Japanese video IRE black = 0?

[Apulo]

Japanese NTSC is unlike USA NTSC set at IRE blacklevel of 0 (USA NTSC 7.5 IIRC)

Is this valid for all Japanese video products, i.e. not just TV broadcasts but also VHS & Laserdisc?

I'm especially interested in the Laserdisc bit, as I have both USA and Japanese discs & need to take this into account.

Apulo

[Dr Mordrid]

US NTSC is the only major standard that uses an IRE of 7.5, so it's not just Japan bur also PAL (save for PAL-M in Brazil and PAL-N in Paraguay and Uruguay that also use 7.5) and SECAM that use IRE 0 or "superblack".

Also of note is that DV, even US-NTSC DV, also uses and IRE of 0. In fact DVD players that are "fed" an IRE of 0 will ramp it up to 7.5 when playing to US NTSC devices. Conversely many US NTSC DVD players will also have an option in their setups to output an "enhanced black" or "superblack", meaning IRE0, to the newer display devices that can handle it.

For those that dub direct from DV to analog (VHS etc.) then some kind of correction is in order. Many higher end editing systems (RT.X100 for one) have an adjustable IRE in the drivers that handles the adjustment on the fly. Otherwise it's left up to the editing software to apply a proper NTSC filter that limits black to the proper level and color saturations to 235 (to prevent color bleeding).

Dr. Mordrid

[xortam]

This black-level setup value also differs according to what video output connection your using on some players and DVDRs; component may use 0 IRE while S-Video uses 7.5 IRE on U.S. decks (though hopefully configurable). Some of us users on AVS prompted a change from Panasonic in this regard (allowed configuration options to overide defaults).

[Apulo]

Thanks both for your information. Looks like it's a right old mess

Any suggestions where I might find an answer to what the output of a USA Laserdisc player (Svideo output), playing a USA laserdisc and a Japanese laserdisc is? These old machines are no longer supported so I can't get an answer from the manufacturer.

Thanks!

Apulo

[Apulo]

After much googling I'm not any closer to an answer.

Is there a way to test this by capturing the output to PC and then using a software tool? I know that there's a waveform monitor in Premiere, but this is out of my budget, especially just for this measurement. Any other ways?

Apulo

[Dr Mordrid]

If you can capture the video to a computer you could use the freeware VirtualDUB video manipulation tools Levels filter, which can be used to adjust both input and export levels. The proper export levels for US NTSC are 16 and 235.

Also: MSPro7's Auto Exposure and Auto Level video filters might be useful.

Dr. Mordrid