Broadcast safe filter

I’ve just checked my finished clips with DigitalColour Meter and they are not Broadcast safe - readings of 0 and 255 in the same frame on one clip.

Is there a way (or plugin) to work in Rec709 (16-235), or set the black/white/in/out manually?

black/white/in/out is of course in the Levels drop-down - Doh!

Plugins tend to flatten an image too much for my liking. I always use the scopes and correct my stuff manually, so I can keep the richness in the image.

I have to keep it flat - so other people can do their thing with it,
so I’m just setting the ins and outs at 16 & 235, no plugin required.

Though I’m looking forward to playing around with it a bit more once I get a basic neutral workflow sorted.

I don't know how the filter in Motion works, but the "old" Color Broadcast Filter just cut off the whites. It didn't lower the levels.
(according to the Peachpit Press book - they warned to only use it in extreme situations)

It did a bit more than just cut off the whites, and was the last step in a color grading process. It would absolutely make things broadcast safe, but had a tendency to flatten the image contrast in some undesirable ways. We ACTs taught in the Apple classes, as the book pointed out, that you did it manually, and in some cases you wouldn't be able to get a perfect adjustment, so used it last to just cap off the few remaining bits of image data over the line. That way is had minimal impact on the image.

In Motion you don't have a waveform scope, so you have no idea if anything is broadcast safe or not. But broadcast safe filters usually work the same way universally. It's an automated function that doesn't care about the contrast of your image.

Thanks for the clarification, Ben.

I’ve tried everything but I still can’t get broadcast safe clips out of Motion (according to Apple’s DigitalColor meter) no matter what I do I’m still getting readings of 0 & 255.

Is it possible to get broadcast safe clips out of Motion without a plugin?

Any cheap plugin recommendations if it’s not?

Where exactly are you getting these readings? What broadcast scope or monitor is giving you this information?

Apple’s “DigitalColor Meter” app, in the utilities folder.

That only gives RGB numbers for print, has nothing to do with video. Ignore it. Look at it with FCP X or Color scopes. That utility is of absolutely no use to video work.

I was wondering where 255 came from, when there is no such value in Luminance, unless you aim your camera directly at the sun. That 255 is an RGB color value, not a luma value.

That would explain it.
Still confused, but I'll just ignore it.

Broadcast Safe is based on broadcast luma and chroma percentages as measured on waveform and vector scope levels.

Print media is based on RGB levels.

The two systems have NOTHING to do with each other. One is a subtractive color system, one is an additive color system, one is light bouncing off a sheet of paper, one is bandwidth of radio waves.

Extreme differences. Would be worth getting the book by Alexis Van Hurkman, The Color Correction Handbook, and learn what broadcast safe really is.

Waveform and vector scopes have nothing realistically to to with RGB values. RGB only tells us what the color is, not the saturation, not the luminance of that color is. Things that do not effect print.

Thanks Ben, I’ve been a pro photographer for a number of years and done a bit of teaching so I know the basics - or should I say, I thought I knew the basics, until I found myself having to do video post production!

My confusion - If I take one time lapse and do the same thing with it in Motion and AE (Rec709 16-235, or manually set in/out black to 16 and in/out white to 235) then open the .movs in QT,
I get different readings from the DigitalColor Meter.

The AE black readings are not below 16, and the highlights are 235 max.
With the Motion version the readings are as low as 1 in the shadows, and 255 in the highlights (am I right in thinking that a 255 highlight is blown-out whatever the medium or format?)

I’m sure the Motion “Broadcast Safe” filtered clip are actually safe,
or Apple would have given it a different name, and I understand “DigitalColor Meter” isn’t for video, but the discrepancy confuses and concerns me.

I have to FedEx them to LA on a hard drive when they’re finished, so I want to make sure they don’t come back rejected because they’re not “safe”.

DigitalColor Meter, it tells you RGB values of color, it has nothing to do with Broadcast safe luma and chroma levels for video. PERIOD!

If you work with video, do not EVER touch that tool again.

I'm not sure how else to explain it. Broadcast save is not an RGB level, that tool only measures print RGB levels. I can't explain it any other way.

No idea what you mean by setting the in/out, which in video is where a clip starts/stops in a timeline.

No idea how an RGB level of 235 has anything to do with broadcast safe.

If yo do NOT use VIDEO SCOPES, you have NO clue what you're doing. That digital color bullshit thing is NOT a video scope!

Get the Alexis Van Hurkman book, learn video color grading and "Broadcast Save" properly. Cause you're operating off of very, very, very misguided information. You're confusing values that have nothing to do with each other.

Sorry to be harsh, but dude, you are simply not getting it. You really need some VIDEO COLOR GRADING training. I STRONGLY am pushing you got get the book I recommended.

100 percent luminance level has nothing to do with RGB color values, PERIOD! You're using a "paper print tool" for video projected media. So vastly different I can't begin to explain.

Can someone else pitch in here and help me explain this?

Ha-ha, no problem, I’m here BECAUSE I’m just not getting it.
I’ll go through your reply properly tomorrow - it's late for me, fresh eyes and brain required for this.

This is how I got to my current state of confusion if it helps any.

From Getty: “Asset Export Settings … From the Working Space menu, choose the HDTV (Rec. 709) ICC Profile…”

Motion doesn’t have a Rec. 709 working space, so I followed a Creative Cow AE tutorial on how to manually set Broadcast Safe Rec.709 (16 - 235) in Levels by setting Input Black to 16, Input White to 235, Output Black 16, Output White 235.

(This is what I meant by in/out black/white, inaccurate terminology, sorry about that.)

So, my new question is: if I apply the Motion “Broadcast safe filter” to a clip will it conform to the requirements above,

or should I manually set the input and output levels in the “RGB” AND “Opacity”?

Re Video colour grading training - That’s your job! I’m a photographer!

I’m half joking of course, while I appreciate that I CAN now do everything myself, it doesn’t mean I should, or that I have the talent for it - I enjoyed editing my few shorts but it’s not my strong point.

Post production involves several different specialities that require a great deal of skill and dedication, and that’s without mentioning sound! Do I have to learn sound as well?!, Oh No….

If I could afford it I would never open another app or read another manual for the rest of my life, I’d pay someone else to do it.

I like cameras and lenses and going out and taking pretty pictures. Ahh, those were the days, no-one expected me to make my own film emulsion or do the E6 processing.

If your looking for the simple answer yes, the broadcast safe filter in Motion will bring your levels to within broadcast safe, and if you’ve created a look that you deliberately want to have crushed blacks or blown out whites that sit outside the broadcast safe range, then this is the only option you have as it will clip those values and keep your image looking as you want but broadcast safe. But be sure to check your visually happy with the results on a television before sending it off.

If you want a fuller answer and want to keep the details in your image with better results read on.

Your actually getting this half right, It’s hard to get what your doing but you might be adjusting luma levels, and as Ben says checking your RGB levels, then seeing results you aren’t expecting.

If you want to work with the 0-255 scale, and some waveform monitors for video do have that option, there are 255 levels of grey scale in a luma range right enough, just as there are in each colour channel for chroma. For broadcast these do go from 16 to 235 (for 8 bit video) as you expect.

Most colourists for video use the IRE scale but some prefer to measure in Millivolts.

The equivalent of 16 bits is 0 IRE and 235 bits is 100 IRE, this is the broadcast safe range for luma, assuming your working with PAL as your in London.

Motion is nothing other than a motion graphics app, it isn’t really designed for anything else.

Try this, open your Motion project and copy your video or group or whatever you have in the layers panel, hit “⌥⌘N” and open a new “Final Cut Generator”, paste what you copied from the previous project into here and save your generator.

Now open the generator in a FCPX timeline, and open your Y Waveform Monitor (Y is the symbol for luma). Now if you apply the “Levels” effect in Motion you can make adjustments to the black and white out parameters and see the updates in FCPX, if you adjust the levels so the trace lies within the 0-100 IRE range you will have your video’s luma range within broadcast safe.

To deal with chroma change the wave form to the vector scope and check that the trace doesn’t reach out as far as any of the little squares, The vector scope is read from the middle out, the closer to the middle the lower the saturation, the further out it stretches the higher the saturation, to be broadcast safe it has to be low enough not to reach as far out as the little squares.

If you apply the Hue/Saturation filter in Motion you’ll see the changes update in FCPX.

And if you export from Motion and import that clip into FCPX you’ll see that your output is broadcast safe.

It’s a very inconvenient workflow, especially as every time you make a change to the relevant effects in Motion you need to reapply the generator to the timeline to see the update. To do this just drag it from the “Generators” browser on to the previous instance of it’self in the time line.

But you’d be far better outputting with no adjustments from Motion before importing and making the changes in FCPX where you get a live waveform update. The Scopes in FCPX are excellent for software scopes.

“Most colourists for video use the IRE scale … The equivalent of 16 bits is 0 IRE and 235 bits is 100 IRE, this is the broadcast safe range for luma, …”

Thanks Dave, I think that helps - I’ll have to read your post several times to be sure, but I think you’ve found a couple of places where I was going wrong.

“Your actually getting this half right,”
I’ll take that, 1/2 right is 2/3 more than I thought.

No problem, but keep in mind that what I wrote is really just the surface and very incomplete. Further study would do you great, especially if coming from a print background.