Blackmagicdesign Video Assist Installation And Operation Manual page 25

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Waveform

The waveform display provides a digitally encoded waveform similar to traditional luminance

waveform monitors, which is used to monitor the luma or brightness levels of your video signal.

The bottom of the graph indicates the black level, or shadows, of the image, while the top of the

graph indicates the white level, or highlights. The range between the top and bottom of the

graph indicates the overall contrast ratio of the image you're evaluating. Depending on your

footage, your waveform will look different. If you are monitoring video which is high contrast,

you might not see any values in the mid grays.

For perfect video levels without clipping, you will want to make sure the blacks in your

waveform do not drop below 0% and the whites do not exceed 100%. If the levels exceed these

boundaries, the video image will be clipping and you will see the results as lost detail in the

shadows and highlights of your image.

The waveform monitor is a graphical representation of the image, showing luma values

corresponding to the same horizontal position within the video image. For example, if filming an

outdoor scene where the left side of your sky is overexposed, you will see the left side of the

waveform graph above 100%.

The waveform display showing luminance values

RGB Parade

The RGB parade shows separate waveforms displaying the luminance of each red, green and

blue color channel. By showing a comparison of each channel, the parade scope makes it

possible to monitor the levels of each channel, plus spot color casts by comparing the

highlights, midtones and shadows between each channel. For example, if the shadows are

higher in the blue channel, your blacks will have a shade of blue to them.

Having the ability to see how the differences between all the tonal ranges compare within each

channel gives you an extremely detailed overview of color in your image. You can immediately

spot white balance issues and color casts, and because the parade scope shows a waveform

for each channel, you can also see if one specific color channel is clipping, which you may not

see if you are looking at a single combined waveform.

The three separate RGB waveforms follow the same principles displayed in the waveform

scope, with the top, middle and bottom positions representing the highlights, mid tones and

shadows along the horizontal axis of the video image.

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