#SCOPEBOX REVIEW SKIN#
#SCOPEBOX REVIEW SOFTWARE#

Long lines that indicate the vectors of each of the primary and secondary hues, stretching from 100% intensity to 22.5%.

The outer tic marks indicate the boundary of 100% intensity. The intersection of the inner tic marks and hue vector lines show the dead center of each hue at 75% intensity.

75% intensity tic marks, that correspond to the same angles and center-points of the hue boxes in traditional Vectorscopes.

Here is an explanation of the features of this design. Overall, I’m trying to present a more visible scale of the crucial angles of hue, while still keeping the graticule simple and immediately comprehensible.

#SCOPEBOX REVIEW SKIN#

The image up top presents all of the options in my current design, but a recommendation of this design is that there be the option to turn off the dotted skin tone indicator and the user-adjustable reference line. My design goal was to find a clean, uncluttered way of providing hue angle guidance at a variety of levels of saturation, while retaining the useful guideposts we’ve come to rely on from previous designs. Given the little boxes distance from the traces of most shots of average saturation, one needs to essentially “eyeball” a given trace’s relative position to the angles of absolute red, or blue, or yellow. While the little standard box targets do a fine job of suggesting the direction of each of the primary and secondary hues, I’ve long wished there was a more concrete guide showing the actual vectors of hue for reference at a variety of intensities of saturation.

However, what I find I’m missing within the sparse landscape of the modern vectorscope is some kind of a scale of hue to aid me in the process of signal comparison. I’m sympathetic to the goal of freeing the colorist’s eye from the unnecessary clutter of legacy scopes. Furthermore, a lot of the lines and indications from the analog days just aren’t meaningful anymore when examining a digital signal.

#SCOPEBOX REVIEW SOFTWARE#

Folks with software Vectorscopes are likely using them for creative and comparative analysis, rather then as tools for signal alignment. I understand the idea of simplifying the visuals of the scope. The graticule presented by a Harris VTM-4100 vectorscope Other then that, you’re looking at a big black area with a blob of a graph at the center that shows you all the data.

Once you learn to read the graph of a Vectorscope, there’s a lot you can see.ĭespite all this utility, the average HD vectorscope graticule in this day and age of graphically drawn software scopes shows nothing but boxes to indicate each of the target hues found in the 75% color bars test pattern, sometimes a second set of 100% bars boxes, usually a small (tiny) crosshairs to indicate the very center of 0% saturation, and maybe an In-phase indication line ( or skin tone indicator line, depending on who named it). Speaking as a colorist and not a broadcast engineer, they’re useful for comparing saturation levels between clips, for comparing the angle of hue of specific features appearing in multiple clips, for QC checking to make sure the signal is within tolerance, checking for overall errors in hue, and creatively they’re useful for evaluating how much color contrast you’ve got in your image, and in what direction the average color balance or dominant color temperature of the scene is leaning. I’ve used several different hardware and software-based Vectorscopes over the years.

Older hardware-based Vectorscopes had the graticule silkscreened on a plastic overlay, so it was fixed and unchanging.

The graticule, (sometimes called a reticle), is the overlay that presents targets, reference lines, crosshairs, and other guides to help when interpreting the trace or graph of a Vectorscope’s analysis. It’s time for a new Vectorscope graticule.

Scopebox review