Many folks only adhere to safe margins for aesthetic reasons, or because their video was for broadcast/cable as well as the internet. We have all seen the social media videos that have subtitles right at the bottom margin of the video frame. Online video has kind of had an “anything goes” mentality. This is why most video games have you adjust the display area on your TV when first launching them. Most people don’t turn off the overscan on their TV because they are unaware of it. On many TV models overscan can be disabled, but is turned on by default. Unfortunately most HD and 4K TVs still have overscan, which results in the edges of the image being cropped. You might think that since most people have flat panel displays we wouldn’t need title safe anymore. HD and 4K Televisions still have overscan In most cases you can ignore center cut safe, but it is best to find out ahead of time. In those instances the media buyer needed to call the cable and broadcast outlets and ask them to make an exception for our ads, which had graphics out of the 4×3 safe areas. I have had some projects where the client didn’t care about 4×3 safe margins. If you don’t adhere to the safe areas your video will not pass quality control. Many broadcasters still require “center cut safe.” This ensures that people who still have old 4×3 TVs won’t have the text cut off on the sides. These safe areas are 80% of the screen for title safe and 90% for action safe.ĮSPN has their network logo, as well as other graphics outside of the old 80% title safe area, but within the revised 90% title safe for HDTV Why do safe margins still matter? 4×3 center cut safe These are areas on the screen where all text and important action should be kept within to ensure the information is not cropped by the viewers display. To combat this image cropping the SMTPE (Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers) got together and created title safe and action safe. Due to manufacturing differences between televisions and the CRT magnets degrading over time, some of the image would be cropped at the edges. What Are Safe Margins?īack in the day TVs used CRTs (cathode ray tubes) to project an image onto the screen. Whether you’re a client, producer, camera op, editor, graphic artist, or just some dude who likes to watch videos, you should be aware of safe margins.Īs a video content creator ignoring title safe could mean a whole lot of viewers aren’t seeing text or other vital information in your videos. Some people forget about them (from shooting all the way through edit) and a surprising number of folks don’t even know about them. Title safe, action safe, safe margins, safe area, safeties – whatever you want to call them, they matter. Likewise, computer viewers can have their laptop or desktop mute the volume whenever these ads begin.Yes, Title safe still matters – especially for online video Many of today's Smart TVs have a volume regulator feature called Auto Volume that automatically adjusts decibel changes while viewing Hulu's loud commercials. Hulu is supposedly working on a solution, but they also recommend that users set their TV audio systems to automatically regulate any changes in programming volume. Some ads on Hulu start off maintaining the volume of whatever show the viewer had been watching before, slowly but surely blaring on all cylinders. However, advertisers who didn't want their commercials easily ignored figured out how to circumvent this regulation. Given that streaming platforms like Hulu could all be considered the same "channel," this should theoretically eliminate this issue. Back in 2010, the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act was passed, making it outright illegal for a commercial to be drastically louder than the average volume of the channel that it airs on.
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