Broadcast Commercial Design

[Tyler Jones]

wow, that is the most helpful bit of practical information I’ve seen on this subject. Thank you. I’ll definitely call around to find someone to consult… When you say you submit your stuff on dvd, do you mean you actually encode it to a playable dvd? or you just submit a data dvd with the file on it?

Tyler Jones… yes, THE Tyler Jones… YES IT’S REALLY ME!!! Stop filling up my inbox asking if it’s really me or not!

[Jason Powell]

One further suggestion. Go to amazon and search for “VideoSyncrasies: The Motion Graphics Problem Solver” — Haven’t watched it myself, but seems like an excellent resource for someone moving from the computer screen to the television screen.

Ultimately, if you don’t have the gear you’re going to have to book time at a studio where your files will be played out to BetaSP. Basically you need to render to a lossless codec, Quicktime Animation comes to mind, and then take that to an edit bay that can output uncompressed via component to Beta. They will provide the bars and tone and slate, and if you’ve followed the instructions as to levels all will be cool. 720×486 is the right frame size, and unless you’re incorporating fielded video in the peice you don’t even need to render to fields.

Audio-wise take your final mix into an audio program and make sure that nothing peaks higher than MINUS6db on the digital meter.

Comcast Spotlight is the ad production wing of the cable commpany here in Dallas. They run G5’s with Blackmagic Decklink cards and can do what you need. Call Russell Bull at 469-791-0700 and he can hook you up with an hour in the edit bay.

Jason

[Tyler Jones]

hey, I’ve been doing that broadcast colors trick, but I can’t get good results when using levels and hue saturation to make the video “legal”. Is there something wrong with letting the broadcast colors filter do the adjusting to make the levels acceptable?

Tyler Jones… yes, THE Tyler Jones… YES IT’S REALLY ME!!! Stop filling up my inbox asking if it’s really me or not!

[Charley King]

When you speak of using scopes, I can never overemphasize that same feeling. When the TV station I was working for in the mid 60’s went color, the chief engineer told our video engineers, “The first man I see setting up cameras to a monitor can pick up his check. Use your scopes.”

Charlie

ProductionKing Video Services
Unmarked Door Productions
Flamingo Las Vegas Hotel
Las Vegas, Nevada

[Andrew Commiskey]

Check out
https://media.libsyn.com/media/aftereffectscow/CC_Safe_Colors_Full_POD.m4v
it explains color safe problems and options.
Drew

Chaos is the beginning of everything.

[Aharon Rabinowitz]

“Chaos – It was a good tutorial till the point where he said sometimes it’s better to leave it up to your video editor.

Bad idea. Bad solution. Never do this.”

Actually, if you are a lone animator who doesn’t know how to treat colors and working with a facility that is dealing with multiple animators, or that has a system in place for correcting this problem, it’s the only good advice, and the only way not to deliver something completely unusable.

If you try crunching the color your footage on your own, and you deliver a single shot to be intermixed with all of their shots, your footage won’t match. Furthermore, if you have an experience video editor who can deal with these problems, they will be able to advise you. I’ve worked with Emmy award winning editors who basically told me that given my limited tools it would be better for me to let them handle the issue, rather than trying to use an emergency measure (including the one I propose.)

While you may consider yourself an expert in the area, (and believe me I don’t consider myself one – which is why I stating several times that my solution wasn’t the best solution, but one that works, even if it’s not perfect), most people don’t – and as long as you’ve discussed it with the post house you are working with, letting them handle an issue like this is probably safest. Otherwise you could, and likely will deliver something wholly unusable.
“While your colors are in layers in AE, you can single out the offending colors and treat them separately.

When you send out your graphics to the bay, everything is “flattened” on a single layer.”

Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as this, especially because of the issue of transfer modes, or effect that bring things out of color safe space. It’s not just a question of separating or pulling colors – it’s after the fact that causes the problem. It doesn’t matter how safe any individual layer’s color is – the second it interacts with another layer in some way, it could bring you out of safe color.
“uh oh Another blooper in this podcast. Aaron states that your broadcast colors will be legal as long as white levels are set to 235.

Luminance levels are not the same as broadcast colors.”

That doesn

[Aharon Rabinowitz]

For the other people reading this string, I wanted to clarify (although i think i said this in the tutorial) that unsafe colors are caused by 2 major issues:

1) Oversaturated colors
2) Colors that are too bright

Since using the levels effect clamps down on both of these things (using the method I described), it solves both problems.

Lowering those numbers does not allow the colors to go past a certain level of saturation or brightness. And while it may be a bit too “brute force” for some tastes, when you don’t have only what AE comes with, keeping the levels at 235 or below solves the problem, in my experience – for what It’s worth.

—————————————-
Aharon Rabinowitz
aharon(AT)yahoo(DOT)com
http://www.allbetsareoff.com
—————————————-
Creative Cow Master Series DVD
particleIllusion Fusion Volume 1
available @ http://www.pIllusionFusion.com

[Aharon Rabinowitz]

“You don’t know squat about video.

Take a few courses before you start
dispensing the wrong info to people, OK, buddy?”

Actually, I teach several advanced courses at one of the best designs schools in NYC, and I train professionals in the same subjects. I co-wrote the Adobe Certified Expert exam for After Effects, designed much of the content included with AE and Encore DVD, and co-designed the training given by several video-based software companies (such as Adobe) at major conferences NAB and Siggraph. This is in addition to all the broadcast work I do.

So far I’ve heard you tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about and criticize my teaching methods, but as of yet, I haven’t actually heard a single useable piece of advice on the subject from you. I’m completely floored by your attitude, and I’m shocked that as a leader here you could be so rude and close-minded.

I will say this again – The method I suggested works. And I’m apperantly not the only one that thinks so – I just did a search on making things color safe, and while I wish I was the first to come up with a cool way to save the day, I’m not – please see step 7:

https://www.layersmagazine.com/video/picture_out.php

This is an article on making images color safe in photoshop, which uses the exact same method I suggest for video.

Or are Creative Cow Leaders Richard Harrington and Marcus Geduld idiots too? They wrote the article, and they are way more respected in our field then either you or I.

As my decade of experience in multimedia has shown me, designers like yourself don’t always understand the very technical aspects of the technology they use. It’s nothing to be ashamed of – I learn new things every day. But you are no expert if you think you have all the answers, because clearly, you (and I) don’t. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Just get over it and do your job.

—————————————-
Aharon Rabinowitz
aharon(AT)yahoo(DOT)com
http://www.allbetsareoff.com
—————————————-
Creative Cow Master Series DVD
particleIllusion Fusion Volume 1
available @ http://www.pIllusionFusion.com

[Ron Lindeboom]

I think it’s about time that you step aside from the Cow as this is getting rather ridiculous…

Aharon is held in VERY high esteem by the Adobe After Effects team and he’s worked on many shows for Viacom, Sesame Street and Jimmy Neutron being just two of them.

There are MANY different and GOOD solutions to a wide range of design issues in After Effects and there is NEVER just one way to solve a problem.

Aharon was QUITE CLEAR in saying that there are other — and some even better ways — to do what he was doing and that this is JUST the method that he uses.

Your attitude sucks, girl, and it’s time that you move on as we do not condone this kind of crap here at Creative Cow.

Ron Lindeboom

[Aharon Rabinowitz]

Really, in your previous comments you said it was the beginning that was dead wrong. Mow it’s the end. Regardless, as I’ve shown from the article above, the broadcast design experts disagree with you.

I actually don’t care what you think. The only reason I stated my credentials and dignified your comments with a response was to let other people in this string know that just because someone didn’t like a solution, which I never claimed was perfect, it didn’t mean that it was invalid. You would prefer to keep people from using a solution that worked just to be right – Which says a lot about you.

This is the 3rd or 4th time you’ve commented on my tutorial, and while you’ve stated several times that you think I’m wrong, you have not validly explained once why that was.

As your attitute demonstrates that you aren’t interested in anything other than insulting me both personally and professionally, at this point, the conversation is over, at least as far as I’m concerned.

—————————————-
Aharon Rabinowitz
aharon(AT)yahoo(DOT)com
http://www.allbetsareoff.com
—————————————-
Creative Cow Master Series DVD
particleIllusion Fusion Volume 1
available @ http://www.pIllusionFusion.com