What do most people do with black levels?
Would you let then clip and then insert a Broadcast Filter or would you use the levels filter and rise the black level just above clipping 16 (for those in RGB 16-255 LAND)

I'm doing tests with some stuff and now i'm lost as to what looks right and would like some feedback on what others might do.

Also i know it depends on the footage taken and the look of the video your after.

Cheers
Simon

B'cast filter, or Black Restore (for MPEG delivery), color curves...lotsa answers to this one. Setting levels first is usually a good practice, unless you've got a specific under exposure effect you were looking for

1- Er... there is no 16-255 LAND. In Vegas, the video-oriented codecs (DV, HDV, MPEG2, etc.) tend to use studio RGB range (16-235 is where the legal range is). While the computer-oriented codecs (e.g. windows media) and Quicktime use 0-255 levels (computer RGB).

The studio RGB codecs want to see 16-235 levels, and the computer RGB codecs want to see 0-255 levels.

2- If there is noise in your image (e.g. compression noise), this will push values below 16. This is ok.

Good catch, Glenn. I'd not see the 255, I guess my eyes read it as 235 once I saw "16" in there.

Sorry i mean 235

Thanks
Simon