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In the television industry, a lower third is a graphic overlay placed in the title-safe lower area of the screen, though not necessarily the entire lower third of it, as the name suggests.
In its simplest form, a lower third can just be text overlaying the video. Frequently this text is white with a drop shadow to make the words easier to read. A lower third can also contain graphical elements such as boxes, images or shading. Some lower thirds have animated backgrounds and text.
Lower thirds can be created using basic home- video editing software or professional-level equipment. This equipment makes use of video's alpha channel to determine what parts of the graphic or text should be transparent, allowing the video in the background to show through.
In the television industry, a lower third is a graphic overlay placed in the title-safe lower area of the screen, though not necessarily the entire lower third of it, as the name suggests.
In its simplest form, a lower third can just be text overlaying the video. Frequently this text is white with a drop shadow to make the words easier to read. A lower third can also contain graphical elements such as boxes, images or shading. Some lower thirds have animated backgrounds and text.
Lower thirds can be created using basic home- video editing software or professional-level equipment. This equipment makes use of video's alpha channel to determine what parts of the graphic or text should be transparent, allowing the video in the background to show through.
Terminology
Lower thirds are also often known as "CG" (fromcharacter generator
A character generator, often abbreviated as CG, is a device or software that produces static or animated text (such as news crawls and credits rolls) for keying into a video stream. Modern character generators are computer-based, and they can g ...
) or captions, and sometimes chyrons in North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...
, due to the popularity of Chyron Corporation's Chiron I character generator
A character generator, often abbreviated as CG, is a device or software that produces static or animated text (such as news crawls and credits rolls) for keying into a video stream. Modern character generators are computer-based, and they can g ...
, an early digital solution developed in the 1970s for rendering lower thirds. Other common terms include superbars (or simply supers) ( US) and name straps and astons (after Aston Broadcast Systems) ( UK).
Video with lower thirds is known as a ''program as broadcast'' or ''dirty''. Video without lower thirds is known as a ''clean feed
Clean may refer to:
* Cleaning, the process of removing unwanted substances, such as dirt, infectious agents, and other impurities, from an object or environment
* Cleanliness, the state of being clean and free from dirt
Arts and media Music Al ...
'' or ''textless''. For international distribution programs often include ''textless elements'' on the master tape: these are all the shots that lower thirds and digital on-screen graphic
A digital on-screen graphic, digitally originated graphic (DOG, bug, or network bug) is a watermark-like station logo that most television broadcasters overlay over a portion of the screen area of their programs to identify the channel. They are ...
s have been applied to, placed end-to-end so engineers can make a clean master if necessary.
Tiers
Lower thirds are usually arranged in tiers, or lines: * One-tier lower thirds: Usually used to identify a story that is being shown, or to show a presenter's name. * Two-tier lower thirds: Used most often to identify a person on screen. Often, the person's name appears on the first line, with their place of residence or a description below that. Two-tier lower thirds may also be used as "locators" to identify where a story is taking place. * Three-tier lower thirds: These lower thirds add more information. Commonly, the first tier is used to tell when the video was shot, if it was not shot the day the newscast is airing.Further elements
Lower thirds increasingly include elements such as news tickers, time and date, weather information, stock quotes, or sports scores.See also
* Intertitle * Television news screen layout * TelopReferences
{{Broadcasting Film and video technology Television news Television terminology