Broadcast Safe

When making my videos broadcast safe I notice it often results in making the overall picture darker. What I do is I bring down the exposure of the highlights until the peaks are below IRE 100 using the RGB Parade and Luma waveform monitor. Then I apply two instances of the Broadcast Safe filter and make sure there isn't any noticeable clipping when toggling the filters on and off. But what I've noticed is that there seems to be a lot of spiking in the highlights in my cameras thus resulting in the darker picture when bringing them down below IRE 100. I also notice when I just apply the Broadcast Safe filters without reducing the exposure of the highlights first the picture retains the brightness. But, doing so can result in some weird clipping that is noticeable in the picture.

Anybody with suggestions or better techniques would be appreciated.

TMav wrote: … Then I apply two instances of the Broadcast Safe filter….

Why that?!?
twice the BSF is one too many...

and keep in mind, you can arrange what filter should come first by dragging the filters in the Inspector up and down. Otherwise, your corrections get corrected

What I would do:
balance clip first (that is a must before any C)
apply your personal CC
then finally Broadcast Safe Filter

It could happen, that you have to adjust your personal CCs, because the BSF affects midtones too

And Welcome, Todd, to fcp.co

Karsten Schlüter wrote:
Why that?!?
twice the BSF is one too many

He is probably applying one instance to correct luma levels and another instance to correct chroma saturation levels, which is OK but not always necessary.
To the OP: If good initial exposure and color saturation adjustments are made, often no BSF is even needed. When used, the filters default to 100% but can be adjusted down to the point where they achieve the reduction desired based on your scopes. You may find minimal adjustments of 20% to 30% often are enough to remove some peaks without further altering the image.

Hello TMav, welcome to the forums

Did you apply the BS filter(s) to an adjustment layer for the entire timeline, or to each individual clip?

On a project I did where I applied the BS to the entire project timeline via an adjustment layer, I found that I lost a lot of dynamic range. In essence, it would appear to darken the video as the highlights were most affected.
I then deactivated the adjustment layer and selected one clip where I lost dynamic range and independently applied the BS filter to just that. What I found via scopes, was that the BS affect when added just to a single clip was less than if it was applied to entire timeline at the same clip.
Not sure if (but I suspect) this was due to the BS applying the same level of reduction for the entire timeline based on making the worst clip Broadcast Safe, in other words treating the entire timeline as a single clip, or if it was due to a third party Color Corrector I was using.

Be interested to hear if anyone else has seen this or willing to test.

I ended up applying BS filter to each clip I thought needed it and did more secondary mask CC to eliminate stray Super whites (my main problem with footage). I was trying to use the BS filter to just squash spikes in clips that were caused by spot lighting and windows.
Took a lot longer and was not as convenient to apply and disable, but much better results. I also removed the 3rd party plug-in for the most part.

Of course do all your CC first and only use BS in end of chain.

Rendering times went way up using BS filters especially when applied as an adjustment layer.

Hope this helps, Greg

Karsten Schlüter wrote:

TMav wrote: … Then I apply two instances of the Broadcast Safe filter….

Why that?!?
twice the BSF is one too many...

and keep in mind, you can arrange what filter should come first by dragging the filters in the Inspector up and down. Otherwise, your corrections get corrected

What I would do:
balance clip first (that is a must before any C)
apply your personal CC
then finally Broadcast Safe Filter

It could happen, that you have to adjust your personal CCs, because the BSF affects midtones too

And Welcome, Todd, to fcp.co

Two instances of Broadcast Safe filter for both luminance and saturation.

Broadcast Safe filters are applied last in effects chain.

Hi Greg!

I'm applying the Broadcast filters last in the effects chain inside each angle in multicam clips. So if I have three angles I apply the Broadcast Safe filter to every clip on the angles.

My process is usually creating the multicam clips, editing the multicam clip in a project (selecting the angles etc) and lastly color correcting the multicam clips. Color correcting is my least favorite thing to do, hence why I do it last. Plus I figure this will create less cpu strain while editing.

dgwvideo wrote:

Karsten Schlüter wrote:
Why that?!?
twice the BSF is one too many

He is probably applying one instance to correct luma levels and another instance to correct chroma levels, which is OK but not always necessary.
To the OP: If good initial exposure and color saturation adjustments are made, often no BSF is even needed. When used, the filters default to 100% but can be adjusted down to the point where they achieve the reduction desired based on your scopes. You may find minimal adjustments of 20% to 30% often are enough to remove some peaks without further altering the image.

Yes, I do try to make good exposure and color saturation adjustments so that the Broadcast Safe filters are only being used to catch any overs I didn't adjust for. However, I am not a colorist so....but I am a one man army and have to rely on my self to do it all. My techniques may not be correct. I'm going to post a more detailed example of what I have going on and some examples to see what you guys think.

Here are two recent examples of events...





Do they look too dark to you guys? My initial impression when correcting the video was that it was getting too dark. But I did that to make them broadcast safe and I just went with it. Again, I'm always working in unideal lighting conditions so you have to make due and I realize that.

OK, here is an typical example of me attempting to make something broadcast safe in FCPX. What I find is to get rid of over peaking in highlights results in a darker image. Is there a better way? or is this fine? Seems like DaVinci Resolve just clips my cinema DNG footage on output when anything is above 100 IRE. However, FCPX Broadcast Safe filters don't seem to do this as transparently.