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Who uses ‘broadcast safe’?
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[Liam Lawyer] “For someone who seems to have lots of issue with logic, you seem to lack it in your workflow for color correction. Logically it should be the last step in your edit, not the first or middle”
Where in my posts did I mention I was colour correcting before I had finished the edit? That IS the last thing I do or should I say the second last thing. The last thing I do is play it thru looking at the Tektronix waveform and vectorscopes and making sure FCP hasn’t messed something up!
And as for ‘having issues with logic’, that is the GREAT thing about ‘logic’ – there is no gray area; it either is, or isn’t. Well at least that is how it is from where I come from which is Vulcan.
Baz
What would I do without the ‘UNDO’ button!!!!
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https://support.apple.com/kb/TA24160?viewlocale=en_US
I understand your point. However, maybe you want to use it to bring down overexposed levels and then tweak again with another filter. Not everyone who uses the filter is really sending the project to broadcast.
What if a filter did not follow the FCP rule of which filter overrides the others? That would be inconsistent and therefore illogical. It’s a small thing to bring this filter into the dominant position.
Perhaps there could be an option to automatically shift the position of certain filters so they remain dominant? Or a pop up warning when levels exceed broadcast safe if the broadcast safe filter has previously been applied?
OSX 10.5.3; MAC PRO 2 X 2.8 GHZ (EARLY 2008); FCP Suite; Sony camcorder vx2000/pd170;Canon xl2; Pana consumer cams; write professionally for a variety of media;teach video production in L.A.
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What is beyond ridiculous is that camera manufacturers produce cameras that do not conform to broadcast specifications, that use formats that are not suitable for production, that encode and deliver media that has to be reprocessed before production can continue because they are too stupid or too egotistical or just plain pig-headed to understand that shooting video is just taking moving picture postcards. Unless it’s assembled it’s meaningless. Their arrogance and stupidity is boundless. Personally I think all software producers should finally say it’s enough and stop pandering to the relentless parade of proprietary formats that these SOBs come up with.
All the best,
Tom
Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP6,” “Basic Training for FCS2” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Author: “Final Cut Pro 5 Editing Essentials” and “Final Cut Express 4 Editing Workshop” -
A couple of observations. Firstly broadcast safe is a dud filter. Levels can be legal with this as last filter until render and then levels do not render legal. I stopped using this filter years ago and prefer RGB limit which is much more accurate post render, although not infallible.
Secondly Baz,how can a smart filter on a clip know about the other layers like supers etc which, depending on composite modes, can send a legal clip over. Putting a limit filter on a nest is the only alternative but really, the only logical way to broadcast limit is on the final SDI output. If this can be a master setting in FCP or an option on an I/O card, this to me is the only logical way to deal with this. A clip based option is never going to be satisfactory.
My preference would be for a hardware limiter as part of the I/O card.
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[Tom Wolsky] “What is beyond ridiculous is that camera manufacturers produce cameras that do not conform to broadcast specifications”
So what happens if a broadcast legal camera output is graded and the white level is pushed up? And why should the dynamic range of a shot be camera limited? Why not give the grader the option to bring down peak whites that aren’t clipped in camera?
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Hey Baz
Can’t agree mate. Apple (or whoever) provides us with the tools, but its up to us to use them properly. There’s absolutely nothing whatsoever ridiculous with the concept and implementation of Broadcast Safe as a filter and its function as such … yes of course it could have been implemented differently such as it is in Color, but the same could be sad of pretty much any function in any app. I’d class an independent Broadcast Safe function as a feature request … but there are so many other feature requests that I’d want to see implemented as a greater priority (including track level and output level filter handling, which could be used to the same effect but would offer far greater flexibility as a function) :/
Just my 2c
Andy -
[Tom Wolsky] “What is beyond ridiculous is that camera manufacturers produce cameras that do not conform to broadcast specifications, that use formats that are not suitable for production,”
Not really following here Tom. D.P’s should have the freedom to shoot as they see fit for the project and direction at hand.
Also, not every project is shot for broadcast. Especially in the case of the Panasonic cameras, you can do a lot of film gamma type of work so having the camera hard clipped to broadcast standards would be useless for those units.
The cameras are not the problem, it’s the operators who don’t take the time to learn them correctly and shoot properly for the task at hand. I have yet to run across a format that is unsuitable for production, heck we just up-converted VHS to HD two weeks ago and it actually worked great for the project it was used for… a broadcast piece.
HDV, DV, DVCAM, DVCPro HD, BetaSP, BetaSX, IMX, DigiBeta, HDCAM, VHS, XDCAM and some JVC consumer HD camera that shoots MPEG-4 and we extracted the data using HDMI. We’ve used them all at one time or another. XDCAM and the EX cameras are my least favorite, but they work. I
would not consider any of those ill-suited for production as they all serve their needs. Some are ill-suited for POST production, but that’s why we have the Kona boards here so we can convert everything to ProRes or Uncompressed before we start the edit.
About the only format I have not used in the shop yet is the AVC-Intra codec from Panasonic and I can’t wait until we can switch all our guys shooting DVCPro HD to that format.
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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I agree with you. See my reply to Walter.
All the best,
Tom
Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP6,” “Basic Training for FCS2” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Author: “Final Cut Pro 5 Editing Essentials” and “Final Cut Express 4 Editing Workshop” -
Whoever mentioned Broadcast Safe should be a Sequence Setting, that was a good idea… but what if you only wanted to apply to certain clips w/in your sequence and not all, etc?
It makes the most sense as a filter, and the easiest way to understand filters (for me) is to think back to grade school math – The PEMDAS rule. 4×3-2 is not the same as 3-2×4. Order of operations.
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I agree that it’s the shooter responsibility to keep the video to the specification for which it’s intended. If they want to blow it out then it should be available.
Your list is exactly what I’m talking about, and it gets worse when you go through all the non-tape formats. Every camera that comes out is a new format, many of them using codecs that were not intended for production.
I abhor the dichotomy between production and post-production. There is only production. It is unacceptable that the first part of production is separated from and works with video formats that are not suitable for the second part of production. How many of the formats that you work with are you converting to ProRes? Basically everything you do is being reprocessed. That just seems ridiculous to me. I understand technology changes, but every friggin’ camera, consumer and pro, seems to have its own standard.
I love the cynicism of the sig line. “I love standards. There are so many to choose from.”
That’s what it is now, and it just seems ridiculous to me. Yes, I got off on a tangent here.
I agree the shooter should ensure the video is in spec. And yes, the broadcast filter has to be the last in the chain. The filter has to be used correctly, or it doesn’t work correctly. That’s the way it is, like everything else in software. I’m not sure recoding the Broadcast Safe filter to work the way Baz would like is worth the effort. There are far, far more pressing things those working in Apple pro apps can spend their time on.
All the best,
Tom
Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP6,” “Basic Training for FCS2” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Author: “Final Cut Pro 5 Editing Essentials” and “Final Cut Express 4 Editing Workshop”
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