Using SMPTE Bars to Color Manage Archival Materials

Restoration Part 3: A more sophisticated approach to color managing archival footage using legacy color bars

When working with an archive (or master) broadcast file, you may sometimes encounter embedded SMPTE bars (or color bars). These bars allow you to color manage the project to modern deliverable standards more accurately than a direct conversion algorithm or look-up table.

SMPTE color bars are embedded in most legacy broadcast deliverables. They allowed engineers to calibrate the video signal to local transmission specifications and account for signal drift inherent between analog videotape players. Though we think broadcast signals are standardized, many factors could change the image values—different capture formats, regional transmission hardware, poorly maintained analog recording devices, and image alteration due to recording, transmission, and compression.

SMPTE bars are a defined standard that allows broadcasters to align the luma and chroma values of the deliverable to ensure the audience sees the values as the filmmakers intended.

In this Insight you’ll learn how to create standard SMPTE bars that you can color-match to archival footage. In the process, you learn how we do this within a color-managed pipeline to expertly incorporate archival footage into a modern format.

Key takeaways from this Insight