[FFmpeg-user] Numerical histogram output for checking typical broadcast ranges (16-235)

[Carl Eugen Hoyos]

Christoph Gerstbauer <christophgerstbauer <at> gmail.com> writes:

> > do you realise that valid (specification-compliant) 
> > broadcast-range video may contain values < 16 and > 235?
>
> Hello Carl, no, I don´t.
> Can you explain this to me?
> I always thought that SD broadcast levels has to 
> be >16 and <235.

I cannot explain the relevant specifications (and I 
don't even know where to find them) to you but to the 
best of my knowledge:
Just as "MPEG constant bitrate" does not mean constant 
frame size, so a stream containing video frames of 
different sizes is not necessarily "variable bitrate", 
you cannot judge a video stream as being non-"broadcast 
level" just because it contains values < 16 or > 235.

Carl Eugen