Dull Pictures
 

Hi All,

Will someone please tell me as why th epreview box in Vegas shows the footages as dull and lifeless? I always use my Canon XHA1 and always crank the colors in the camera.

Is there a way to callibrate or to see the true colors in the Vegas's preview box?


Thanks
Matthew

what are you previewing your images or footage on? Is it properly calibrated? Are you using 8bit or 32 bit color?

a computer monitor isn't really the right thing to use to check color or exposure but if that's all you have tryputting color bars into the preview and adjust the monitor to that. use a waveform/vectorscope to make sure the colors are as true as you can make them, watch the reds so they don't bleed thru.
HTHs

I have a hi-rez jvc broadcast monitor, but the colors on my computer screen are so close to what I see in my preview window I don't even bother using it anymore.

Could it be your monitor? I have used some monitors in the past as secondary screens that really did look dull. My trusty 2405FPW is almost two years old, but it is perfect for editing, short of spending $2K on a high end model.

Link Don said, watch the Reds. It might look good on an LCD, but it WILL look different on a TV / broadcast monitor.
Edit: I should also say that I have no clue why Reds are such a problem for DV & Vegas. It sounds like a DV issue and not a vegas issue. But if I see footage with a red object, and if I bump the saturation a little, the reds tend to get blocky or to stand out too much too fast when compared to the other colors. I don't have a good solution for workign around that, other than to may be use color curves and keep the reds un-changed instead of usign the CC or Secondary CC with the saturation boost slider.

Reds have been a problem for video long before Vegas came along.
DV is only a 4:1:1: signal so that makes accurate colour reproduction even harder.
See Adam Wilt's site for an explanation of what this means.
The only solution I've found is to check the vectorscope display and make sure reds don't go outside of the box.
To see what I mean, put SMPTE bars on the Vegas timeline and then look at the waveform & vectorscope displays.
You'll see what the (ideal) maximum for red should be.
It's OK to go slightly over as long as it doesn't go outside of the vectorscope box.
For an example of a very illegal value of red, drop a solid color red (255-0-0) next to SMPTE bars and then look at the vectorscope.
It's so high that it doesn't even show until you drop the value down to around 200-0-0.
BTW, the SMPTE bar value of red is only 165-0-0.