Franklin Matters: tuning

Showing posts with label tuning. Show all posts

Sunday, May 25, 2025

Franklin TV: TV’s, Cameras, Lights!

Then we’re ready for Lights, Cameras, Action!

by Pete Fasciano, Executive Director 05/25/2025

It’s another TV Studio makeover. Chris Flynn and I returned to the Dean TV studio to work with Gregg Seibert (left) and Peter Leger (right) to fine tune the Dean College studio system – the background displays, the cameras, and the lights. If you watch any TV at all, these days all the major evening newscasts and many of the Prime-time live programs use digital background displays to visually dramatic effect. To play those effects to best – umm, effect takes careful optical calibration. How do we do this? We match the cameras to the displays. Then we adjust the lights to the cameras. Precisely.

Gregg Seibert (left) and Peter Leger (right)

optical calibration

Franklin TV studios are the only PEG facilities in the state that are fully equipped and optimized to perform this same visual magic as the national TV networks. Last fall we installed this capability in the Dean studio, and began producing programs for Franklin.TV, making the Dean College an able extension of our own facility. When Dean students visit our studio or work as interns, they will be in familiar surroundings, and prepared for careers in a state-of-the-art operation.

And – as always –

Thank you for watching.
Thank you for listening to wfpr●fm.
And staying informed at Franklin●news.

Get this week's program guide for Franklin.TV and Franklin Public Radio (wfpr.fm) online http://franklin.tv/programguide.pdf

Watch Listen Read all things that matter in Franklin MA

Sunday, April 20, 2025

Franklin TV: TV Studio Standards

TV studios get a regular tune-up to look good.

by Pete Fasciano, Executive Director 04/20/2025

Every TV studio adheres to a set of essential technical standards for lighting, adjustments to calibrate the cameras, and so on. We do all this so folks at home don’t become distracted by color and brightness errors between cameras during our programs. When we do TeeVee properly we are invisible. Your attention is on the program you’re watching. Your DTV set is simply a window into our TeeVee world. Note that the Spanish words for TV screen can be ‘pantalla’ or ‘ventana’ – a window. If you look outside through a real window the daylight is usually bright and cool. Outdoor light has twice as much ‘blue’ in it as typical warmer-looking indoor light.

Technically:
Outside mid-day light: 2000 footcandles at D65 (6,500 degrees Kelvin) for white. Ordinary Indoor light: 100 footcandles at D32 (3,200 degrees Kelvin) for white.

Your TV screen (window) is set at the factory to match the outdoor light’s white. Why? Because psychovisually we perceive our TeeVee screen as a window, and we expect it to appear just like any normal window. Hence, it has more blue.

Franklin TV: TV Studio Standards

This is the Dean College studio. The left display is color corrected to match the studio lights. The right display is the normal cooler ‘blue’ factory setting that we reduce. The two ‘china dolls’ provide white, skintone and black references for adjusting the cameras. All of this techno-nerdy tweaking happens in the day-to-day of operating a TeeVee studio so programs always look perfectly natural at home.

And – as always –