Color Bars and Tone Generation

Color bars and a test tone can be generated when the processor is running. The colors bars replace the video portion of the outgoing DV stream and the test tone replaces the audio portion.

To enable the color bars and test tone, press B on the keyboard. The main application window must have the focus.

To turn the bars and tone off, press B again.

The following example shows the output from the processor without and with the color bars and test tone enabled:

Color Bars

The color bars generated depend upon the video format. For NTSC, standard SMPTE pluge bars are used (as shown in the example above). For PAL, EBU color bars are generated (similar to the above).

Effect on active processor functions

When color bars are generated, certain active video-related processor functions are temporarily disabled, specifically:

• Aspect ratio conversion
• Video proc amp

The following functions remain active:

• Text overlay
• Logo insertion

The reason that the overlay functions are not disabled is to allow customization of the color bars with information such as time/date or a station ID:

Test Tone

For both PAL and NTSC, the test tone generated is 1.000 ± 0.001 kHz at 0dB. The audio format is always 48kHz/16-bit irrespective of the incoming DV stream audio sampling format. If active, the audio proc amp is temporarily disabled while the test tone is being generated.

Customization (licensed version only)

The image used for the color bars can be replaced with a user-defined image.

File locations

In the steps below, the following file locations must be used and the steps infer these locations:

PAL: C:\Program Files\Enosoft\Enosoft DV Processor\ColorBars\PAL

NTSC: C:\Program Files\Enosoft\Enosoft DV Processor\ColorBars\NTSC

If you installed the software to a different location, change the above paths accordingly.

Registry key locations

In the steps below, the following registry keys are used:

PAL: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Enosoft\Enosoft DV Processor\ColorBars\PAL

NTSC: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Enosoft\Enosoft DV Processor\ColorBars\NTSC

The registry values described below are held within these keys.

Creating an NTSC image

1. Launch the Enosoft DV Processor
2. Select IndianHead.dv for the Input stage
3. Select Raw DV File... for Output and choose a suitable name. This file must be created in the path given earlier.
4. Enable Logo Overlay and open the configuration window.
5. Choose a suitable image - it must be exactly 720 x 480 pixels. It will automatically be positioned at the required location.
6. Set the appearance to Opaque.
7. Run the processor

This will create a short (one frame) raw DV file.

Creating a PAL image

1. Launch the Enosoft DV Processor
2. Select BBC_F.dv for the Input stage
3. Select Raw DV File... for Output and choose a suitable name. This file must be created in the path given earlier.
4. Enable Logo Overlay and open the configuration window.
5. Choose a suitable image - it must be exactly 720 x 576 pixels. It will automatically be positioned at the required location.
6. Set the appearance to Opaque.
7. Run the processor

This will create a short (one frame) raw DV file.

Added the image to the list in the registry

For PAL and NTSC separately, the registry key given above contains a string value named Use and a list of string values that each contain the name of an image file as created using the method above.

By default, there is one entry named "1". For PAL, this is set to "BBC_F.dv" and for NTSC it is set to "IndianHead.dv".

To add a new image called MyImage.dv, create a new string value and set its value to "MyImage.dv". It is recommended that the name for the new string value be set to the next numeric value in the list, e.g., "2".

Enabling the user-defined image

To enable the image, simply set the Use value to the name of the key that has the image name. In the above case this would mean setting Use to "2".

To use the built-in image, set Use to "".

Note, in the above steps, do not type the quotation marks when entering/modifying the registry values.

Example registry entries

Last Updated on Tuesday, 26th June, 2008. Application Version 1.5.2.

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