Sorry if this is a dead horse, but no two people I talk to agree on this one...

Is all SD content for DVD in North America ITU-R BT.601 in regards to luminance (16-235)? Asked another way: All the MPEG-2 files which go on the disc are 16-235: true or false?

_Mike

Thats digging deep, way over my head..........zoom!

Sorry if this is a dead horse, but no two people I talk to agree on this one...

Is all SD content for DVD in North America ITU-R BT.601 in regards to luminance (16-235)? Asked another way: All the MPEG-2 files which go on the disc are 16-235: true or false?

_Mike

You might try this in the calibration forum where standards are often discussed.

I believe the answer is supposed to be "yes", but the studios sometimes don't follow the rules. If you hunt around at the Home Theater shootout http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/cgi-bin/shootout.cgi (I think I saw it there) there is a frame from THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY showing quite a lot of black below 16.

The whole issue of color mastering is a can of worms. Obviously different discs show different balances, even when there is no intent to do any sort of color grading. I have wondered if certain systematic errors aren't common in the industry.

See some examples of green push encoded on the disc here: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9553314&&#post9553314

-Bill

NTSC SD should be 601. 8bit video is in the range 0-255 (I think 0 and 255 are "reserved" for special meaning in conversions/processing and having real video at the extremes would be really really rare). Reference black is 16 and reference white is 235. The "headroom" at either end is to allow for a/d conversions that happen during the film->digital master conversion process. "black than black" and "whiter than white" will in appear on DVDs. There's nothing incorrect about it.

larry