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Hi,
I've just done a shoot under a red Marque (tent). White balance properly etc. I have taken the footage into my editing package and the footage is way over on chroma levels. If I output the footage to a VHS tape the red is bleeding badly. I'm using a DVRex M1 and have taken the footage into video doctor tools to cool it down. I thought the red tent was the problem however I've checked some other footage I've shot and it's also over.
I can fix this in VDT but would rather not have to.
The XL1 is PAL. Capture was done by firewire, but even if I output to VHS from the camera the colours bleed.
Any ideas?
Thanks
David Whitehouse

Ah, yes, the dreaded RED scare. My old man's daddy was a nationalist who used to fall in line with the Republicans back in the '50's, saying "better dead than red."

Well, that's still true today but in a different way.

VHS doesn't like red. Red bleeds bad... real bad. Thing is, the XL1 is a Canon camera and therefore somewhat red-shifted in a subtle way... the famous Canon "look" as opposed to the somewhat blue-shifted Sonys.

Couple suggestions:

Don't output to VHS. Let a professional duplication house, using pro, industrial-grade VHS decks, do it for you. Or try dumping to VHS via an S-VHS deck. Even that could make a difference.

You have an Canopus DVRex M1 with Video Doctor Tools? Now may be the perfect time for you to upgrade to real-time with the RT option for the DVRex. No rendering... simply color-correct on the fly, in real-time. The increase in your productivity should pay for itself exponentially, in no time. RT is well worth the cost.

Hope this helps. Looking forward to Midnight Oil's upcoming US tour. Hope y'all are having a nice Spring down there,

Thanks Chris.
Unfortunately this shoot was for my brother-in-laws wedding so probably doesn't warrant a dup house. We are outputting on a SVHS recorder to VHS tape. I found one of the reasons for soo much bleed on the monitor, the contrast was all the way up, as were a couple of the other controls.
As much as we'd like to go RT, with the Aussie Dollar being so weak against the USD, the local agent wanting his share and money being pretty tight here it's not an option at this stage. The render times we are experiencing aren't too bad anyway and it makes me take a break t get COFFEE.
Thanks for the advice,

David Whitehouse

PS Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter are all nice in Cairns with Rainforest and Reef 20 mins away.

IF you have a proc amp available, try trim the chroma down a bit while making the VHS copies. That might help.