28 Using the RGB Parade Scope

#28 Using the RGB Parade Scope

You can access the RGB Parade scope (Figure 28) by clicking the Output button in the Program Monitor. This scope displays the levels of Red, Green, and Blue in the video signal on a scale from 0 to 100 IRE. In my view, unlike the YC Waveform (#21), which shows nearly absolute information (the frame doesn't reach 100 IRE, therefore it's too dark), you can only draw inferences from the RGB Parade.

Figure 28. The RGB Parade scope helps diagnose color problems, especially with Multi-Camera projects.

Multi-Camera Color Correction

The RGB Parade is especially helpful with Multi-Camera color correction. Generally, I pick the camera with the most accurate color and compare its RGB Parade to those of the other cameras. This provides the clues necessary to get the colors close enough so that most viewers won't notice the difference.

For example, in Figure 28, the blue and green signals tower above the red signal. This tells me that the video probably has a bluish green. If I was using the Fast Color Corrector and there were no white pixels to sample, I would drag the Balance Angle of the Color Correction widget toward the red and away from the blue and green sections, and then fine-tune as described in #26.