Broadcast Colors problem---help, please

PossibilityX wrote on 7/13/2004, 11:03 AM
I’m using the Broadcast Colors FX for the first time. My problem is, absolutely NOTHING seems to be happening when I apply it. There is no difference in the appearance of the clip on the split-screen preview window nor in the histogram. This is true whether I apply the effect to the track or to individual events, and no matter how I change the settings within the effect. I toggle the effect on and off as the clip plays to see if I notice a difference, but there’s nothing (and this is for clips the histogram shows to contain illegal colors!)

What the hell am I doing wrong? How can I get Broadcast Colors to work? Any help will be appreciated.

Comments

johnmeyer wrote on 7/13/2004, 2:06 PM
Most of the time you won't see any difference because this fX only does something if your video has colors or intensities that are considered "illegal" for broadcast over the air. Such video usually results from overexposed highlights, but can also happen from oversaturated colors, and sometimes from underexposed shadow areas. Also, even if you have video that has one of these problems, you may not see any difference on your computer screen when you apply the Broadcast Colors fX. However, you will definitely see the results on an external monitor connected via the Firewire pass-through of your camcorder or DV deck.
farss wrote on 7/13/2004, 3:03 PM
Please be aware of one limitation I've found with this FX. It is only applied when Vegas believes there is something to apply it to. For example if you have a dissolve or a fade to black Vegas decides there is no video at that point, applies no FX and you'll get frames of absolute black that are outside legal.
Two ways to fix this, either render everything out to a new avi and apply the BC FX to that or else run a track of black at 16,16,16 as your bottom track of video.
However if you are going out to DVD, ignore the legality issue, seems the DVD players make it legal anyway, if you start by legalising it your DVD will look a little darker.
PossibilityX wrote on 7/13/2004, 4:49 PM
Farss:

I wasn't aware of the fact that DVD players will transform illegal colors to legal. This project is going to DVD (commercially manufactured) so maybe I was worried about nothing.

My only question remains, the histogram DID show illegality toward the black side...and applying Broadcast Colors didn't seem to change anything. Is this because changes will only show on the histogram AFTER the event is rendered? I hadn't rendered the events...just thought the histogram would change to reflect changes BEFORE the render. Maybe that's my problem!

Johnmeyer, thanks for the heads up RE: previewing on an external studio monitor. I intend to do that in the next few days; thought I'd save some time by applying the BC FX before renting the monitor!

HPV wrote on 7/14/2004, 9:23 AM
Just adding the Broadcast Colors filter won't do it. You need to select one of the presets. Also, you'll want to have the 7.5 IRE setup and Studio RGB boxes checked.
Woundn't limiting your NTSC signal to 7.5-100 IRE values make the encode easier for the MPEG encoder?

Craig H.