Broadcast Safe - FCPX VS DaVinci Resolve

Something I've been struggling with for quite some time is making FCPX video Broadcast Safe without making the output look dark. Is there a way to just clip the peaks without bringing them down using FCPX Color Correction or Broadcast Safe effects? Where I'm confused is one of my cameras is a Black Magic camera. I shoot CinemaDNG with it and therefore have to run the clips through DaVinci Resolve to output them as REC709 ProRes so I can import them into FCPX. It seems like DaVinci Resolve just clips anything below 0 or above 100. I can make the video in DaVinci as bright as I need and the output looks good. When I import these into FCPX everything appears legal in the graphs. However, for the video from my other cameras that I bring directly into FCPX if I want to make it broadcast safe I need to apply the Color Correction effect and bring down the peaks and/or apply the Broadcast Safe effect. If I let the Broadcast Safe effect just clip the peaks without bringing them down to legal limits first if makes the extreme overs look weird as it appears to bring them down rather than just clipping them.

If this is confusing I can add some pics showing examples.

Actually, clipping is never a good way to make colors safe because it crushes the highlights or blacks that you clip. It may allow you to push your levels beyond acceptable limits, but it will also make you lose any detail in the clipped parts of your image.

You won't notice clipping so much on RAW footage or footage shot with high-end codecs such as ProRes4444, because these formats have a very high lattitude. But you will notice clipping a lot when you work with 8-bit footage and limited color space, such as H.264 or AVCHD or the likes. And that's why you see that difference between your CDNG clips and the clips of your other cameras. It is not related to FCP X or Resolve, it is related to the kind of footage to which you apply the clipping.

- Ronny

I have delivered hundreds of OP1a MXF files to broadcast over the past few years delivered straight out of FCPX.

Touch wood, I have never had a QC issue or a show rejected on the basis of broadcast safe colours.

A couple of points in relation to what you are saying:

The Broadcast safe filter is a 'sanity check' to me. You should colour grade your edit first and if you see items well above or below acceptable exposure or saturation limits - then grade these accordingly.

Don't be lazy and just apply a correction on without a proper grade, as you will lose detail and picture quality.

Finally, when you do apply the FCPX Broadcast Safe adjustments, Ensure you apply separate filters on your edit for both CHROMA and LUMA.