than try to put it in the center of the hole (a notable exception aside!).

If we can hit that "fuzzy target" area with our own discs, we've done about the best we can do, knowing as the big studios do, that it's not going to look "right" for everybody. As for what any individual thinks looks "good" on their particular set, it is a total crapshoot.