is broadcast-safe color correction necessary for non-broadcast?

[Andy Mees]

[SammyClam] I’ve started pulling down the whites and saturation where necessary but find it extremely time consuming.

it is time consuming Sammy, but this is part of the job .. its this kind of attention to detail and professionalism that we get paid for

[SammyClam] I’d be quite content to leave it as is — and legalize later if I indeed make a sale –and start burning DVDs. But will others run into problems on their TVs or settop players such as color bleeding or signal distortion?

yes indeed, broadcast or otherwise, if this is going to be viewed on a standard consumer TV then you need to legalize the levels or you will run into trouble

quoting now from Andrew Baliss’s article on Ken Stones FCP website

“It is important to get to know the color correction tools and start to develop an eye for color. But, just as important, we will also need to consider other factors (and I’m not talking about whether the client has sugar for their coffee). Specifically, we will at all times need to be aware that our final color corrected images are “broadcast legal”. Whatever we do, our final concern is that these beautiful new images won’t be rejected by the broadcaster. Even if the program is not going to be broadcast, but distributed on DVD or another medium, we still have to keep these goals in mind for the images to be accurately represented on consumer level televisions. Sometimes our color correction has less to do with creating a look, and more to do with making it legal.”

you can read the full article here:
https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/cc_legal_fcp3.html

you can also find more than you wanted to know here:
https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/video_levels_nattress.html

hope it helps
Andy