Apple Final Cut Pro 6 - Manual (Page 1327)

542 Part III Color Correction and Video Quality Control
Calibrating Your Broadcast Monitor
Monitors are calibrated using SMPTE standard color bars. Brightness and contrast are
often adjusted by eye, using the color bars onscreen. Adjusting chroma and phase
involves using the “blue only” button found on professional video monitors. This
calibration should be done to all monitors in use, whether they’re in the field or in
the editing room.
To calibrate your monitor:
1 Connect a color bar or test pattern generator to the monitor you’re using.
Alternatively, you can use one of the built-in color bar generators in Final Cut Pro. Avoid
using still-image graphics of color bars.
2 Turn on the monitor and wait at least 10 minutes for the monitor to reach a stable
operating temperature.
3 Select the appropriate input on the video monitor so that the color bars are visible on
the screen.
Near the bottom-right corner of the color bars are three black bars of varying
intensities. Each one corresponds to a different brightness value, measured in IRE. These
are the Picture Lineup Generation Equipment (PLUGE) bars, and they allow you to
adjust the brightness and contrast of a video monitor by helping you establish what
absolute black should be.
4 Turn the chroma level on the monitor all the way down.
This is a temporary adjustment that allows you to make more accurate luma
adjustments. The chroma control may also be labeled “color” or “saturation”.
5 Adjust the brightness control of your monitor to the point where you can no longer
distinguish between the two PLUGE bars on the left and the adjacent black square.
At this point, the brightest of the bars (11.5 IRE) should just barely be visible, and the two
PLUGE bars on the left (5 IRE and 7.5 IRE) should appear to be the same level of black.
Note: The brightness control adjusts the black level of your video signal by changing
the offset of the red, green, and blue signals.