Brightness, Contrast, 7.5IRE settings?

CLWaldroff wrote on 1/10/2009, 9:16 AM

In coming from Premiere 6.5 I'm trying to make sure that my video settings are correct because before I used to have the problem where if I kept rendering video it would look more "washed out" and dull with every pass. Obviously my contrast or IRE settings we're correct. So I need some advice on how to make sure everything is right when rendering.

I use a Canon XHA1 right now, and I'm just using the default settings for now in AV mode. Is there a camera setting you think I should adjust? What about applying a bit of brightness or contrast to my video in Vegas? What do you guys do?

Comments

GlennChan wrote on 1/10/2009, 10:32 PM

Record with proper digital levels. The factory settings on your camera will do this. *Don't* go in and change the pedestal settings, or settings that are misleadingly labelled 7.5 IRE setup or whatever (this will engage fake digital setup and try to make two wrongs equal a right; it's only useful in extremely rare situations and otherwise dangerous).
http://www.glennchan.info/articles/technical/setup/75IREsetup.html

2- The Vegas video preview may not show your image correctly.

see
http://www.glennchan.info/articles/vegas/colorspaces/colorspaces.html

CLWaldroff wrote on 1/12/2009, 10:34 AM

Thanks Glen. I've read that article a couple of times, and although I understand "most" of it, I'm still a little unsure. In the past I used a GL2 with Premiere 6.5. Everything was on factory settings but when I would export the same video clip (say with minor additions) it would get more and more washed out, so obviously something was either wrong with my editing or export settings.

I just want to make sure, with my new XHA1 and Vegas that I'm editing and exporting properly. If what you say is right, my camera settings would be fine . . . but what about Vegas? Should I use the waveform and vectorscope in Vegas and run some tests? But what do I record and how to test it?

GlennChan wrote on 1/12/2009, 12:30 PM

You can test by looking at your end product.

Worst comes to worst, the following shotgun approach would work:
You can convert from studio RGB --> computer, the other way around, or do nothing. Try all three and output that to whatever your destination format is. e.g. throw color bars from Vegas on, color bars from your camera, and segments from your project onto your target format. Then view it and see which looks right without any detail being clipped.

2- The waveform and vectorscope in Vegas won't help to figure things out because you would have to set them up right in the first place. Otherwise they are inaccurate or misleading. e.g. if you change the settings for the video scopes, they will show very different levels... even though your footage has not changed at all.