-
Tone in FCP
Hello –
My boss has 10 years AVID editing experience, but no FCP experience. I have 2 years FCP editing experience. We are running FCP directly to the Sony DVCAM deck via firewire.
When I put bars and tone in my sequence, my boss tells me to lower the decibel from -12 (fcp default for tone) to -20. He says that FCP “has it all wrong, and that all bars and tone should be set at -20”. This is the decibel level that tone plays out of the Avid, which runs the sound through a mixer before reaching the deck.
Most of our projects are non-broadcast (though we’ve done some spots), but I would like to know for my own edification, what is the deal here? How should I use bars and tone for my shows.
-Justin
-
25 Replies
-
If you do a Search Posts for “bars and tone” you’ll get a slew of posts on this (set the search for “all active posts” – not just the last 2 weeks).
pvw
Phil Van West
Terra Nova Productions
Denver, CO
Video Production/Post-ProductionG5 DP 2.5GHz / 4.5 GB RAM / OS 10.4.8 / FCP 5.1.2 / QT 7.1.3
-
The Dub House that dubbed my DVCAM tapes to Beta for broadcast advised me to do the same.
-
-20 tone is correct for broadcast masters
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
-
If a station receives a tape at -12 don’t they set it up to their level? As long as the audio isn’t clipping. In both my DVCAM and Beta decks the output directly out of FCP at -12 matches perfectly the preset input level on both decks. If I set FCP tone to -20 then I’m certain the record level presets on the Beta would be way low.
Also, audio discs we get from both audio houses here seem to line up exaclty with -12 in FCP.
Hmmmm, curious about this one… -12 would be my guess.
Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media -
If your film will be played through a theater like audio system , -20db will be great, but if is to be played in TV or computers -12dbs is perfect. -20dbs doesn’t mean that we are recording the audio very low, but that the difference between the average level and the peaks is very hight To reproduce all this range you need a good sound system. When you broadcast audio with 20dbs dinamic range, this must to be compressed on broadcasting.Normal TV sets can not reproduce sucha wide range. If you set it to a normal level you will loose the most subtle sounds, and if you set the volume to listen these subtle sound the peaks will break and distort.
When you set bars and tone in a Betacam tape you set it a 0dbs, but Betacam use analogic audio and this level is related with the signal you can record in a magnetic tape without saturate the tape. In analogic you can overstep the 0db , in digital when you arrive to 0dbs you got nothing.
To put some bars and tone in the beguining of the movie is a good policy because will give the best refference to any posterior adjutment, both audio and video.
salud,
rafael -
[Rich Rubasch] “Hmmmm, curious about this one… -12 would be my guess.”
If you deliver -12 tone to a broadcast network they will reject it and send the tape back to you. We deliver to both US and European networks right now and all have -20 as their spec. that’s an easy thing to fail in Quality Control.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
-
By and large broadcasters are using SDI throughout their plants. They are geared to seeing tone on digital decks (Digital Betacam, DVCAM, DVCPRO, etc.) at a unity level, which is -20db. Yes, they can adjust it lower, but -20 is the norm.
Sincerely,
OliverOliver Peters
Post-Production & Interactive Media
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Oliver Peters] “Yes, they can adjust it lower, but -20 is the norm.”
Yes they CAN, but in our experience they won’t. It falls on the Post House to deliver proper spec masters and if tone it out, that will fail quality control from our experience.
When we first started testing our HD workflow, that was the first red flag on our first test master sent to quality control. “Tone is too high, -12db, and must be re-set to -20db” Easy fix on our end and since then, all of our broadcast masters are set to -12db digital.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
-
No disagreement here.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters
Post-Production & Interactive Media
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
What I was told a long time ago by several post houses here is that -12 is for analog masters and -20 for digital. Since all my tapes for TV have gone out on Beta SP at -12 over the last 6 years to stations in all the Western states, not one has been kicked back.
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up