How do I balance my cameras using a WVR series waveform rasterizer?

How do I balance my cameras using a WVR series waveform rasterizer?

The WVR series instruments provide industry standard waveform monitor and vectorscope displays which can be used to monitor camera adjustments such as white balancing or color correction as they are made.

In addition, these instruments offer a freeze feature which will store the current display and allow comparison with another input; this feature can be quite effective in assiting with camera balancing.

To balance two cameras using the freeze feature of the WVR series rasterizers simply follow the steps below:

1) Connect camera A to the input of the WVR and bring up the desired displays; usually at least one tile set to waveform monitor, one set to vectorscope and one set to picture monitor, the fourth tile can be set to anything of your choosing. Remember to terminate the loopthrough of the input if it is not being passed through to another device.

2) Zoom camera A into a fixed portion of the scene you’re shooting; usually a chip chart of some sort is used for this, especially the color bars chart. Adjust the camera angle and zoom such that the chip chart fills the entire camera image.

3) Adjust camera A’s white balance, black level and chrominance to your liking. The vectorscope display should indicate that all color transitions are falling within the designated boxes if a color bars test pattern is being used.

4) Press the “Freeze” button on the front panel of the instrument to store the current display in memory.

5) Connect camera B to the same input of the WVR (alternatively, if camera B is coming into input B of the WVR, simply change the input source from the front panel).

6) Now you should have camera A’s waveform displayed in yellow at the same time as camera B’s waveform displayed in green. Use the adjustment control on camera B to get the waveform and vector displays to match between the stored and live values. When this process is complete the two cameras (A and B) will be balanced.