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Color bars?
Did Apple not include bars and tone on fcpx?? If they are in the program can anybody tell me where to find them?
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40 Replies
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You can easily create them in Motion and save as a FCPX generator. Then they are available in FCPX.
Olof Ekbergh
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[olof ekbergh] “You can easily create them in Motion and save as a FCPX generator. Then they are available in FCPX.”
If it’s so easy to create, why isn’t already included? I’m not at all arguing that it isn’t easy, but it does seem to me that their omission is yet another clue to Apple’s thinking. “Color bars are SO broadcast! Nobody BROADCASTS any more.”
Professor, Producer, Editor
and former Apple Employee -
Personally I’m not sure what traditional bars mean in a digital world where every color values are typically represented by unchanging numeric data.
It’s not like you’re chasing analog voltage drift that requires constant tuning to specify what a particular green displays as anymore.
Color bars are kinda an analog video world artifact.
I guess they could be useful for delivery to analog stations in the outlying markets – but every single spot I’ve delivered the past year has specs that want CONTENT ONLY – no bars, no tone, no slate, no academy leader – NOTHING BUT THE CONTENT delivered to the station. The ISCII code and the clip – that’s all the broadcast industry want.
Particularly since few stations even HAVE engineering staffs anymore – the only folks who really ever paid a bit of attention to the bars, tone and slates.
FWIW.
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Conner
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Chris,
Sure they do. It’s just that what you used to think of as “Broadcast” is totally different today.
I cut in my studio. The file gets uploaded directly to a station server. It gets forwarded “as is” to the Atlanta head end, it gets served from there to the transmitter in San Diego.
No human ever sees it unless it’s some minimum wage intern typing at a laptop to slot it into the digital stream.
What’s the point of bars and tone that nobody will ever see?
Look at any current page of modern station delivery standards. They want a content clip only. No bars, no tone, no slate. Just the file please.
I don’t like it one bit either – but that’s the way it is.
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Conner
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“Personally I’m not sure what traditional bars mean in a digital world where every color values are typically represented by unchanging numeric data.”
Bill, your attitude is exactly why encoders and engineers cringe when they hear they’re getting content from novice videophiles. But hey, why worry about it? Just don’t fuss when the spots you send in look like garbage on the air. We’ll certainly be happy to tell your client why it looks so bad and the audio is clipped in some spots and low in others, colors are desaturated and highlights blown.
Marvin Holdman
Production Manager
Tourist Network
8317 Front Beach Rd, Suite 23
Panama City Beach, Fl
phone 850-234-2773 ext. 128
cell 850-585-9667
skype username – vidmarv -
I just made a set of commercials for local insertion on Comcast. They wanted – DVCam with slate, bars, etc. Still quite a bit of stuff going on the old fashioned way for broadcast in the local arena. They don’t even have HD capability for local Comcast insertion as far as I could tell. And this is in Atlanta. At home I’m on Charter and I’m not sure I’ve seen an HD local commercial. Explains why I see so much letterboxed pillarboxed ads. They make them in HD, then find out it’s SD only, so they letterbox them.
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In a way bars are not really necessary the way FCPX works, right now. Once we get NTSC/PAL IO to decks monitors scopes etc. Then it will be very necessary to set up monitors and to deliver to tape.
I still like to slate and put T&B on every video I upload as an H.264 or MPEG, I am hoping that stations that use FTP or similar delivery of commercials actually check the video. And I think most of them do. I have never been asked to just upload a 30 sec spot w/o Black slate T&B and Black at the end of the spot. I treat them as if they are on tape and check them on external scopes just like I would if I go to tape.
So right now I would not deliver anything from FCPX direct for broadcast w/o exporting into M100 or FCP7 just to check/fix levels, before printing to tape or compressing for digital delivery. I would actually use M100 for doing the slate and T&B etc.
But for KIOSK/internet productions I think it is fine just to use the scopes in FCPX to “legalize” the video. Possible even DVD/Bluray, but I like to see those on external Pro monitors and scopes before I commit to having them reproduced, or burning a bunch on our “Robot” BluRay/DVD burner/printer.
Olof Ekbergh
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[Bill Davis] “Look at any current page of modern station delivery standards. They want a content clip only. No bars, no tone, no slate. Just the file please.
I don’t like it one bit either – but that’s the way it is.”
True, I have mostly file-only deliveries for the last three years, but a surprising number of broadcast companies still want B&T. And, for many International deliveries, it is still a must.
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[Bill Davis] “The ISCII code and the clip – that’s all the broadcast industry want.”
Definitely NOT true. I make regular file deliveries to the US division of a very large International Broadcaster, and they require B&T.
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