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Quality control (QC) software for Mac OS X
Hi all,
I’m looking for a QC software for Mac OS X. I’ve had a dispute recently about some uncompressed video quality, so is there any standard way to test it and say it’s good or not.
So far, I was able to find three solutions, all for Windows:
1) Semaphore
https://news.creativecow.net/story/859032
https://www.inlethd.com/?q=products/semaphore/tech_talk
https://www.technicolor-eds.com/case_studies/inlet.asp2) Certify from Tektronix
https://www2.tek.com/cmswpt/psdetails.lo … 5260&lc=EN
https://www.cnrood.com/PHP/files/video_pdf/Tektronix_Cerify_lite.pdf3) Hamlet Reel-Check
https://www.testequipmentdepot.com/hamlet/vidscope/reel-check.htmThere are also some hardware plus software solutions, like AmberFin
https://www.amberfin.com/solutions/quality-control-and-review/Unfortunately, I didn’t find nothing for Mac. Any ideas?
Thank a lot.
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2 Replies
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I’m not aware of any, but of course no matter what you do, the network / station always has the final say.
For instance, one network we delivered to had the standard of -20db for reference tone but then also insisted that our show audio also be at -20 with peaks no higher than -16. This is completely ridiculous and even their own specs did not specify audio that low. But that’s what QC wanted so that’s what they got for all 5 episodes.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR Apple Color Training DVD available now!
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Hi Walter, many thanks for your replay. You’re right, the network always has the final say, but it’s not the case here.
As a distributor, I’m sitting in the middle, with the producer on one side and the buyer on the other. Of course, the producer always delivers the “incredibly good looking materials, from brand new telecinema transfer supervised by the director in person”. And the buyer sometimes says it’s junk 😉
During the Betacam reign it was more or less easy to check. I used to put in the contract the name of some big and respected lab and both parts were OK to let it decide if yes or no the materials meet the broadcast standards, should we have any problem regarding material quality.
Now we’re going tapeless, so I must find a new formula in case of. In the present case, the producer has delivered an uncompressed file to the buyer for DVD release. Now the buyer says his lab says there are dropped frames, audio sync errors and so on. The original file has been checked by our colleagues, it seems to be OK, but the labs insists it’s bad and the buyer wants to work only with this facility. We are in trouble ;-(
I can of course continue to put in the contract some lab’s name, but I thought there are new ways to control the video file quality for less. For example, I can use some software with a known presets and join the report to the file with its MD5 checksum. So, if the QC software says the file is OK and the file hasn’t been altered, it IS OK.
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