‘Below Black’ for Blue-ray PIP delivery

[Jacek Kropinski]

Hi Eric
Thanks for you interest.
I don’t think there is any wild goose chasing here.
The PIP is intermittent – does not play all the time, only plays at selected times during the feature, so in order for it to play with the feature it has to play simultaneously with the feature from the beginning. The black bits in between the video obviously need to be keyed out. For this to happen the key has to be below black. It is what the authoring house requires. I am simply trying to figure out how to generate that from Final Cut Pro.

No, BD PIP streams are not limited to 720×480 at all. They an be delivered in any format – the higher the better as usual. This project was acquired edited and will be delivered in HD.
Thanks

[Jacek Kropinski]

Incidentally, they have given me the specs hence the ‘wild goose chase’. The specs ask for this below black delivery – trust me I’m not making this up!

[Eric Pautsch]

I apologize Jacek. I thought you were talking about superimposing one video over another and calling it PIP. 🙂 I understand what your trying to accomplish now in regards to HDMV. I also wish I had a concrete answer for you and your FCP question – my apologies for taking this off topic.

BTW..is this THE Jacek…the one who doesn’t visit us anymore at a certain facility in Costa Mesa? You should call Josh…maybe He’ll know the answer – LOL 🙂

[Jacek Kropinski]

LOL indeed Eric, but if I had known it was the THE Eric I would have been less polite in my answer 🙂

We can generate below black from a D5 deck which makes it a two step process – just trying to figure out how to do it from Final Cut – seems not possible.

THE Jacek

[Eric Pautsch]

HA HA – I hope you don’t hate me now! :~)

[Scott Erfurth]

Hi Jacek,

Did you ever find a solution to this problem? We are having the same problem and have not been able to resolve it.

Thanks,

Scott

[Jacek Kropinski]

Hi Scott
Yes the genius guys in the machine room found a great solution.
Black and Code a D5 Tape then bring the black levels down to -75mV on the HD output then digitize it back in. Superblack, as easy as that.

What I also found is that you can transform it in Quick time to whatever standard or codec you want (so you don’t have to render in different deliverables) and it retains its superblackness.

Good luck, it took us a few days and dozens of emails to figure out. The beauty of the Cow!
Jacek

[Mark La cava]

Eric
Whassuuuuup! We QC these all the time. The easiest way is to stripe the tape, and insert the segments. If the graphic is not full frame, the BG must be superblack.

[Scott Skaja]

having similar issues, but no deck or machine room here. Would you be willing to share a Quicktime super-black clip with me?

Scott Skaja
edit/design/animation
http://www.scottskaja.com

[Mark La cava]

What do you need? Don’t you have to output it to tape? Call me to discuss. 818 842 6577