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Bars and Tone (PAL) vs Bars and Tone (HD 25p/50i)
Hi guys,
We have issues calibrating our broadcast monitors with the outside world. When I investigated why pictures played from our systems played back on television significantly darker when broadcast on from the networks.
I have been calibrating our monitors (SD JVC crt monitors) based upon FCP’s “Bars and Tone (PAL)” as reference (we use PAL in Australia). However I have noticed that when I put FCP’s “Bars and Tone (HD 25p/50i)”, although the whites and blacks match on the waveform monitor, the PLUNGE bars in the lower right corner DO NOT.
They are significantly brighter for the (HD 25p/50i) bars than the (PAL) bars. On the waveform monitor, they are noticably a stronger signal also.
So which reference do I use to calibrate the monitors? Has anybody noticed this before and had to make a decision between the two?
Thank you guys,
TomCheers,
TomCamera Operator – Editor – Motion Graphics
(https://www.tomdavid.com.au) -
2 Replies
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I’ve just had a look on the scopes and you’re right!
However, I don’t think it makes that much difference when you adjust your monitor – the idea is that PLUGE (which I recall stands for picture lineup generating equipment) has a bar that’s lower than black, a bar that’s precisely black and a bar that’s slightly higher than black and you adjust so that the bar that’s black is indistinguishable from the darker than black one and you can see the brighter one. As the difference between black and non-black is less on the PAL ones, I’d say that that’s the better test than the HD ones as the bigger differences allow for a bit more variation in setting what looks right.
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…”As the difference between black and non-black is less on the PAL ones, I’d say that that’s the better test than the HD ones as the bigger differences allow for a bit more variation in setting what looks right.”…
Well this was our problem. I think because we WERE calibrating with the darker (PAL) black bars rather than the brighter (HD 25p/50i) bars, we were actually turning our monitors up too bright so that we could see the slight difference in the black (PAL) bars.
When the images were broadcast, they were too dark – because (it seems) our monitors were calibrated too bright (so we can see the (PAL) dark bar). So what we thought was correct, was actually dark when played in the outside world.
So when I recalibrated the monitors to the (HD 25p/50i) bars, thus TURNING DOWN the brightness on the monitors compared to the (PAL) calibration, we thus brightened our images in the grade, and they are now broadcasting at correct brightness levels.
So for us, it is actually the (HD 25p/50i) bars that matches our monitors to the outside world. We have kind of worked through this problem since I made the first post.
So if anybody knows why the difference in the two calibration bars, that would be a big help for our confidence in calibrating PAL monitors.
Cheers,
TomCamera Operator – Editor – Motion Graphics
(https://www.tomdavid.com.au)
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