Probably what you were being told was a bit of garbled information.
When going out to any format, particulalry something like VHS, not so much with DVD, you need to watch your maximum and minimum video levels.
Many DV cameras produce video that is simply too hot, adding graphics etc can make matters much worse as it's all to easy to get them outside the 'legal' limits. Problems that may happen are breakthrough of the video into the audio channel if the white levels are too high and loss of sync if the black levels fall too low.

Best way around this is to ignore it and add the SF Broadcast Colors filter onto the video bus. If you're in NTSC land you might need to tick the 7.5 IRE setup box and if it's for VHS I go for the 'Conservative' preset. You can still run into a problem with this approach or at least I have. If you fade a video track effectively you set he composite level to 0 and let the non existant absolute black come through however VV determines that there is no video at this point and doesn't apply any filters. The solution is simple enough, add a lowest video track with solid black, this forces VV to apply the BC filter.


DVD players seem to legalise the signal before playing it out although I haven't really checked this out myself. If that's the case then for DVDs you shouldn't need to apply the BC filter. Personally I have my doubts about this, my DVD players quite happily reproduce pluge test patterns which are below 0 IRE.


BTW none of this as anything to do with getting the WB correct, although I suppose DV with correct WB is a bit more likely to be a bit 'hot'. That's no reason not get the WB correct. And it's a lot easier to get it right in the camera than in post.

Farss, thanks for that. I think I've understood your guidance. I'll need to get back to you . . .when I've digested what you've said . . .

Grazie

Personally I think that taking control of what the camera does is important. White balance is a good example. In well lit consitent lighting there should be no problem. However I just edited some vid that was shot with a Hi8 Sony on auto and shot a live band performance on a lit stage. Every time the camera pulled back skin tones turn to white blobs. A simple white balance before the show should have corrected this along with proper exposure setting. In my limited experiance, if I am shooting anything other than "whip out the camera" family shots I WB and even manually focus to make sure I get what I want.

jack

Every shoot should be white balanced. We carry special cards to do this, such as the Warm Cards http://www.warmcards.com to create a specific look if we wish to. Either way, auto white balancing, no matter how good it is, will shift from light to light. Setting white balance in every situation prevents this.
Yes, it can be somewhat fixed in post. In fact, Edition and Avid both provide auto white balancing tools. Avid's works pretty good. Edition's is a mess. In Vegas, you can somewhat do this too, as it's just basic color correction, by selecting the bright point and the dark point, leaving the mids alone. This will often alone, correct balance issues. but it's still post, and still degrading the original image that should have been shot right in the first place.

See this link; http://www.warmcards.com/wb101.html

Okay people. Maybe this was part of Farss's feedback. Yes I understand the necessity to WB to get it correct while filming - that's a given. My question was rather about then using this work and then outputting to VHS. Should there or should I expect any "blowout" on the lower - VHS - format? I guess not - yeah? It's only when I don't WB for each and every lighting format. My pro colleague says that I should - on event shoots=weddings, in and out of places etc etc - stay with auto WB - yes? The option fr doing CC in Vegas was/is an after thought.

Grazie