The CNN color lies: Same video but different colors ?

[Skybuck Flying]

Hello,

The woman that was resqued from the farc/colombian jungle was broadcasted by
different television channels.

Among france channel, euro channel, and cnn channel.

However the colors on france and euro channel looked very alive and
colorfull... while the cnn colors looked very dull, mate, gray and vague...
for example people had green or blue suit on euro channel and it looked near
dark/black on cnn channel, other example... dude had like almost pink/beige
suit... but it looked vage on cnn channel... like some cheap old suit from
the past

It's was exactly the same video but still different colors ?

What causes these different colors ?

My best guess is:

1. CNN compresses the video signal to broadcast it via satelites or so to
save money...

2. Or they simply have old/bad equipment ?

3. Or bad settings ???

Dismissed:

0. ntsc<->pal conversion issue's, I similulated this... it doesn't seem to
be the case, since this would give even worse color distoration which would
definetly be noticeable... unless maybe just maybe some clamping had
occured.. but still I think this option can safely be dismissed ?!?

Who can shed some more light on these "cnn color lies" ?

Bye,
Skybuck.

 

[Miles Bader]

Who can shed some more light on these "cnn color lies" ?

How do you know it was cnn that was a "lie"? Perhaps the other channels
simply boosted color saturation to get a more appealing image?

-Miles

 

[Phil Allison]

"Skybuck Flying"

The woman that was resqued from the farc/colombian jungle was broadcasted
by different television channels.

Among france channel, euro channel, and cnn channel.

However the colors on france and euro channel looked very alive and
colorfull... while the cnn colors looked very dull, mate, gray and
vague... for example people had green or blue suit on euro channel and it
looked near dark/black on cnn channel, other example... dude had like
almost pink/beige suit... but it looked vage on cnn channel... like some
cheap old suit from the past

It's was exactly the same video but still different colors ?

What causes these different colors ?

( snip)
Who can shed some more light on these "cnn color lies" ?

** I understand the image quality is sometimes *deliberately degraded * for
commercial reasons related to the use and re-use of copyright news material

It ain't some technical problem.


....... Phil

 

[Eeyore]

How do you know it was cnn that was a "lie"? Perhaps the other channels
simply boosted color saturation to get a more appealing image?

Perhaps CNN have crap technicians ?

Graham

 

[robinlos]

Hello,

The woman that was resqued from the farc/colombian jungle was broadcastedby
different television channels.

Among france channel, euro channel, and cnn channel.

However the colors on france and euro channel looked very alive and
colorfull... while the cnn colors looked very dull, mate, gray and vague....
for example people had green or blue suit on euro channel and it looked near
dark/black on cnn channel, other example... dude had like almost pink/beige
suit... but it looked vage on cnn channel... like some cheap old suit from
the past

It's was exactly the same video but still different colors ?

What causes these different colors ?

My best guess is:

1. CNN compresses the video signal to broadcast it via satelites or so to
save money...

2. Or they simply have old/bad equipment ?

3. Or bad settings ???

Dismissed:

0. ntsc<->pal conversion issue's, I similulated this... it doesn't seem to
be the case, since this would give even worse color distoration which would
definetly be noticeable... unless maybe just maybe some clamping had
occured.. but still I think this option can safely be dismissed ?!?

Who can shed some more light on these "cnn color lies" ?

Bye,
  Skybuck.

I think the PAL -NTSC theory is probable. PAL video when converted to
NTSC requires care on the part of the converter to maintain the
proper color hue and intensity. If the person who ran the conversion
was not comparing the originial to the converted copy, a loss of color
intensity could very well happen..The conversion probably was done in
haste, as it was news. In fact, it might not have even been done on
broadcast quality equipment. News networks requently have to "make
do".. Of course the Euro outlets did not need a color conversion.

 

[[email protected]]

0. ntsc<->pal conversion issue's, I similulated this... it doesn't seem to
be the case, since this would give even worse color distoration which would
definetly be noticeable... unless maybe just maybe some clamping had
occured.. but still I think this option can safely be dismissed ?!?

I would expect the results would depend a lot on the conversion
equipment and settings used, so I don't think you could "simulate" it
in a way that would necessarily reflect what goes on upstream of you.

The digital transmission/compression issue is another possibility of
course.

Does anyone know if the story about the color TV test setup with the
bowl of fruit and some joker painting the banana green is true?

 

[Glenn Gundlach]

Hello,

The woman that was resqued from the farc/colombian jungle was broadcastedby
different television channels.

Among france channel, euro channel, and cnn channel.

However the colors on france and euro channel looked very alive and
colorfull... while the cnn colors looked very dull, mate, gray and vague....
for example people had green or blue suit on euro channel and it looked near
dark/black on cnn channel, other example... dude had like almost pink/beige
suit... but it looked vage on cnn channel... like some cheap old suit from
the past

It's was exactly the same video but still different colors ?

What causes these different colors ?

My best guess is:

1. CNN compresses the video signal to broadcast it via satelites or so to
save money...

2. Or they simply have old/bad equipment ?

3. Or bad settings ???

Dismissed:

0. ntsc<->pal conversion issue's, I similulated this... it doesn't seem to
be the case, since this would give even worse color distoration which would
definetly be noticeable... unless maybe just maybe some clamping had
occured.. but still I think this option can safely be dismissed ?!?

Who can shed some more light on these "cnn color lies" ?

Bye,
  Skybuck.

Color is not their only 'lie'
G²

 

[Skybuck Flying]

Probably both channels lied a bit.

France/Euro channels looked too colorfull.

CNN channel looked to dull

Bye,
Skybuck

 

[[email protected]]

Does anyone know if the story about the color TV test setup with the
bowl of fruit and some joker painting the banana green is true?

Sorry, blue not green.

 

[robinlos]

Sorry, blue not green.

I've heard a lot of anecdotes about RCA's attempts to bring color TV
to a practical state.. Some of them concern the frustration of color
shift, particularly known colors of food, all of which wasn't solved
very well for quite a while after NTSC color was deployed. The story
you refer to I have never heard. I have heard of some altering of
colors in early TV times to cause a picture to look better than it
really was. It might have happened. The truth is, when NTSC color got
the go ahead in '53, it really wasn't ready to get the job done, and,
of course, we all know it got by on wink wink until later.

 

[charles]

I've heard a lot of anecdotes about RCA's attempts to bring color TV
to a practical state.. Some of them concern the frustration of color
shift, particularly known colors of food, all of which wasn't solved
very well for quite a while after NTSC color was deployed. The story
you refer to I have never heard. I have heard of some altering of
colors in early TV times to cause a picture to look better than it
really was. It might have happened. The truth is, when NTSC color got
the go ahead in '53, it really wasn't ready to get the job done, and,
of course, we all know it got by on wink wink until later.

one of the US TV companies asked the BBC to send 100 engineers to help them
to get colour working. The BBC offered the services of 2. One of the
problems found, as told to me by one of those 2, was the transmission chain
went through the 'loop-though' terminals of the video monitors.

But you've misunderstood the situation. The banana was painted blue to
utterly fool the vision control engineer (BBC term) who aligned the camera
to make it look yellow - with somewhat strange results on normal pictures.

 

[Rich Grise]

I've heard a lot of anecdotes about RCA's attempts to bring color TV to a
practical state.. Some of them concern the frustration of color shift,
particularly known colors of food, all of which wasn't solved very well
for quite a while after NTSC color was deployed. The story you refer to I
have never heard. I have heard of some altering of colors in early TV
times to cause a picture to look better than it really was. It might have
happened. The truth is, when NTSC color got the go ahead in '53, it really
wasn't ready to get the job done, and, of course, we all know it got by on
wink wink until later.

The early sets had color & tint knobs in addition to brightness, contrast,
and horizontal and vertical hold. They used to have fine tuning, as well.

I was dating a gal who had a big-screen projection TV, and it actually
had "convergence" adjustments, probably because there are 3 monitors
in the thing.

When we got our first color set, the guy said to adjust the color knobs
until the fleshtones (skin) are acceptable.

Cheers!
Rich

 

[JosephKK]

The early sets had color & tint knobs in addition to brightness, contrast,
and horizontal and vertical hold. They used to have fine tuning, as well.

I was dating a gal who had a big-screen projection TV, and it actually
had "convergence" adjustments, probably because there are 3 monitors
in the thing.

When we got our first color set, the guy said to adjust the color knobs
until the fleshtones (skin) are acceptable.

Cheers!
Rich

I worked on many TVs with convergence controls. You needed a "dot /
bar" generator to use them, i built my own, also a degaussing coil.
The color controls were also called hue and saturation back then. I
would even fiddle the "purity rings" if i found it necessary. All
that is gone now.

 

[Sal M. Onella]

I would expect the results would depend a lot on the conversion
equipment and settings used, so I don't think you could "simulate" it
in a way that would necessarily reflect what goes on upstream of you.

The digital transmission/compression issue is another possibility of
course.

Does anyone know if the story about the color TV test setup with the
bowl of fruit and some joker painting the banana green is true?

No, but I've seen the Indian Head Test Card where the Indian was in color,
propped up in front of a B&W camera. Does that illustrate "some loss of
color information may occur"?