User Manual

Working with Color Spaces in HD Projects
56
Mixing Media of Different Color Spaces
You can work with media of different color spaces in the same sequence. For example, you can
mix SD YCbCr and HD RGB. When you mix media in this way, your video editing application
converts media to the project’s color space when necessary. This conversion takes place
internally during the processing of real-time effects and prior to output.
The color space of your media depends on its format. Tape-based SD and HD media uses the
YCbCr color space. Newer HD digital formats, such as R3D, use RGB. See “Resolution
Specifications” on page 1470 for information about supported formats.
You can check the color space of the media for any clip in your project by viewing the Color
Space bin heading in the bin that contains the clip. For more information, see “Moving,
Aligning, and Deleting Bin Columns” on page 346.
Setting the Project Color Space
When assembling a project, it is very common to have media originating from different sources.
These can include SD or HD tapes, file-based cameras, film frames scanned to files, and even
computer-generated graphics. Each of these media sources can have arbitrary color encoding
(i.e. color model, gamma, bit depth, etc.). The editor needs to see each of these media sources
with their true colors from the beginning to the end of the editing process.
When a project is created, a common color space needs to be selected for the processing of all
media within a sequence. This color space maintains a consistent color appearance when color
values from different media sources are sent to a particular device (either a monitor, storage, or
output).
The working color space should be set according to the delivery requirements. As an example,
for broadcast HD TV, set it to Rec. 709. For a sequence that will be delivered in multiple formats,
the working color space should be set to the highest overall precision and range.
Color Space is the predefined limit for the range of colors that can be represented in a given file,
application or device. When images are processed, the color that they were encoded with by the
camera is transformed to the color space of the Media Composer application. This is known as
color mapping.
When these same images need to be viewed on a monitor, the colors need to be mapped to the
color space of the monitor. (The color space of the monitor is not set within Media Composer. It
needs to be calibrated separately as per the vendor’s instructions).