Black Stretch: Emphasizes contrast in dark area while black compression enhances or deepens darkness

There is a diagram in this article - Black Stretch is the red curve.

http://videosystems.com/mag/video_sony_hvrz/

Thanks Radek. I knew about the audio industry's issues with cheaper systems, but I thought that with video the TV sets' quality was increasing comparing to the earlier models... Though I have noticed that most people have brightness way up on their TV's. Perhaps that's another reason for ultra blacks on latest DVD's. I myself always liked my TV's set to the smaller brightness values. Of course there are still many plasmas with crappy contrast ratios. Fortunately our Panasonic is not one of them :)

However, the question is still open: Should I use Black Stretch when I use Cinematone 1 or is it going to flatten the image too much compared to what industry considers normal? I know it can be readjusted in post, but let's say that I was not going to tweak this in post, what would you guys advise?

I shoot a lot of theatrical plays and they do have a huge amount of contrast on stage where black stretch would help, but I don't want it to look dull. I was looking at Broadway's "Jekyll & Hyde" DVD with David Hasselhoff (shot in HD by the way) and again, it's a really dark video, they did not seem to use black stretch.

What should I do???

Thanks.

Ruslan.

The Clock
 

I have another question. The manual of HVR-Z1U says that when you switch to 50i mode the clock will be using 24-hour mode. However, when I switch to 50i it's still in 12-hour AM/PM mode. Reboot, camera or VCR mode doesn't change it. Does anyone with HVR-Z1U have the same bug?

It's not a big deal, but I generally do prefer a 24-hour clock setting, if I have that option.

Thanks.

Ruslan.

Black Stretch
 

I understand what you are asking and why you are asking it, but a lot of the time you just have to view the video on a display that is calibrated for any normal televsion and see what you think compared to everything else. This seems like an imprecise way to do it, but I know music engineers who buy $50 speakers that sit beside their professional reference monitors so that they can hear it how it will sound in most real world applications, especially for VO's on video and for commercial spots. That being said, look at the white balance in any typical hollywood movie and tell me that the look isn't completely different from what you strive for out of your video. What I'm trying to say is that you need to be your own colorist. If a certain scene or short or feature or project looks a certain way then why is that. Sometimes you can think of focus and contrast in the same way. If everything but the performer is dark or out of focus then the performer will pop out much more. Maybe the viewer has no interest in what's in the shadows, or maybe any extra information in the highlights will just be distracting. That's a judgment call, but what is usually best to keep in mind that you can't add detail in post very well and in some cases not at all. This means that the flatter your image is when you get it, the more you can do later. That's only if you know you're gonna do something later though. good luck

Japanese manufacturers, when designing speakers, get people off street to tell them, which they like better. These speakers may appeal to average buyer but it is reason why American and European speakers are superior to them.

Radek