NTSC Safe Zone
When editing movies it is important to keep the action within “action safe” and “title safe” areas of your editor.
Safe area is a term used to describe the areas of the television picture that can be seen on television screens.
Since the early days of television the bezels that surrounded the rounded picture tubes were different from set to set and manufacturer to manufacturer. Standards were established to ensure important picture areas were transmitted to everyone regardless of their set.
The safe action area is defined as the area in which “all significant action must take place”, and the safe title area is where “all the important information must be confined to ensure visibility on the majority of home television receivers.”
The safe action area occupies the center 90% of the screen, giving a 5% border all around. The safe title area occupies the center 80% of the screen, giving a 10% border.
So what’s this mean for you the home video editor ? Never put captions, titles or credits in the outer 10% border around the video. It may not show up on all TV’s. You may also want to make sure important action is with the 5% border.
Many video editors allow you to overlay guidelines so you can keep track of the safe zones. Read your help files to see if your software has this feature.
If your software does not have this feature built in you can use my Safe Zone Template to overlay your project.
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Make…The…Video…BIGGER! « Scott Carmichael’s Blog said,
April 5, 2008 @ 4:26 pm
[…] much like safe-zones in print that you want to stay away from for page-edge / gutter reasons. Read More Here… So what’s that? You’re telling me that because of overscanning 5% of the video on ALL 4 […]
Make…The…Video…BIGGER! « scottcc.blog said,
April 13, 2008 @ 12:38 am
[…] much like safe-zones in print that you want to stay away from for page-edge / gutter reasons. Read More Here… So what’s that? You’re telling me that because of overscanning 5% of the video on ALL 4 […]