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Television Playback Warping / Waving / Rolling on Left Edge
Hi,
I have searched and searched for a solution to my problem with no luck yet so here goes my first post. Not sure if it should be in this thread or not.
Project:
DVD for viewing mainly on common PAL telvision sets along with compatibility for pc playback and other tv sets.
Problem:
Television Playback Warping / Waving / Rolling on Left Edge
Description:
I have made a short animation (logo flying over a static landscape background) and only when played back on the television set does it distort slightly on the left edge of the screen always. The effect can best be described as edge wobbles or imagine a flat ground surface with a ball rolling underneath it. This occurs as the logo flashes bright in one section and then again shortly later as the logo zooms in and turns. The rest of the time its flying over the landscape background all is well.
I have searched and tried everything i can think of from colour changes and fields and render settings etc etc etc but nothing makes any difference. For example i have rendered all forms of video from 3d app including individual frame images and composited all in premiere pro with the same end results.
I thought it might just be my television but have tried a test dvd on another set and the same occured. Note that commercial dvds and similar introduction logo animations play back just fine on my tv unlike my own creation. Also note that just one other dvd i watched the other day had a similar intro logo effect but the movie was fine. Finally i have noticed one station on my set playing an old movie today which was a bit smaller than the screen (having black edges all around it) and the black edges were wavy (vertically) on both sides of the picture similar to my problem.
The closest I have coem to any help or similar problem reference always mentions colours to be a possible cause but I have tried washing it all out to a really ugly demo but safe and still it occurs (although can be minimised slightly or perhaps just less visible to the eye).
In summary I really need to stop the background from warping as the logo passes over it due to the background being an arial image of rela land which looks unreal in the sections and stages where the land rises (the rolling ball underneath effect).
Does anyone know what is causing such problems and can help?
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3 Replies
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You may get get an occasional (small) warping in CRT television because it basically can’t handle the brightness ratio (very bright next to very dark). You might see this happens in explosion scenes for example, but it’s so fast that you don’t notice it. If it is noticeable you have a level issue.
What you first need to do is make sure that your levels are legal. You’ll have to look at the YC waveform in Premiere, (or even better an external Waveform monitor) and make sure that your levels fall between 0 and 100 IRE (since you are in Pal).
Also look at the color saturation and make sure that it falls within legal limits.
Finally, you may have to modify your animation so that the background is a little brighter or your logo a little darker.
Cheers,
Vince
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Thanks for your advice which sounds spot on after further testing.
The logo moves at a medium rate over the landscape background which is of real earth (darkish blues and greens mainly with half ocean visible next to land). It is nopticiable at this speed too much for my liking.
The logo was a bright silver and with light focused directly in parts of the animation it turns to bright white and yes that is when the artifacts start appearing. I also have a explosion like sun flare at the beginning which also casues the distortion.
I tried changing the logo to a dark grey and the effect was still evident but only very minor which would be ok but the amount of darkening to the grey is not acceptable (the logo is not in the right colour now). I also changed the flash flare from bright white to soft grey and green but it still has the same effect (no change).
I also found that while the animation was within the safe title screen areas (just) before at closest zoom i tried making it very small (50% of safe title window) and dark grey which eliminated the problem altogether.
I now am frustrated as while i can lighten the background slightly and darken the silver specular logo slighly and even reduce the size slightly which all help I still have the ripple at just one point for a couple of seconds and any darker or lighter on the objects is beyond the corporate look or real world look this project. Also i have seen many other commercial 3d animations that use similar mixes of colours and strenghts work just fine.
I guess i need to keep playing around and testing the things you have mentioned.
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Yes, it’s always a tuff balance, especially with animation, because there isn’t really a good way to monitor your design as you would a camera shoot.
Hard edges are also an issue, especially with NTSC. MSN has a web page that allows you to find safe RGB colors targeted for TV; that should come in pretty handy.
https://developer.msntv.com/Tools/Colorpickrgd.asp
Also, try to avoid sudden changes from extreme brightness to extreme darkness.
Good luck,
Vince
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