I like this a lot. It reminds me of how Adobe Camera RAW shows clipping in Photoshop. I would be super comfortable with this. Since some out of bounds areas might be quite small and hard to notice at full playback, optionally putting a yellow warning triangle up on frames with clipping could be a good option.

NewBlue has a plug-in that checks legal levels. The web page and demo video do not seem as informative as they could be.
http://www.newbluefx.com/product/essential-tools/video-essentials-7/legal-level

Yes, this looks just like what the data sets are establishing in my video camera as well as in still photo imagery - all of this in Canon equipment and very useful info to have at hand.

I'd suggest going the full hog unless you add an "aperture" and/or "radius" setting to the bounds as done in high end cameras for zebras.

Here's what I'm talking about:

]

The problem I find with zebras and peaking is they can be distracting and it's easy to forget they're on. False colour metering changes the entire image making it less likely someone will inadvertently rendering out a video with this FX applied.

Bob.

inadvertently rendering out a video with this FX applied

Why not just an additional type of scope, or its own window separate from the scopes. A preview monitor/device is likely full resolution so I guess that is beneficial.

If there was a ready-made Photoshop action do do this, I would certainly be interested in playing with it. I'm not adept enough to write it myself, however.

how to utilise in a practical manner i'm not sure, but i certainly like the idea.

+1

Thanks for expanding on the idea.

Just to expand a bit on the Final Cut approach. It only shows on the preview screen. It does not affect the video or output, it is an indicator the same as grid or wireframe.

They only have the Zebra for hot whites, but I would think if you could find one, you could find the dark blacks as well.

NormanPCN said:
[I]" Why not just an additional type of scope, or its own window separate from the scopes"[/I]

That would be nice but I suspect that SCS would need to write that, the intent here is to provide something that a 3rd party could supply in the form of a plugin.
.
Just as an aside some of the serious CC tools that don't run in Vegas come with their own scopes and metering. At the pointy end of the business all the metering in done is hardware boxes and/or in the monitors themselves. All well and good if you've got deep pockets.

Bob.

A simple solution with simple directions is better than a fancy solution any day, imo.
I agree, let's leave the fancy plugins to commercial third-party developers.

Would this be of more benefit than our existing scopes?

Paul.

The existing scopes a) don't give you info in more than 1 dimension, and b) are not overlayed on the footage, so this is way better for quick visual feedback. I'd love to see this feature.

I imagine if Vegas had this, I'd find myself rolling off fewer specular highlights and just letting them be.

" Why not just an additional type of scope,

Rather than having additional scope, how about some kind of marking or eyedropper alike in preview, then that selected point / mark will be noticeable in all scopes ?

"Rather than having additional scope, how about some kind of marking or eyedropper alike in preview, then that selected point / mark will be noticeable in all scopes ?"

I don't understand your suggestion. The Vectorscope and Histogram don't give you any dimensional info, so are irrelevant. The Waveform and RGB Parade only give info in the x dimension, and they already clearly show clipping, and what "column" it's in.

I think what set is referring to is Photoshop behavior, where dragging the point around updates all readouts and displays dynamically. More of an analysis, than a leveling function to my thoughts..

How about Clipping MARKERs that are generated? Gary's Audio Tool produces Markers to Beats, maybe this approach could generate Markers that register Clipping?

Grazie

Now, that's a great idea, Grazie!
I think clipping regions might be even more useful and economical.
Thanks for thinking about this.

You're welcome! - I find that the more intuitive the tool the better, and those that are experimenting in getting better tools, that provide us with ways to get the best from our creations is what will be adapted, are the people that "Get-It".

Taking your Tool further, iZotope has a tool that "learns" noise levels that allow it to separate "noise" from say Voice. Just wondering is that would be possible here?

Very exciting . . .

Grazie

Ah, I see you've edited OUT from your reply my Marker idea in favou for Regions. Yes I like it. Even more URGENT and "special" would be an additionally auto Mask created Event that could be OVERLAYED on a track above that would give the Editor/Grader a Go-To Event to immediately target it.

Grazie

Clipped video is not the same as clipped audio.
Video shot outside of a properly lit studio is very commonly clipped, the sample scene seems reasonably well exposed and yet inevitably some part of the frame is outside both legal limits and probably clipped. For most, myself included, setting regions or markers based on the detection of pixels that are over/under is going to result in a very messy timeline.

Clipped audio by comparison isn't something that should be happening.

If you try to apply some smarts to this then it'd get messy. Clipped audio is generally defined as a certain number of consecutive samples at 0dBFS, the same approach to video means the detector has to do a lot of work. The EX series of cameras and others do have over/under exposure warnings but that's a quite different thing.

Bob.

musicvid10's indicator can do its' job well, but added with Grazie's idea of Clipping markers and automate masking can do solve a clipping problem issue..., although maybe there should be some settings of 'how large the clipping problem' is to add tag for marker/region.

My eyedropper tool idea is exactly like Photoshop's behavior. The original idea is from HVR-Z5's Advanced Histogram feature:

Advanced Histogram


Source: HVR-Z5U brochure page 9

So, when pointed, it will be noticed in all scopes, and we can do color grade or correcting focusing for that part. Useful for complex image scenes.

I like the idea of SCOPES on the Preview screen would be great!

Grazie

I've done something similar some years ago. It's a very roughly working solution but it did what it was meant for. I put two secondary color corrections in a chain (called it "zebra") and used it as output fx for controlling. It can be shared via a Vegas project file but the linked one only is compatible with Vegas Pro 12 and Vegas Pro 13.

-> Zebra

If you wanna try, download the zipped file "zebra", unzip, open the Vegas project with Vegas Pro 12 or 13 and put some video into the timeline. Areas brighter than RGB level 235 are indicated red, areas darker than RGB level are indicated as blue. You find the fx chain in the Output FX of the preview window.