Broadcast Safe Limiter

[David Battistella]

Where did you get this wrong information?

The Kona does not magically make all HD footage perfect in the SD color space. Each color space requires its own specific treatment.

David

Peace and Love 🙂

[Michael Sacci]

So David, you are saying that NO one masters from a HD timeline to DigiBeta? That is what I’m going just with an extra step inbetween. Instead tower with Kona 3 to DBeta, I go Kona3 to Io (Capturing 10-bit uncompressed) to DBeta deck. This extra step should not have much effect on the end results. So this is no magical process but what I would assume to be a fairly common practice.

I could apply the BS filter to the HD timeline but as my orginal post is asking, did not the Kona3 has a limiter in it when v3 first came out?

[Jeremy Garchow]

[msacci] “did not the Kona3 has a limiter in it when v3 first came out?”

It did, but AJA removed it as people mistook the meaning of what it was doing and AJA decided it’d be best to just remove the feature all together.

From the Kona 3 v3.2 release notes:

“Removed “Limit Output Video to Legal Values” checkbox in KONA Control Panel due to inconsistent behavior and perception as a broadcast safe filter. ”

Jeremy

[David Battistella]

I am by no means suggesting that nobody uses your workflow.

I will say this.

HD and SD operate in different color spaces. If your program is for a D beta finish then you have to to be color correcting the HD footage while watching SD output and SD scopes. The resulting Color Correction may not be suitable for an HD master. You would then have to recalibrate your Monitors for HD Color Correction and use the HD scopes for that Color correction pass.

As Jeremy states the Broadcast Safe “feature” was removed (presumable because it was being misinterpreted).

FCP’s broadcast safe filter is not the greatest option as you can tend to see visual pixilation, especially in the highlights. Programs like Color FInesse or Final Touch (when it was working) have much better (rounder) clamping mechanisms.

David

Peace and Love 🙂

[Michael Sacci]

David,

That is for the most part how I’m doing it. I wish every client had the budget to do it the right way but we have to figure out how to give them the best video within their budget and timeframe.

I guess I was one of the people that thought it was a broadcast safe limiter on the Kona, what did it actually do.

Is there a hardware limiter out their, turn time is tight so it would be great to do it along with the down convert? A friend also recommended Syn Ap so I’m doing to check it out.

[Tom Bridges]

The best way to legalise your video signals is to use dedicated hardware. We use Eyeheight’s LegalEyes MultiDef legaliser, which works very well for us.

Best,

Tom

[Walter Biscardi]

[msacci] “I thought there was a Broadcast Saf limiter checkbox in one of the settings in the Kona 3’s control panel.”

It was never a broadcast safe filter. It was something AJA added to one rev of the drivers, but it was never intended to be a “fail safe” broadcast safe filter as a lot of people mistook it for, so it was removed from the panel.

Yep, broadcast safe filter takes a while to render (and don’t forget to add the Levels filter too). The only way around this is a hardware legalizer. We don’t use one here, we just use the color correction and broadcast safe filters.

Once Final Touch HD is working again, that has the best broadcast safe filter I’ve worked with period.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[Walter Biscardi]

[David Battistella] “FCP’s broadcast safe filter is not the greatest option as you can tend to see visual pixilation, especially in the highlights. Programs like Color FInesse or Final Touch (when it was working) have much better (rounder) clamping mechanisms.”

We use a combination of FCP’s 3 Way and Colorista to balance and CC everything first and THEN add the Broadcast safe filter. This has yielded outstanding results. If the highlights are far too bright to begin with and you add the Broadcast Safe Filter, you get some ugly results. But using the Broadcast Safe filter to just take care of a few pixels here and there that are too hot, it works just fine.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[David Battistella]

Walt.

I agree with you, the Broacast safe can be used very effectively under the circumstances you have described. If it is thought of as a pixel cleaner, then it does the job at the last stage quite wel.

Now we just have to figure out how to help msacci.

M. I think the best thing you could do is apply the safe at the end of the process and do the final render. You could also use Joe’s Filters. He has a limiter that limits based on the blacks and chroma. But fundamentally the fact remains that HD and SD are two different spces that require two different passes.

The only real solution I see is 24P universal mastering and then having a post house do the downconverts from an F-500 deck to what ever you need. They might have the high end hardware that will clip the signal where you want it and do the hue conversion, etc on the fly.

David

Peace and Love 🙂

[Michael Sacci]

My workflow has been working; I just want it to work faster. I’m trying to balance quality, speed and budget. I have access to a DBeta deck for mastering that does not cost me anything but my time. I have a system with a Kona3 card and a Laptop with an Io. So to take advantage of AJA hardware downconvert I connect the Kona3 to the Io, do a capture now to the Laptop (10-bit Uncompressed SD) from a DVCProHD timeline. The DVCProHD has been color corrected (shot by shot) with 3-way (looking at Colorista now) The only thing that is outside Broadcast safe is direct shots of stage lighting, all other highlights are at or below 100. I’m adding the Broadcast Safe filter to the SD timeline and rendering before doing an ETT.

What I was hoping to do was to cut down on the render time of the Broadcast safe filter. I have delivered 9 shows to the client so far and they have been happy so I’m not too bad off.

One thing I would love to see is a hands-on color correcting workshop a lot more in-depth that the adv FCP book.

Thanks for everyone