A color suite (also called a color bay, telecine suite, or color correction bay) is the

control room A control room or operations room is a central space where a large physical facility or physically dispersed service can be monitored and controlled. It is often part of a larger command center. Overview A control room's purpose is produc ...

for

color grading Color grading is a post-production process common to filmmaking and video editing of altering the appearance of an image for presentation in different environments on different devices. Various attributes of an image such as contrast, color, ...

video Video is an Electronics, electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving picture, moving image, visual Media (communication), media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, whi ...

in a

post-production Post-production is part of the process of filmmaking, video production, audio production, and photography. Post-production includes all stages of production occurring after principal photography or recording individual program segments. Th ...

environment.

Technology and specifications

The video source could be from: a

telecine Telecine ( or ) is the process of transferring film into video and is performed in a color suite. The term is also used to refer to the equipment used in the post-production process. Telecine enables a motion picture, captured originally on ...

, a

video tape recorder A video tape recorder (VTR) is a tape recorder designed to record and playback video and audio material from magnetic tape. The early VTRs were open-reel devices that record on individual reels of 2-inch-wide (5.08 cm) tape. They were ...

(VTR), a motion picture film scanner, virtual telecine or a Direct to Disk Recording (DDR) or the older system called a

film chain A film chain or film island is a television – professional video camera with one or more projectors aligned into the photographic lens of the camera. With two or more projectors a system of front-surface mirrors that can pop-up are used in a m ...

. A high end

broadcast Broadcasting is the distribution (business), distribution of sound, audio or video content to a dispersed audience via any electronic medium (communication), mass communications medium, but typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum (radio ...

color suite may use a

Da Vinci Systems da Vinci Systems was an American digital cinema company founded in 1984 in Coral Springs, Florida as a spinoff of Video Tape Associates. It was known for its hardware-based color correction products, GPU-based color grading, digital masterin ...

Pandora International Pandora International is a maker of hardware and software systems for video editing, Telecine Control and Colour Correction. Pandora was founded in 1985 By Steve Brett and Martin Greenwood, later Aine Marsland joined the team and took over the admi ...

color corrector. If a VTR is the source for the video the room is often called a ''tape to tape'' suite. Many suites are designed to operate as a telecine suite or a tape to tape suite by changing the configuration of the suite. The operator of the suite is usually called a ''Colorist''. If a telecine is the source this is called a ''Film to Tape'' operation. A color suite may use one video standard or be able to change configuration to a number of standards like:

high-definition video High-definition video (HD video) is video of higher resolution and quality than standard-definition. While there is no standardized meaning for ''high-definition'', generally any video image with considerably more than 480 vertical scan lines ( ...

NTSC The first American standard for analog television broadcast was developed by National Television System Committee (NTSC)National Television System Committee (1951–1953), Report and Reports of Panel No. 11, 11-A, 12–19, with Some supplement ...

, or

PAL Phase Alternating Line (PAL) is a colour encoding system for analogue television. It was one of three major analogue colour television standards, the others being NTSC and SECAM. In most countries it was broadcast at 625 lines, 50 fields (25 ...

or a DI workflow. Color suites are sometime placed in

digital cinema Digital cinema refers to adoption of digital technology within the film industry to distribute or project motion pictures as opposed to the historical use of reels of motion picture film, such as 35 mm film. Whereas film reels have to be s ...

movie theaters A movie theater (American English), cinema (British English), or cinema hall (Indian English), also known as a movie house, picture house, the movies, the pictures, picture theater, the silver screen, the big screen, or simply theater is a ...

with a

video projector A video projector is an image projector that receives a video signal and projects the corresponding image on a projection screen using a lens system. Video projectors use a very bright ultra-high-performance lamp (a special mercury arc lamp), ...

for color correction to that display format. Da Vinci Impresario

The suite room will also have equipment in the

production control room The production control room (PCR) or studio control room (SCR) is the place in a television studio in which the composition of the outgoing program takes place. The production control room is occasionally also called an SCR or a gallerythe latt ...

for monitoring the video signal such a

video monitor A display device is an output device for presentation of information in visual or tactile form (the latter used for example in tactile electronic displays for blind people). When the input information that is supplied has an electrical signal t ...

waveform monitor A waveform monitor is a special type of oscilloscope used in television production applications. It is typically used to measure and display the level, or voltage, of a video signal with respect to time. The level of a video signal usually corr ...

and

vectorscope A vectorscope is a special type of oscilloscope used in both audio and video applications. Whereas an oscilloscope or waveform monitor normally displays a plot of signal vs. time, a vectorscope displays an X-Y plot of two signals, which ca ...

. The suite may have an either a

non-linear editing system Non-linear editing is a form of offline editing for audio, video, and image editing. In offline editing, the original content is not modified in the course of editing. In non-linear editing, edits are specified and modified by specialized ...

(NLE) or linear editing system to control the source and record device. This may be internal to the color grading device, as in a Pandora's Pogle or Da Vinci's 2k or external, as in Da Vinci's TLC (telecine controller). A

vision mixer A vision mixer is a device used to select between several different live video sources and, in some cases, compositing live video sources together to create visual effects. In most of the world, both the equipment and its operator are calle ...

may also be in the suite for monitoring different video sources or for simple or

special effect Special effects (often abbreviated as SFX, F/X or simply FX) are illusions or visual tricks used in the theatre, film, television, video game, amusement park and simulator industries to simulate the imagined events in a story or virtual w ...

s in the video. A

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 ...

is sometime used also for titling and subtitle. The suite may have equipment to read, log and insert into the video Kodak's Keykode. Keykode is bar coding that is placed at regular intervals on negative films to aid in identifying and counting of film frames. Evertz,

Aaton Aaton Digital (formerly known as Aaton) is a French motion picture equipment manufacturer, based in Grenoble, France. History Aaton was founded by Eclair engineer Jean-Pierre Beauviala, whose efforts have been primarily focused on making quiet ...

and

ARRI The Arri Group () is a German manufacturer of motion picture film equipment. Based in Munich, the company was founded in 1917. It produces professional motion picture cameras, lenses, lighting and post-production equipment. Hermann Simon menti ...

are three types of readers for telecine use. The suite may or may not have

audio post production Audio post production is all stages of audio production relating to sound produced and synchronized with moving picture (film, television, or video). It involves sound design, sound effects, Foley, ADR, sound editing, audio mixing, mastering et ...

equipment. This would be to monitor and if needed sync up the program audio to the video source if the sound was not on the film. An audio

mixing console A mixing console or mixing desk is an electronic device for mixing audio signals, used in sound recording and reproduction and sound reinforcement systems. Inputs to the console include microphones, signals from electric or electronic inst ...

and other audio equipment such as effects devices may also be in the suite. The audio may be from the

film soundtrack A soundtrack is recorded music accompanying and synchronised to the images of a motion picture, drama, book, television program, radio program, or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack o ...

. The term MOS is used, on a

slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic ro ...

, when a scene is filmed without sync sound or any sound. A clapperboard slate is used at the start and sometime at the end of scene to mark particular takes recorded during a production. Other equipment that may be used in the suite are: digital still store\ Frame grabber to store references frames, noise reducer to reduce film grain/dirt and video noise; video router and audio router. The telecine, VTRs and some of the larger equipment are often placed in a central apparatus room or ''machine room'' and are interconnected through

Cable tray In the electrical wiring of buildings, a cable tray system is used to support insulated electrical cables used for power distribution, control, and communication. Cable trays are used as an alternative to open wiring or electrical conduit syste ...

s or

raised floor A raised floor (also raised flooring, access floor(ing), or raised-access computer floor) provides an elevated structural floor above a solid substrate (often a concrete slab) to create a hidden void for the passage of mechanical and electrica ...

to the color suite by

patch panel A patch panel is a device or unit featuring a number of jacks, usually of the same or similar type, for the use of connecting and routing circuits for monitoring, interconnecting, and testing circuits in a convenient, flexible manner. Patch p ...

coaxial cable Coaxial cable, or coax (pronounced ) is a type of electrical cable consisting of an inner conductor surrounded by a concentric conducting shield, with the two separated by a dielectric ( insulating material); many coaxial cables also have a ...

computer network A computer network is a set of computers sharing resources located on or provided by network nodes. The computers use common communication protocols over digital interconnections to communicate with each other. These interconnections ar ...

and multicore cables. Some color suites are at video post production facilities that rent them by the hour for the transfer of

TV commercials A television advertisement (also called a television commercial, TV commercial, commercial, spot, television spot, TV spot, advert, television advert, TV advert, television ad, TV ad or simply an ad)