Color temp. for NTSC and PAL

Z

zcaps57

Guest
Well, as I know 6500K(D65) is standard color temp for US NTSC, and 9300K(D93) is standard color temp for Japanese NTSC.

Does anyone know standard color temp for European PAL ??

Any input would be apprecited. :)
 
Eric,

It's the D65 bit which is important. D65 is a specificpooint on a thing called "the black body curve". It is, in fact, perfectly feasible to have a temperature reading at 6500K and it to be sceaming GREEN...GREEN...GREEN.

The co-ordinates of D65 as found on the CIE colour chart are the key to accurate greyscale.

Cheers,

Gordon
 
I see.

What is CIE ?? (or what does it stand for?)
It's some kind of colour reference chart, isn't it?

Thx.
 
CIE stands for..... well it's a French acronym for the International Illumination Commission, which is a body that sets standards for the definition of colourimetry of all TV systems.

The chart is a method (there are a couple of different chart types and layouts) for showing the relationships between colours.

D6500 isn't actually the same as 6500K, the D6500 point is slightly off the black body curve and the D is simply an indication of a specific point (there are an A, B, C and E at various points) and the 6500 is that it is pretty close to 6500K.

There are some variations in how TV sets are set up, for example;

Black and White material should actually be shown at 5600K which is the native temperature of a Xenon Arc lamp

The Japanese do indeed set a very high colour temperature, often around 9200K, as this helps the oriental skin tone to look more natural on screen (it also makes whites bluer and therefore 'cleaner')

Tungsten lamps are around 3900K, so any projector used on-screen in TV studios will usually have this temperature available.

The main difference though between US and European TV is the colour of the phosphors as specified by the EBU for Europe and SMPTE for the US. What they are setting are the points on the CIE graph for the pure colours of the Red, Green and Blue phosphors or filters.
If you took an image that was taken with a camera following one standard, and showed it on a TV from a different standard the colours would not match (Red could be a bit orange or a bit mauve for example)
This isn't massive for PAL and NTSC (significant though) but it gets pretty big when we get into HDTV and D-Cinema, both of which have much bigger colour gamuts (The area between the three points) Consequently conversion between any of these formats (and of course PC colour space) is necessary for proper colour reproduction.

It's worth noting that the colour Gamut of a D-Cinema projector is larger than that of 35mm film!

All our standards and resolution conversion kit obviously have had this kind of thing for years, but it's only now with the advent of D-Cinema and widespread commercial use of HDTV that it is being understood in the wider industry.

Hope this helps without being too technical !!!
 
I was under the impression that the higher colour temp used in Japan would follow through to the source material and not just apply to the displays ie they use a 9600K ref all through their image chain : as a result images wouldn't look blue at 9600K they would look natural as the material is all balanced accordingly: however my two japanese dvds appear normal at 6500K and not overly red as they would do if balanced for 9600K.

With regard to the 5400K ( or thereabouts) being utilised on black and white material this doesn't make sense: any film material will have been telecined and colour balanced based on a 6500K reference. All this will do is redden up material thats been balanced for 6500K . Black and white will only look correct at 5400K if its been balanced for it so by that logic black and white should look blue at 6500K which it doesn't in the majority of cases I've seen.

Richard could you point me in the direction of any info that explains why d-cinema can resolve a larger gammut than 35mm film : and do you mean print or neg ? because the two are not the same.
 
Keith,

The Colour Gamut quote came from various seminars and demonstrations of D-Cinema and was from TI.

The colour temperature is not directly related to the edit setup

A Black and white movie has no colour component (That is kind of the definition of Black and White) so it is impossible to have a colour temperature set except by the combination of the R,G and B of the TV set.

Don't forget that the video channel is Y U V not RGB.
 
Originally posted by RichardA

The colour temperature is not directly related to the edit setup

A Black and white movie has no colour component (That is kind of the definition of Black and White) so it is impossible to have a colour temperature set except by the combination of the R,G and B of the TV set.

Don't forget that the video channel is Y U V not RGB.

Monochrome is telecined as RGB : in this way its no different from a colour image. It may only be a single channel copied over but it has to make sense as RGB . ( you cannot make meaningful commentary on colour in reference to YUV its like trying to review film in binary because its on a digital format) As you've correctly pointed out "monochrome" has no colour component ergo its only capable of representing an image as grayscale by this logic any visible colour is contamination either in the source or display or intial mastering.

The colour temp is the display criteria where the grayscale itself will appear neutral. Black and white should appear neutral unless its deliberately sepia or tinted in which case its not "black and white" its colour for all intents and purposes. Dropping the colour temp will just redden the picture: this is no more correct than pumping up the colour saturation on normal colour material or even viewing the display through rose tinted spectacles. Its just an arbitrary preference decision for the user.

Ideally we want our display criteria as close to that originally used at the telecine and as all most of ever watch in our home enviroment is video material thats 6500K.

To me one of the best aspects of dvd is watching brand spanking new transfers of older films that I'd only ever managed to catch on broadcast or vhs previously. You get rid of all those hokey cultural artifacts that flag the film as being "old" and are more readily able to appreciate it as a work on its own terms separating it from the perception that its a historical artifact rather than an artistic one. Trying to artificially sepia up monochrome is as undesirable as pan and scanning on widescreen material from the perspective of home cinema. In fact I'd say its tantamount to colourisation.
 
I've aways found 6500 too blue DLP and LCD in particular seem to set to this cold harsh enviornment.

For video and prefer to come down to 5000 (ish). {measured with a CA-1}

Barco now have added 4900 for video use to their standard colour temperatures for the Cine range

Richard has confirmed this too in his coment on Black and white material.

An constantly we hear of people fitting red or magenta filters.

I just thought I liked warm pictures. Could this be the new 48Hz?
 

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