NewTek Tricaster TCXD850, User Manual, Page: 309 / 336

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C VIDEO CALIBRATION
An oft-heard expression is “Don’t worry – we’ll fix it in post”.
Post-production techniques are invaluable, but they do not repeal
another often repeated axiom – “Garbage in, garbage out.” And, in
the case of live production, the results are immediately obvious to
your audience, for good or for bad.
For these reasons and many more, it’s important to control the visual quality of your work all the
way through the production pipeline. Adequate lighting, good cameras, and high quality
connections are critical, but there are other things to consider.
Human vision is remarkably adaptable. In one study, participants
equipped with inverting lenses initially saw everything
upside-down. After a few days, people
reported that things appeared
right-side-up again.
Even when
things are
dramatically wrong our brains compensate
to a remarkable degree. Have you ever looked at a television in a
store without noticing anything untoward, and then realized that the colors on another unit
nearby looked much better?
This built-in tolerance makes it difficult for us to judge whether the blacks in our video
productions are really black –or just dark gray; whether reds are purple or tinged with a slight
greenish caste, and so on. What we really need is a reference for comparison – just as we find it
easier to pick the best-looking display from a row of television sets on a store shelf.
C.1 WHAT (AND WHERE) TO CALIBRATE?
Tip one – forget ‘point and shoot’. Lighting, set design, and countless other factors have an
impact on the video attributes our cameras ‘see’.