Reds
 

I know I've asked before, and probably forgot the answer, but here goes. I have a video that has reds in it. When I render from Vegas to avi, it looks ok, (windows media player on the same lcd) but as soon as I drop it in DVDA my reds go blocky, this is with a photo from a D80 as well as my video. I can't remember how to tweak the reds so they are not blocky. I have saturated the whole video, so that may be the issue. I'm seeing the blocks on both of my sony lcds when viewing from DVD, the blocks of red are really bad. The footage is interlaced.

When you saturate the video, you need to stay within the legal colors. That is what the vectorscope is for. Learn to use it and you'll have no more problems.

Thanks, that's a great boost

further to red, what about blacks with DVDA
 

I find that my shadows in vegas with m2t is ok, (as in faces under wide brimmed hats) but when I render in DVDa as a PAL widescreen, and what detail I could see on my monitors is crushed on the DVD, and that's even a 8.5mbps.
Any ideas or is just MPEG2 legacy that you have to put up with?

thanks in advance

regards

Adam

Adam,
what you see on your computer monitor is in almost every case wrong from a color and exposure standpoint. Never use a computer monitor to judge those aspects. You need either a production monitor or at the very least a TV either of which is calibrated to color bars and useing a vectorscope/waveform.

Steven, perhaps go to the color corrector FX and bring down the saturation of the reds (the slider to the lower right) leave the color alone just bring down the sat. This is where the vectorscope is helpful.

Don

Yeah, Don. Thanks for that. I've been using the vectorscope to work on these couple of scenes, it definetely made a difference when I pulled the saturation over all and the reds as you had suggested. That's annoying to have to do that though. I looks great on my JVC production monitor, on the lcd the reds were really blocky, so much for new technology.........hehe.

Steven,
Download the free "av6cc" (spelling?) plug in for Vegas. This will allow you to adjust the color vectors individually, making it easier to pull down the reds to a safe level while watching the vectorscope. I keep mine at about 80-85% for NTSC broadcast.
Hope this helps.
Ken

Vegas has this built in. It's called color balance.

Perrone,
The Vegas color balance setting does not work the same way that the plug in does...don't know why, but the results are decidedly different. I'm still on Vegas 4.0e, so newer versions may behave differently.
Ken

Yea, the program's made a lot of progress in the past decade... :)

I guess there isn't a lot of familiarity with the Aav6cc color correcting filter. It is very cool freeware, sort of like a stack of 6 secondary color correctors. It is indeed very good for eg. grabbing red exclusively and adjusting hue/saturation/lightness.

The tool is very straightforward and worth installing for those instances where you're not looking to adjust overall color balance in darks/mediums/lights, as the standard Sony CC does, but want to grab more specific colors for adjustment.

Looking for the download link, I see that the author has continued work on it and it is now called ColorLab, has some new beta features.

AAV ColorLab

Looks intersting. I'll give it a whirl tonight. I have some great footage to test it on.

OK?

OK?

So Seth what is the difference? I'm not saying there isn't one, but what do you find in Aav6cc color correcting filter "better" than SONY 2nd Colour Corrector? In Sony 2nd CC you get a Colour Picker? That's very colour specific. And again, it would be neat to hear your own experience.

Always willing to learn.

Grazie

I tried it tonight. I thought it was ok, but certainly nothing I couldn't do other ways. Interface is somewhat confusing, and there's no help available in the tool. When I saw all the color sliders in the B&W, I thought I was about to get the holy grail. An axis slider for each color! But nope! Only for B&W!

I was able to manipulate the image the way I wanted it to look though, so that was a positive.

As a test, I opened up the 3-way color corrector and got similar results much more quickly. I'm sure familiarity played a part there though.

Yes. I have to ask, just what can I do with this? I have been playing with it for some time now and would like some "Try This!" samples/options? What I have done with BnW was to create a WHITE for RED and say GREEN, and I suppose I could create a "mask" as a result and thence onto a 2-colour pass FX?

Sure. But with more or less outcome than SONY CC and/or SONY CCurves?
Yes. I would like a double click to get sliders back to ZERO. I think the "Hints" are a reasonable step forward, but the one for BnW is very "Zen". However there is much to commend concerning the "author's" wish to provide more flexibility using a GUI in a new way, I like that.

And I agree, all this hard work would have been finessed by a least a simple HELP section?

I'm still with Interlace, so again I await for a more rounded version to come along.

And Perrone, thanks for the speedy response too!

Grazie

You get 6-in-1... I think of this as more of an efx tool. For example, working with a client's logo, color match in the video wasn't quite right. Easy to dial in multiple colors with Aav6cc.

So, yes, 6 secondary color correctors for those occasions that call for manipulation of multiple colors but not color balance. IMHO it's no better than the sony cc tools, just a different interface to perhaps "color-map" rather than "color-correct".

Ah! Yes Seth excellent example right there!

Yes! Got it now.

Sure. Having Colour Mapping is one BIG advance over 2nd Colour Corrector. It's a "Six-Pack" - as we say "Carry-oout!" (it's a beer thing!)

On this basis I can see much I can do then. I still want to see a double click on the slider for "reset" to ZERO?

Tell me, just what do the negative numbers actual represent? An absence of GREEN or a REMOVAL of GREEN? Or what?

TIA

Grazie

Well, I'm quite hesitant to represent myself as an expert in this particular are of video color theory & engineering, but as I understand it:

The numbers refer to the degrees we see on the color wheel represented in the vectorscope. So, a negative number would mean moving counter-clockwise from a starting position on the wheel (eg. for a starting position, red maps about 105 degrees), a positive denotes clockwise movement from that starting position.

Aav6cc gives us -180 to 0 to +180. That will give us the full 360 degrees of the circle. So, if we grab the red adjustments, a negative hue will first pull red and remap it towards yellow, if we keep on going, on towards green. -180 on the Red channel is the same as +180 = Cyan.

For some real fun, drop the "gradient" test pattern on the timeline and apply the 6cc while viewing both video preview and the vectorscope. It tells the story much better than I can with words.

OK .. ? So why does the slider, far right, finish at 179? But I do take your point!

Actually Seth, I was referring to the BnW Slider, which has a range from
-200 < 0 > +300 . That was my observation. Why this range?

Ah! I did this with the PAL Test Chart. I could see the RED being zapped to white.

Does it? It looks pretty and very '60s? But illuminating? Oh dear, I think I need help . . . .

Now I really do feel that a Help.PDF is in order here.

Grazie