I just had a film projected in BluRay at the Indianapolis Film Festival and they did not use the DCI projector, which I was told could only be used with XYZ color space (Digital Cinema Package) material. They had a separate (but excellent ) 1080 DLP projector that relied on the provided BluRay from the filmmakers to provide correct levels.

What I provided was 16-235 and looked great. A big reason it looked better than many of the films was because of what I've learned on this forum about Vegas' handling of levels.

Odds are it's a smaller retail projector (but bigger then we'd buy for our hoses) with a BD player hooked up.

Full color is no problem. The problem arises when they take your video and run it through another app, then make a disc of that.

In Christmas 2007 I helped with a show in Branson, MO. shown at the Grand Palace. The backdrops were projective videos all editing in Vegas, full color. LOOKED AWESOME. They ran it off of DVD I believe.

EDIT: real blacks and whites look AMAZING on a big screen, not like the muted stuff on TV.

I've read many of the threads here on LEVELS.. but, it's not really sticking to me....

Basically, I calibrate my editing monitor AND TV with the same setup source discs and files, then what I see/edit usually looks right on my TV. For levels I use the SONY LEVELS with the preset: COMPUTER RGB TO STUDIO RGB and that seems to squish everything to make it inbetween 16 and 235, then I adjust contrast so it looks comparable to other commercial souces like movies trailers. I get it as close as I can with my limited experience and knowledge - and lack of full time paid camera, colorists and post production people like big studios have.

With that do in the pinch time I have to get this out?

And where should my audio PEAK and RMS be?
Thanks for any/all help. You guys rock!

If you have a time crunch, based on what I've seen of your samples on the forum I think you'll be fine with that workflow. You seem to have a good eye with your treatment of your videos and if your levels are correct I think you'll be happy.

in The Happy Friar's comment, I'm not sure if his "full color" reference was to 0-255 levels, but in my single film festival experience a few of the filmmakers who tried to stretch levels were very disappointed with the projection. Hard clipping on the highlights. It may differ with the venue and the projector, but in my case 16-235 was the ticket.

I provided audio levels as I would for any DVD or BluRay master - actually a tad more conservative. I kept all peaks below -1 and used a Multiband compressor (Waves C4 with "optical" response and light compression) then a soft limiter (10:1 with threshhold at -3db). This was a documentary with interviews and location audio from a multitude of sources and quality, and light occasional music. The mix was tight without sounding "TV squashed."

in The Happy Friar's comment, I'm not sure if his "full color" reference was to 0-255 levels, but in my single film festival experience a few of the filmmakers who tried to stretch levels were very disappointed with the projection. Hard clipping on the highlights. It may differ with the venue and the projector, but in my case 16-235 was the ticket.

Yes, I was referring to 0-255. I do everything in 0-255 and I've never gotten a complaint. Sometimes I CC so things look the way they're wanted, but most of the time I CC so it looks better, not just clipping levels. However, my levels are almost always just above 0 & below 255.

If they're clipping it's because the way they played the video automatically stretches (IE the projector is stretching everything out) OR they ran the video through something else (The local 48 hour film runs everything through FCP first sometimes it messes with the color/interlacing, depending on how the original video was produced, but my Vegas produced videos never had color or interlacing issues).

If you want the full range of your video preserved in projection (as much as it can be), BluRay levels should conform to 16-235.
That's what all BluRay decoders expect (B.T. 709).

BluRay levels should conform to 16-235. That's what all BluRay decoders expect (B.T. 709). - musicvid

+1

BD/DVD range is 016-235... otherwise clipping may occur.

that might be the spec but the .vob's I've made & just pulled in to Vegas had levels outside that and didn't clip when shown on a HDTV or via projector.