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Video keeps failing harding test – working with stock – HELP NEEDED!!!
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No. Normal speed/ The first time it failed I had some footage of a car speeding down a street (on a totally different part of the video, so unrelated) Sped up X 500! Obviously, that had to be taken out.
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What about colors? Never used a Harding test before, but according to the info on their website (https://www.hardingfpa.com/), it tests for luminance AND color. Red and blue in particular. You could ask if they would send you a screenshot of the graph that it generates, to see if it’s luminance or color that’s causing your video to fail.
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In the report it breaks down when and where these instances happen. It gives timecode and the value (as far as I know from 0.1 to 5). It gives red, spatial and luminance in a column. Mine is just a problem of luminance.
Blue, strangely – isn’t mentioned. -
Hi Lawrence
I’ve recently joined MTV Studios and wondered if you reached a resolution with this? I may or may not be able to shed some light.
(PS: Hi Rob!)
Thanks
Philip Hatch.
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Hi,
Yes I finally got it sorted. A company in Leeds called the finishing school (who did the digi beta transfers) managed to repair the footage. Some kind of luminance problem, I forget exactly, its been a while… Cost about £200 (!!!) but the band wanted it on, so they paid.
A total pain in the arse if I’m honest. I seriously doubted the MTVs harding machine as I sent the same tape in twice and received two different results, the lady at the time in charge of it (Dee) claimed it must be a new tape. In the end getting it fixed and put on a brand new tape seemed to work.
Despite the charge, the finishing school were great and got the tape back really quick. Probably worth mentioning them should any other promo companies / directors in the north of the UK have similar problems.
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I’ve just come across this having had similar problems myself. There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to why my video was failing as it was due to patterns rather than flashes in my case.
In the end I just used the guys at hardingtest.com to resolve the issue, uploaded my footage to them and they got it fixed, mastered it to digital betacam then delivered to the broadcaster.
Still racking my brains as to what went wrong though!
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This might be a bit easier to sort out now. Clearcast has a new online service, where you can test your files and get the results immediately. If it fails, it will tell you exactly where and what the problem is, so that you can fix it.
https://www.onlineflashtest.com
Free until 7 December (2010).
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Ah yes, seems very similar to https://www.hardingtest.com but double the price and they don’t offer a service to fix the problems?
Still, worth taking advantage while it’s free! Thanks Eleanor
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It is more or less instantaneous though!
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I wish I had seen these sites all that time ago, would have saved me some money.
I sent my video to a UK post house called Finishing School, based in leeds. They primarily do digibeta transfers (which is what MTV uk broadcast from). They ran it through their harding machine and fixed the problem.
It was literally 2 shots, one at about 4 seconds long and the other at about 2 seconds. It cost me £50 for the privilege. Despite the cost, they did a great job and turned it around in a day.
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