monitor colors, brightness, contrast, etc...

[sdsumike619]

ok here is the thing, I'm authoring instructional DVDs with Vegas, I don't have a professional NTSC monitor so I'm just using a regular TV to look at the output and all of that. It looks fantastic on that tv with the color correction and everything...then I author the DVD and play it back on a diff TV and the colors aren't as vivid, looks somewhat faded....is there a way that I can tell what it will look like on all TVs or at least keep the picture close on each TV? Or is this an impossible endavor?
mike

[BJ_M]

make sure your tvs are set up properly

use this dvd is you have problems

http://www.videoessentials.com/index.html

[Dimmer]

No wonder people say NTSC means Never The Same Color

[sdsumike619]

BJ_M, I followed a link on that digital video essentials site to this:

http://www.displaymate.com/

Is this a good piece of software for calibration? Looks as though it won many awards from the various magazines...

Mike

[lordsmurf]

What about this?
http://www.ovationsw.com/avia.html

[sdsumike619]

I don't know....Someone told me to use a regular television if I didn't have a professional monitor, yet when I did that, it looks great on that TV, then I go to test the DVD on my other TV and it looks a bit faded, blacks aren't as black,,, before when I was just using the CRT monitor, the picture actually came out better....There has to be a way to create these DVDs so that they will look the same, at normal settings on everyone's TV... See, I don't know if that display mate software is for that kind of use or not..

[andie41]

You can standardize your TV settings with colorbars on a DVD. The links posted previously will include a variety of colorbars and other tests. However, you can make your own test DVD quite simply. If you are using an NLE, such as Vegas or Premier, it will have test patterns provided, which you can encode and burn to DVD. If you have Photoshop, there is is free plugin available, which will generate several useful test patterns.

Here is a useful link Re using colorbars: http://www.greatdv.com/video/smptebars2.htm

Of course, standardizing your TV displays does not ensure your end user will have the same settings - you can't really control that.

Another potential problem is the analog output of North American DVD players - mine adds 7.5 IRE to its output and I have read other posts on the net indicating theirs also adds 7.5; however, others claim their player does not.

[sdsumike619]

So basically just follow the directions for calibrating based on the color bars when I am working in the NLE and maybe just provide a note in the documentation saying: "This video was edited using the NTSC standard for colors and that you may have to adjust the settings on your TV for an optimal picture" or something like that?

About the color bars, I have read some different things about the brightness calibration - I know that on the pluge bars, the left two there should be no difference, but on the third one (11.5) how visible should it be? I can set it so that it's just barely visible, or I can set it so it's quite prominent , I can achieve both of these settings without affecting the two bars on the left...which should it be?

Mike

[BJ_M]

What about this?
http://www.ovationsw.com/avia.html

that one looks very good also ...

vidoe essesntials is really well known but its a bit convolted to jump to a certain section ...

[andie41]

About the color bars, I have read some different things about the brightness calibration - I know that on the pluge bars, the left two there should be no difference, but on the third one (11.5) how visible should it be? I can set it so that it's just barely visible, or I can set it so it's quite prominent , I can achieve both of these settings without affecting the two bars on the left...which should it be?

I set the right most pluge bar to be slightly visible. If you are looking at the pluge from a DVD, the mpeg encoder will have converted the left bar (superblack RGB 7,7,7) to the same as the middle bar (16,16,16). So there will be no difference to see.

If you are viewing from the NLE timeline (through a camera) , you have to consider whether your camera and DVD player output the same brightness level. Also some NLE's (Vegas 4 as an example) have incorrect color bar values - the right pluge bar in Vegas 4 has RGB of 42,42,42, rather than 24,24,24.) It has been corrected in version 5. Previous Premiere versions also had incorrect colorbars, from what I have read.