Crushed blacks for television

Eddie B

Eddie B

Active member
Here's something that's bothered me for a long time: I love crushed blacks. Not always, but often I like blacks to be really, really black. So when I color correct, from time to time I do just that. A reoccurring problem I'm always faced with once I burn the DVD and look at it on a 4:3 television is that the (illegal) blacks in the footage are blacker than the black bars. Whenever I attempt to resolve this by making the blacks legal, they just end up appearing milky-black, if that makes sense. They loose all their punch and allure.

I've watched lots of user footage on here and see very crushed blacks in music videos all the time. So what are some color correction methods for achieving nice, crushed blacks that still fall within that legal range?
 
You can't. If you want rich, 0 IRE blacks, you won't get them making them NTSC legal.

But if they're really washed out on your TV as you're describiing them, you may not have your TV adjusted properly. 7.5 IRE black is still pretty black.

Of course, this is a general matter, without seeing what you're actually trying to do. Perhaps you should post screenshots of the difference and what you'd like to do, specifically.
 
Well, I guess the more important question is how do you color correct something to look good on both television and computers? Is adding a Studio to Computer RGB a professional solution or is it wrong to apply an overall effect like that to an entire project?

Also, what's the best order of operations? Is it better to color correct for a television first and then add a Studio to Computer RGB or is your best bet to color correct for computer first and then add Computer to Studio RGB? I'm thinking since you have a greater color space on the computer, it's better to color correct for that first and then worry about compressing those colors for television. Is that an accurate assumption?
 
You can't do that, unless you configure your PC monitor to look like your TV, or vice versa. The truth is, different monitors, TVs, players, editors, encoders, decoders, have their own mind regarding gamma settings. It's not as exact of a science as it is with Photoshop and printers. What you see is not what you get if you use a different tool each time.
 
In that case, what do most people do in this situation? One color correction for televisions and another for computer?

I realize that no two televisions or computers will look alike, but I still want my footage to look good in general and on either format.
 
You don't, of course, HAVE to make your blacks NTSC legal unless you're planning to broadcast them somewhere in North America. You can do it because you want it to match the black bars the DVD player inserts, but you don't HAVE to. That would be an aesthetic choice.
 
Eddie B said:
In that case, what do most people do in this situation? One color correction for televisions and another for computer?
Click to expand...

If you want. I'd start with the medium on which you expect most people to watch it, and then adjust it for the other, if you still think it's a problem.
 
David Jimerson said:
You don't, of course, HAVE to make your blacks NTSC legal unless you're planning to broadcast them somewhere in North America. You can do it because you want it to match the black bars the DVD player inserts, but you don't HAVE to. That would be an aesthetic choice.
Click to expand...

That's what I've done in the past, but it's very awkward to me when the black bars are lighter than the content so I try to avoid that now.

Thanks to both of you for your help.
 
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