scenes, the video level does not exceed 100%.
This occurs when the 100% LED lights some-
video scenes will vary greatly, typically from
60-100 as people move around, the camera pans
across bright objects, etc.
control so that the blacks are
black and still have detail on a properly calibrated
monitor (see “about video monitors”). The monitor
is best for general use but the black level meter
can be used when you want to be sure something
is really black. Set the black control so that the 7.5
LED is on and the 5 LED never comes on. Like
the white level, the black level will move around
quite a bit, so don’t try to set every scene to 7.5
IRE black. However the 5 IRE LED, and
especially the CLIP LED, should remain off.
As stated earlier, it is a good idea to get familiar
with the action of the meter by studying some of
your tapes that look good and some that don’t look
View the video monitor and turn up the luminance
gain until the scene looks normal. The luminance
black will probably need adjusting too. When you
turn up the gain, small highlights will be turned up
to the clipping level causing the CLIP LED to light.
This is acceptable since it is intended. If the high-
lights have color, the color will be preserved. After
the gain and black are set, adjust the hue and
saturation as desired for the best picture. Expect
the picture to get somewhat noisier (snowier).
The chroma controls are best set by eye on a
monitor that is known to be accurate. Even TV
stations do this by eye since a vector scope is of
little value in day to day production use.
Like all broadcast style PROC AMPs, the hue con-
trol affects only colored areas of the picture - it
has no effect on whites or neutral grays.
To correct for a picture that is too green, turn the
hue control counterclockwise. To correct a picture
that is too red, turn the hue control clockwise.
Turn clockwise to increase the intensity (satura-
tion) of the color. Turn counterclockwise to reduce
the intensity of the color.
The color portion of a video picture is surprisingly
noisy as can be seen by turning the chroma satu-
ration fully clockwise. Fortunately, most situations
just require a small adjustment.
Turn saturation fully counterclockwise to remove
the color from a scene such as black and white
photos etc. (If you are using composite input this
will slightly soften the picture). If your whole pro-
gram is monochrome, you can also kill the color
burst with the MONO switch (see “MONO”).
