OT: Poor color going from miniDV to BetaSP

SeaJohn wrote on 11/8/2004, 6:03 PM

I just did a commercial, going from Vegas to a miniDV, and took that to a local place to get it duplicated over to BetaSP. The TV station took that and sucked it into their servers. (The local stations here say they can't take miniDV)

When the commercial aired, the colors were very dull; the colors of the surrounding commercials look fine. I can play the miniDV back, and everything looks vibrant, as it should. I have no way to check the Beta tape.

I thought that copies to BetaSP were supposed to be near-perfect; but that seems to the most likely point at which the video lost its luster. I'm going to talk to the station and dupe house tomorrow, but has anybody experienced this and have any pointers?

Thanks

Comments

Spot|DSE wrote on 11/8/2004, 6:36 PM

Did the dupe house run it through a proc amp? Long cables? anything else that wasn't a straight dump?
I do MiniDV to SP a lot, no loss that's of visible nature. I also do straight Print to SP as well, using the Convergent Designs converter. (it's my new love, I'm enthralled with this sucka!)

You shouldn't be seeing desaturation at all, not if this is done right.

Chanimal wrote on 11/8/2004, 8:37 PM

What is the most common accepted tape format for commercial broadcast? Is it BetaSP, or is something else more common? Of is there something better and still accepted at most locations?

What is the best way to drop a MiniDV to BetaSP? Is it worth it to get a BetaSP deck, if so, what is the cost for new and used (eBay)?

Thanks,

Ted

Cheno wrote on 11/8/2004, 9:19 PM

SP is the preferred format here in Salt Lake, although DVCPro, Mini-DV and DVD have all been methods in which I have delivered masters to local stations. I have one station who's engineer couldn't figure out audio levels on my BetaSP master so I just would take in a mini-DV master and babysit them while they pulled it into their system. A good station will be able to play from anything, just make sure it looks good and meets legal broadcast requirements.

Mike

Spot|DSE wrote on 11/8/2004, 10:03 PM

SP is the standard delivery format for pretty well everywhere, although most broadcasters now have DV decks too.
On a recent Broadway promo we did, we contacted all 18 cities to see if they could take a DVD as a DVD or raw MPEG2 file. All 18 could accept, and were happy to take the DVD for the 30sec spot.
Cheno, lemme guess....it was z24 that needed you to babysit? :-) Those guys are total amateurs, yeah?

farss wrote on 11/8/2004, 10:21 PM

My goodness there must be some real old kit still doing service in US stations! Can only speak for down here but DigiBetacam is the industry standard, we haven't dubbed anything to SP for as long as I've worked in the industry whcih is 4 years, I've pulled a lot off SP and all I can say is yucky stuff, makes DV25 look decidedly pro.
But back to the original problem.
Apart from just how they went from DV25 to SP, how do you know what your DV25 looked like?
Did you have a long hard look at it on a calibrated monitor?
Did you check it with the scopes?
Did you give them bars and tone to line their dinosaurs upto?

Bob.

SeaJohn wrote on 11/8/2004, 10:35 PM

All of our network stations here wanted BetaSP. One said they could take it on DVD, but acted like they weren't going to be too happy with it.

"Apart from just how they went from DV25 to SP, how do you know what your DV25 looked like?"
All I know is looking at the output of the miniDV tape when I play it back, it looks fine. There is a striking difference between that and the broadcast commercial, viewed on the same monitor.

"Did you have a long hard look at it on a calibrated monitor?"
No, don't have one.

"Did you check it with the scopes?"
Only with the Vegas scopes, and I'm not too well versed in using them.

"Did you give them bars and tone to line their dinosaurs upto?"
Used the Vegas generated NTSC SMPTE Bars and tone.

farss wrote on 11/9/2004, 3:56 AM

Well,
all I can say is before I started blaming who ever did the dubs I'd be learning how to read scopes, that'll only cost you time. I find the histogram a good way to judge things, just look at the luminance plot, technically it shouldn't go under 16 or above 235 but if your video looks washed out I doubt thats a problem.
But if you've got nothing up around 200 or if the fatest part is down the bottom then it's going to look pretty sad when broadcast. This assumes we're talking about a normal daylight scene of course.
Sorry that's not a very technical description, heaps more stuff on the web, written much better than I could.
Seriously though, if you've got something going to air you do need to get it right. If you're way, way inside legal it'll look really flat but most likely the broadcast techos want give a rats, if you're outside legal they might a) just return to sender b) do a decent job of legalising or c) just yank it back without any concern as to how it looks.

Also when you get dubs done they should check things for you or at least offer to let you see it, ask their advice about the technical quality of what they dubbed, they should have all the gear hooked up to monitor what they're doing if they're working with analogue video. If they baulk, take a walk.

Bob.
Bob.