I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been burned doing what I thought was a web-only project for a client, but then they decided they wanted DVDs to play on TV, or wanted to broadcast some or all of the project. Then I had to go back and fix everything that was not broadcast-ready. I’ve made it a part of my workflow to always pretend that television will be one of my final outputs.

Here are a few tips:

White Levels / Color Correcting
I always color correct to broadcast safe. I think this is a good practice all around. The use of a Broadcast Safe filter on everything works, but is a bit like using a sledgehammer to give a haircut (sorry for that imagery). Essentially I don’t exceed 100 IRE on my whites or dip below 0 on my blacks, and then make sure my color saturation is within spec on everything (more on that in the future, or check out this tutorial on the video scopes in Final Cut Pro).

Here’s a tip — graphics will put you out of spec quicker than anything. Yes, even that fancy logo from the fancy graphic designer. Do you think they design their logos TV-safe? To remedy:

1. Make sure a graphic’s colors are broadcast safe. Desaturation works fine, (even if you limit it just to one offending color) it just pulls the color back within spec. This will be more noticeable on your computer screen than it will on TV, but you still might want to let the designer know what you’re doing before you mess with their colors.

2. White Text, as determined by Apple’s color picker, is 100% white . . . toeing the line for broadcast. Add a glow and Boom! you’re out of spec. I make it a practice to color my white text 95-98% white on the grayscale slider so I’m not crammed up against my top limit. This is barely visible on a computer screen and unnoticeable on TV.


Flicker!
Flickering graphics and text are something we don’t worry about in the web world. It’s a product of the interlaced nature of television. With any graphics, I go through the aforementioned steps, making sure my color is in spec, and then I make sure all of these elements are sitting on even, whole coordinates. What does this mean? On the Motion tab in Final Cut Pro, under Basic Motion, make sure the Center measurement’s X & Y coordinates are whole numbers (no decimal point after them) and even numbers. Use Paste Attributes / Basic Motion on subsequent copies of this element down the timeline to change them all quickly.

Title Safe
Last, but not least, make sure all of your critical graphics & text are within the title safe boundaries. Title Safe addresses the fact that we see more of the picture on a computer / LCD screen than we do on a standard television. A lot more.

View helpful markers in Final Cut Pro by choosing View / Show Overlays and then View / Show Title Safe (consequently there are similar markers available in pretty much any pro application geared toward video, compositing, or motion graphics . . . Motion, After Effects, DVD Studio Pro, Livetype, and Color all have Title Safe overlays). I’ve found that HD / widescreen content can eat up a lot of the horizontal space when shown on a standard 4:3 TV, so move those titles into the center!

I hope some of these tips help, and, as mentioned before, they are good practice, even if you don’t think you’ll be going to TV with your video project. Do you have some similar tricks up your sleeve? Mention them in the comments below.

No related posts.

Filed under: Troubleshooting, Tutorial, Video