Menu text display colors in MF4: Computer vs. TV

nyco_ork · Post by **nyco_ork** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 8:42 pm

I've found that the lighter text colors I pick for my menus are not displaying properly on TVs when I play the DVDs I've authored. For instance, any shade of yellow, which displays properly on the computer screen, shows up as white on the TV. Has anyone else noticed this?

Computer is an IBM Laptop A31p, with LCD screen.

"NTSC/PAL safe colors" makes no difference. Problem happens whether or not it is checked.

I guess the question is, how do I pick a color from the color picker provided with MF4 that will show up as the same color on the TV? This is the same calibration issue I had for using Photoshop, tyring to get the printed output to be the same colors as the screen. But there are software calibration tools for Photoshop. Haven't seen any for DVD authoring software.

Richard

DVDDoug · Post by **DVDDoug** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 7:48 pm

trial and error with a DVD-RW????

Or, you could try adjusting your monitor to look like your TV (as much as possible). I believe it's technically impossible to accurately calibrate a VGA monitor to an NTSC monitor. I don't know why... The printer situation seems much worse... There are 3 colors in a monitor, 3 different colors (plus black) in a printer... When you maximize all of the colors on a monitor, you get white, when you maximize all of the colors on a printer, you get black.

I've read that the professionals use a calibrated NTSC (or PAL) video card and a calibrated NTSC (or PAL) monitor.

You can't change the video card in your laptop, but the Nvidia card in my PC has a composite video output. I've never used it. Of course, it's not calibrated and neither is my TV. So, I could make it look perfect on my TV, but it might not be exactly right on a properly-adjusted TV or on a "typical" TV.

nyco_ork · Post by **nyco_ork** » Fri Apr 14, 2006 3:36 am

Haven't been using DVD-RW. Don't trust the RW media, and it's slower, and I like to archive things anyway. But it might be worthwhile to get some RW media for this kind of testing.

I found it hard enough to calibrate my old CRT monitor to the printers in Photoshop. I had a special calibration tool called the Spyder. I also use it on the LCD screens of these laptops, but there are still important differences, and one of them is obviiously the display of certain of these colors. I have the Photoshop/printer calibration down pretty well at this point. Now the CRT TV creates a new wrinkle. Now I see why some subtitles on commercial DVDs of movies are unreadable. They were probably readable to the people doing the authoring.

I'll experiment and see what happens, as you suggest.

R

sjj1805 · Post by **sjj1805** » Fri Apr 14, 2006 7:06 am

Here are some links describing the problems associated with NTSC colors
http://www.mediachance.com/dvdlab/Help/ntsc.htm
http://www.mrl.nyu.edu/~perlin/doc/ntsc-safe.html

NTSC = Never The Same Colour

nyco_ork · Post by **nyco_ork** » Sat Apr 15, 2006 3:15 am

Steve,
You are quite the font of information. Those links are fascinating, and now I really understand the problem. I've noticed a lot of commercial broadcasts and tapes that have the red bleed. I didn't know that yellow was also a problem color.

I guess in reference to the MF4 menu and its built-in color picker, I don't get why the supposedly NTSC-safe colors still go haywire. When I pick a color that's not NTSC-safe, the program sends a message converting that color to another one that is similar. But that didn't happen with these colors that were giving me the problem. In fact, to begin with, they were the default text colors that Ulead picked for the menu (the first menu on the General list).

I'll start doing some DVD-RW tests until I find colors that work. When they blow out the way they have been, the menu text is unreadable at worst, difficult to read at best.

Thanks again.

Richard