TVDamage Simulates a TV with transmission and reception problems, VCR issues, and TV hardware difficulties. Simulates static, interference, ghosting, horizontal and vertical hold, hum bars, color stripes, visible scanlines, VCR fast-forward, dropouts, vignetting, orthicon, fisheye, and turn-off. Inputs: Source:  The clip to be processed.

Parameters:

Effect:   Popup menu,  Default: Color.
Type of TV to simulate: color or black & white.

Color:  simulates a color TV.

Mono:  simulates a black & white TV.

Reception Master:   Default: 0.4,  Range: 0 or greater,  Shared.
Master control for all reception-oriented artifacts: static, interference, ghosting, horizontal and vertical hold, hum bars, and color stripes. Turn to zero to get perfect reception, i.e. zero of each of the above artifacts.

Tv Pixels:   Default: 720,  Range: 1 or greater,  Shared.
The number of 'TV pixels' across the screen. Controls the size of the static, interference, scanlines, and dropouts. Lower this to simulate a lower resolution TV.

Seed:   Default: 0.123,  Range: 0 or greater,  Shared.
Used to initialize the random number generator. The actual seed value is not significant, but different seeds give different results and the same value should give a repeatable result.

Static Amplitude:   Default: 0.8,  Range: 0 or greater,  Shared.
Scales the brightness of the static noise. Scaled by Reception Master. The static dot size is controlled by the TV Pixels parameter.

Static Density:   Default: 0.7,  Range: 0.01 to 1,  Shared.
Density of the static; turn up to get more static pixels; turn down to get only occasional static pixels.

Interference Amp:   Default: 0.6,  Range: 0 or greater,  Shared.
Simulates interference from nearby electrical devices (electric motors, cordless phones, and so on). The look is a pattern of semi-regularly spaced random color dots. The dot size is controlled by the TV Pixels parameter. Scaled by Reception Master.

Ghost Amplitude:   Default: 0.6,  Range: 0 or greater,  Shared.
Ghosts are copies of the image that result from multipath distortion between the transmitter and the TV. Turn up this parameter to get stronger ghosts. Scaled by Reception Master.

Horizontal Hold:   Default: 0.5,  Range: 0 or greater,  Shared.
This causes the image to shift horizontally in a semi-random way, simulating a TV with a bad horizontal hold circuit, or a signal not strong enough to engage the horizontal hold. Scaled by Reception Master.

Vertical Hold:   Default: 0.8,  Range: 0 to 2,  Shared.
This causes the image to shift vertically in a rolling motion, and is normally caused by a weak signal preventing the TV from locking on. This parameter controls the fraction of the time that the image is having hold problems. Set to zero for no vertical hold problems. Scaled by Reception Master.

Bars Amp:   Default: 0.3,  Range: 0 or greater,  Shared.
Power line hum and other TV problems can cause rolling light and dark bars to crawl up the screen. This can also be caused by failure to synchronize a video camera to the TV output. This parameter controls the overall strength of these bars. There are two sets of bars, one large and one small, that mutually interfere. This parameter controls the overall brightness scale of the bars. Turn to zero for no bars. Scaled by Reception Master.

Stripes Amp:   Default: 0.2,  Range: 0 or greater,  Shared.
Another common form of interference, color stripes are caused by phase shifts in the chroma signal, among other things. This parameter controls the overall brightness of the color stripes. Scaled by Reception Master.

Fast Forward:   Default: 0,  Range: 0 or greater,  Shared.
Generates a VCR fast-forward look with torn bars across the screen.

Tape Dropouts:   Default: 0,  Range: 0 or greater,  Shared.
Generates VCR dropouts on random frames, at random times.

Vignette Dark:   Default: 0,  Range: 0 to 1,  Shared.
Vignetting is darkening of the image towards the corners and sides of the image. This parameter controls how much the outer corners of the screen should be darkened (vignetted). 0 gives no vignetting, 1 gives maximum darkening.

Scanlines:   Default: 0.1,  Range: 0 or greater,  Shared.
Creates visible scanlines in the image. Increase to get more intense scanlines, or set to zero for no scanlines. The width of the scanlines is controlled by the TV Pixels parameter and Scanlines Rel Freq.

Scanlines Freq:   Default: 1,  Range: 0 or greater,  Shared.
Relative frequency of the TV scanlines. Increase to get more scanlines, decrease to get fewer large scanlines. Note that the number of scanlines is also controlled by the TV Pixels parameter.

Orthicon:   Default: 0,  Range: 0 or greater,  Shared.
Darkens the clip at areas around parts of the source clip that are brighter than the given threshold, to simulate a 1950s 'orthicon' TV camera look. Most useful in black & white mode.

Turn Off:   Default: 0,  Range: 0 to 1,  Shared.
Animate this parameter from 0 to 1 to simulate the TV turning off. The image will turn white and shrink to a dot in the center, with a flash near the end.

Fish Eye:   Default: 0,  Range: any,  Shared.
Expands the center of the source clip as if viewed through a fish-eye lens. This gives an old-time slightly rounded TV look.

Params2:

Num Ghosts:   Integer,  Default: 5,  Range: 0 or greater,  Shared.
The number of ghost images. Some may be ahead (to the left of) the source image, most will be to the right. Some will be positive and some negative (inverted). See Shift and Negative Ghosts below.

Negative Ghosts:   Default: 0.5,  Range: 0 to 1,  Shared.
The fraction of the ghosts that are negative (inverted), on average.

Ghost Spacing:   Default: 0.2,  Range: 0 or greater,  Shared.
Amount to spread out the ghost images horizontally.

Vary Position:   Default: 0.3,  Range: 0 to 1,  Shared.
Controls the regularity of the ghost image spacing. Set to zero for regularly spaced ghosts; set to one for random positioning.

Ghost Shift:   Default: 0.5,  Range: -1 to 1,  Shared.
Shifts the ghost images to the left or right, without shifting the main image.

Ghost Smooth:   Default: 0,  Range: 0 or greater,  Shared.
Blurs the ghost images without blurring the main image or any other artifacts.

H Frequency:   Default: 1.25,  Range: 0 or greater,  Shared.
Vertical frequency of the horizontal-hold waves.

H Time Vary:   Default: 0.5,  Range: 0 or greater,  Shared.
Modulates the horizontal-hold waves over time by this amount. When increased, some frames will have more horizontal shifting while other frames will have less.

V Frequency:   Default: 2,  Range: 0 or greater,  Shared.
The frequency of vertical hold jumps. Decrease to get a more consistent rolling motion, or increase to get a jumpier look.

V Speed:   Default: 2,  Range: any,  Shared.
The average speed of the vertical hold rolling motion over time.

V Random:   Default: 0.1,  Range: 0 or greater,  Shared.
Controls how much randomness there is in the vertical hold rolling motion. Set to zero for smooth rolling, 1 or more for jittery behavior.

Border Data:   Default: 1,  Range: 0 to 10,  Shared.
Brightness of the dots and lines that appear in the vertical blanking interval specified by Border Width.

Roll Speed:   Default: 1,  Range: 0 or greater,  Shared.
Bars and color stripes are automatically animated to roll at this speed.

Bar Frequency:   Default: 1,  Range: 0.1 or greater,  Shared.
The frequency of the bars; turn up for more thinner bars, turn down for fewer fat bars.

Bar1 Width:   Default: 0.35,  Range: 0 to 1,  Shared.
Fraction of the main bar that is light; the rest is dark.

Bar2 Rel Freq:   Default: 6,  Range: 1 or greater,  Shared.
Controls the frequency of the smaller bars.

Stripe Frequency:   Default: 10,  Range: 1 or greater,  Shared.
Spatial frequency of the color stripes.

Stripe Angle:   Default: 160,  Range: any,  Shared.
Angle of the stripes.

Int Frequency:   Default: 1.27,  Range: 0 to 500,  Shared.
Interference frequency. The look is very sensitive to this parameter. Fractional values like 0.3 or 1.23 look better than integers. Animating it very slightly, say from 1.27 to 1.3 gives a nice look.

Dots Speed:   Default: 1,  Range: any,  Shared.
The dot pattern moves with this speed over time in X and Y.

Params3:

FF Freq:   Default: 4,  Range: 0 or greater,  Shared.
How many fast-forward bands to create.

FF Shift:   Default: 0.1,  Range: 0 or greater,  Shared.
Shifts the fast-forward bands up or down.

FF Height:   Default: 0.16,  Range: 0 to 1,  Shared.
The height of each fast-forward band.

Dropout Len:   Default: 0.5,  Range: 0 or greater,  Shared.
The average length of each dropout scanline.

Dropout Y Thresh:   Default: 0.75,  Range: 0 to 1,  Shared.
Increase to cover more of the screen with dropouts (on average); decrease to cover less of it. If you don't see any dropouts at all on some frames, increase this parameter.

Dropouts Always:   Default: 1,  Range: 0 to 1,  Shared.
Dropouts only appear on some frames; increase this parameter to see dropouts on more frames, so they occur more frequently in time. If you don't see dropouts on any frames, increase this parameter.

Threshold:   Default: 0.7,  Range: 0 or greater,  Shared.
Darkening will occur around locations in the source clip that are brighter than this value. A value of 0.9 causes dark glows from only the brightest spots. A value of 0 causes glows for every non-black area.

Darks Width:   Default: 0.2,  Range: 0 or greater,  Shared.
Scales the dark glow distance.

Vignt Radius:   Default: 1,  Range: 0 or greater,  Shared.
Distance from the center where the vignetting starts.

Vignt Edge Soft:   Default: 0.5,  Range: 0 or greater,  Shared.
The width of the vignette's soft edge. Larger values give softer, less visible edges.

Vignt Rel Height:   Default: 0.75,  Range: 0.1 or greater,  Shared.
Controls the aspect ratio of the vignette ellipse. This should normally be set to the aspect ratio of the image, e.g. .75 for NTSC.

Tint Lights:   Default rgb: [1 1 1],  Shared.
Scales the result by this color, thus tinting the lighter regions.

Hue Shift:   Default: 0,  Range: any,  Shared.
Shift the color hues by this amount.

Saturation:   Default: 1,  Range: any,  Shared.
Scales the color saturation. Increase for more intense colors. Set to 0 for monochrome.

Flare Width:   Default: 1,  Range: 0 or greater,  Shared.
Width of the flare or flash near the end of the turn-off sequence. Set to zero to omit this flash.

Flare Brightness:   Default: 2,  Range: 0 or greater,  Shared.
Brightness of the flare or flash near the end of the turn-off sequence.

Fade Out Time:   Default: 0.3,  Range: 0 to 1,  Shared.
The point during the turn-off sequence at which the image should begin the fade out. When the Turn Off parameter is greater than this value, the image will be faded, turning black when Turn Off is 1. A value of zero produces a slow, gradual fade. A value of one will cut to black instantly at the end of the turn off.

Scale Lights:   Default: 1,  Range: 0 or greater,  Shared.
Scales the result by this gray value. Increase for a brighter result.

Offset Darks:   Default: 0,  Range: any,  Shared.
Adds this gray value to the darker regions of the result. This can be negative to increase contrast.

See Also:

JpegDamage FilmDamage FilmEffect ScanLines TVChannelChange Vignette HalfTone Diffuse StaticColor StaticMono

Sapphire Plug-ins Introduction

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