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AE for tv production
im using AE for alot of my commercials and was wondering if there is a way to make my settings into ntsc safe instead of lowering my white and red levels every time. any help would help.
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12 Replies
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Make a new project.
Make a new comp, NTSC D1 or DV depending on your needs.
Add an adjustment layer.
Apply levels (16-235) and hue/sat to it. Then apply the Broadcast Safe effect set to “key out unsafe” so that effect lies below the others in the effects stack. If you want, you can tweak it using a piece of footage.
Save the project.
Now, on every new project, import this one, then drag your main comp into this comp at the end of your workflow making sure it lies under the adjustment layer.There you go. You should still check the levels before you render. View the comp, looking for your background colour (try bright green) poking through your footage. If you see the background colour, you need to be more aggressive with your correction. Then you *must* switch off the Broadcast Colors effect before rendering.
If you want something quicker, set the Broadcast Colors effect to “reduce luminance”, then apply it again as “reduce saturation”. It will automatically knock everything down. If that’s the look you want. Or save those two as a favourite and apply it to your footage before rendering.
I use the “key out unsafe” version, then make adjustments manually, as I’ve found the other one just knocks everything down, often unnecessarily. But that’s just me.
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cool thx, I was hoping for a simpler way cuz im new to AE but I will make this work.
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if you are taking all of your rendered clips from ae back into an nle, you can probably make the rgb to yuv (601) color conversion at import into the nle. that way you wouldn’t need to do any additional steps, just modify one setting at import.
Kevin Camp
Designer – KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW -
Don;t let the workflow scare you. It;s really not to big a deal. If you find lowering the levels complicated, watch this video – it will make everything crystal clear and easy (at least, that was my goal):
https://library.creativecow.net/articles/rabinowitz_aharon/broadcast_safe.php
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Aharon Rabinowitz
arabinowitz(AT)yahoo(DOT)com
http://www.allbetsareoff.com—————————————-
Click the link below to subscribe to the Creative Cow After Effects Podcast, and get free AE video tutorials:https://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=111087911
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[Steve Roberts] “Apply levels (16-235) and hue/sat to it.”
Just to complicate things, I believe if you import footage in an RGB codec into a Final Cut Pro Y’CbCr sequence that Final Cut automatically scales the 0-255 range into the “16-235” range that Y’CbCr loves so much. So if you’re using Final Cut Pro to Print to Tape then you might not want to adjust your composition to the 16-235 range in AE as this could result in redundancy.
I’m not a broadcast engineer by any means, so if anyone has more information on this I’d love to learn =)
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
I should mention that I’m not sure how other NLEs handle this sort of thing.
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
one note on aharon’s tutorial…
aharon… (don’t take this the wrong way, i love your tutorials) but… i do disagree one part of your bradcast safe tutorial
when you set your levels, don’t clip the shadow and highlight detail by setting the input black and white levels, set only the output levels. otherwise you’ll be unnecessarily losing information in your hightlights and shadows.
if you want to expand (or adjust) the contrast levels, but not lose that detail information, use curves. the best way i found is to use photoshop to create a curves setting that can be saved and then imported into ae, then that can be saved as a preset and accessed easily within ae whenever you need it. you need to use ps curves because ae curves will not allow you to access the numerical values for your curve points, ps will.
sounds complicated, but it’s really quite easy, and once it’s done once, you’ll only have one step to do every time you need it.
first, open ps and create a new rgb document (any size/resolution…). apply curves and select the lower left curve point (black point). bellow the curve you should see some numeric values (input: 0 and output: 0). leave the input alone, and change the output to 16. select the upper right point (white point), change the output to 235.
now click the save… button in the curves window and save the curves setting any where (desktop perhaps?). now, in ae, apply curves to a layer (any layer) and click the folder button in the ae curves settings to load the ps curves settings, navigate to the .acv file and load it. go ahead and save that as a preset named ‘broadcast safe’ or something simple. now you can access that from the curves animation preset whenever you apply curves.
use this curves setting as a base to adjust your contrast, you can add as many points to the curve as you need, just don’t adjust the end points (your black and white points).
Kevin Camp
Designer – KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW -
No offense taken, Kevin.
You’re not the first to tell me that there’s a better way, and I’d be a fool to say was the only way or even the best way. Since creating that tutorial I’ve found very similar (if not exactly the same) techniques in articles about broadcast design from people who are far more knowledgeable than I. Again, doesn’t make it perfect (or even right) but it is a fairly common practice, and more importantly, it does protect you from going over the levels, while keeping the contrast up.
But then again, it’s the tutorial I hear the most hubbub about too, so I definitely hear you. No question, there are better ways.
Kevin – have you thought about putting what you just wrote here into a tutorial (text or video). It would be a great asset to the community. Seriosuly – if you are interested I’ll help you get it together.
Daniel, with broadcast safe colors, there is always a loss involved in the process – you WILL lose color information – and if that thought paralyzes you and keeps you from doing anything, know that if you hand it off to an editor without doing anything for Broadcast safe, they’re likely to do far worse to your color, then you could ever do using anything talked about here.
Aharon
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Aharon Rabinowitz
arabinowitz(AT)yahoo(DOT)com
http://www.allbetsareoff.com—————————————-
Click the link below to subscribe to the Creative Cow After Effects Podcast, and get free AE video tutorials:https://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=111087911
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hi aharon,
i can create a written version (i don’t have the software for a video tutorial).
are there any specifics to create a written tutorial for the cow, a template or process to submit it…?
i can post an html page on a website of mine.
Kevin Camp
Designer – KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW -
Let me get you started. Can you email me at: arabinowitz—AT—Yahoo—Com
Sorry to write it like that- trying to avoid spiders and spam.
Once you email me, I’ll put you in touch with the powers that be.
Thanks!
Best,
Aharon
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Aharon Rabinowitz
arabinowitz(AT)yahoo(DOT)com
http://www.allbetsareoff.com—————————————-
Click the link below to subscribe to the Creative Cow After Effects Podcast, and get free AE video tutorials:https://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=111087911
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