Does (Broadcast Safe) filter order matter?

[Walter Biscardi]

[Michael Gissing] “I got sick and tired of the broadcast safe not being safe after render.”

In my experience, that’s a false reading on the FCP Scopes after render. The FCP scopes would show some video levels over 100 after render, but our shows never failed QC so I know that’s a false reading.

When we had a Tektronix WFM-700 scope in here for testing, I confirmed that the levels did, indeed, stay legal after render.

Of course, you can avoid FCP altogether and just use Color which is what we use for the bulk of our color correction and legalization these days.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
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[Michael Gissing]

I got a reject so I never trust the broadcast safe or RGB limiter. There were overshoots on edges on a shot sharpened with the Lyric unsharp plugin. Broadcast safe looked good before render and not after. The shot was picked up for peak white spikes over 100 by a broadcast QC.

Since moving to Color, I haven’t had any issues as it does a proper broadcast legal.

[Rafael Amador]

One of the problems we have when talking about legalizing signal, is that we can not monitor what we are trying to legalize. In FC and Color we can monitor the Luma and the RGB values, but in FC we can not monitor the “Chroma envelope” and only part of the Composite signal. In Color we can see the Chroma level, but no the Composite.

The BS filter in Color is more simple because is designed to be used (for professionals) after a proper Color Correction. Is based in a classic “Proc Amp” filter and tells you what you are legalizing: Luma, Chroma and the Composite signal. The RGB legal is done by default.
There is not customizable clipping but just slash the signal.

The BS filter in FC have been designed with very little professional scope. Basically is to avoid the pain of CC to customers that don’t want to do it.
Also is not very clear what is legalized here: Luma, RGB, and “Saturation”.
But careful: This filter doesn’t use the Broadcast concept of Saturation (Chroma Vector), but the concept of the HSV filters: Composite.
The filter lacks an independent Chroma control. The “Saturation” slide affects to the Luma and Chroma.
Is a confusing mix of overlapping filters, but anyway should works.
Rafael:
PS: Sure this filter should be used always the last one.
In the Color Forum few days ago, was an interesting thread about “CC with the BS filter ON or OFF”.

http://www.nagavideo.com

[Stephen De vere]

Walter,
“In my experience, that’s a false reading on the FCP Scopes after render. The FCP scopes would show some video levels over 100 after render, but our shows never failed QC so I know that’s a false reading. ”

So the FCP scopes are fundamentally flawed and ought not be used for broadcast work ?

I thought the sampling rate had improved in later FCP releases but perhaps still not enough – maybe just too processor intensive even in still mode to measure every pixel ?

[Steve Smith]

Hi Walter,

Your “recipe” sounds useful, but your link doesn’t seem to work anymore. Would you kindly repost the link to your blog entry on Broadcast Safe Filter usage?

Thanks,
Steve