Using Scopes

The Scopes view enables you to display the different Scopes widgets inside the Player or a Viewport. The widgets available in the Scopes view display different interpretations of the tonal values of your media, which can be extremely helpful in producing the looks/effects that you want.

Enabling & Manipulating Scopes

The Scopes view is available in the various viewports in the application, and in the Player. From the viewports, the Scopes view can be enabled using the Show Scopes option, from the context menu or by using the "Display" button, located in the View menu / Scopes section. From the Player, the Scopes are accessible via the “Show Scopes” entry in the player Options drop-down.

You can change the view by using the "Viewing" button or by using the viewing shortcuts to change the information inside the different widgets. The standard “Continuous Pan” and “Continuous Zoom” shortcuts are used to pan or zoom the image or the scopes (depending on the position of the cursor when the pan/zoom operation starts). And the panel can be resized by dragging the line between the panel and the image in the player / viewport.

Whether you're in the Player or in Multi-View, you can change Scopes widgets by right-clicking the Widget and selecting another widget from the context menu.

When using the Player, the Scopes view is displayed to the right of the Player. When in multi-view, the Scopes view is displayed on top of the selected viewport and the information displayed in the Scopes widget is derived from the underlying image, not from a different viewport.

Information from another source can be displayed within the Scopes view widget. To do so, you must enable the Compare buffer in the viewport displaying the Scopes view.

Using a Second Monitor with Scopes

Aside from the Player and Viewports, the Scopes view can also be displayed in the secondary monitor of a Dual Monitor configuration. By default, the Scopes view is displayed in addition to the Media Panel in the secondary monitor, and you can, as usual, decide whether it is displayed on the right, the left or full width. However, a preference called "Display on 2nd Monitor" is available under the Media Panel section of the General tab, in the Preferences menu. It enables you to decide if the Media Panel is displayed on the primary or the secondary monitor. The preference is enabled by default, displaying the Media Panel on the secondary monitor. This applies to all tabs, other than Batch. In Batch, a viewport is always available to enable the Scopes view.

If you do not wish to use the Scopes view on the secondary monitor, you can enable the "Full Width" option inside the "Media Panel" dropdown button.

If you want a fullscreen Scopes view in your secondary Monitor, you can either display the Media Panel in the primary monitor or select the "Hide" option from the "Media Panel" dropdown menu.

It is possible to change one widget for another, by opening its context menu and selecting a different widget from the list.

The following table lists the different scopes that are available and their relative settings:

Histograms

There are two Histograms to choose from. For each Histogram, you can choose between the following modes: Red, Green, Blue, RGB, RGB Parade, Luminance - Colours and Luminance - Mono, and can set the signal intensity, from the Preset Widgets tab of the Scopes Settings. The difference between the two available Histograms is their horizontal scale.

Widget	Available Settings	Image
Histogram	Video: Displays the tonal values of your image on a linear scale, between 0 and 255. In the Scopes Settings, you can select the histogram's range in the Preset Widgets tab. [ 0, 1 ]: The minimum and maximum values are set to 0 and 1. Data above or below this threshold is not displayed. Full Range: The minimum and maximum values are based on the frame displayed in the Player / Viewport. This range does not update during playback.
Histogram	F-Stop: Displays the tonal values in terms of the number of photographic stops (f-stops) relative to 18% grey. These are the traditional units photographers/cinematographers use to judge lighting and exposure in a scene. Each stop represents a factor of two (doubling or halving) of the amount of linear light, or exposure. Colours in log colour spaces are linearized before calculating the waveform. Requires scene-linear or log colour spaces. It is incompatible with Video, Data, or Unknown color spaces.

Vectorscopes

There are five Vectorscopes to choose from. For all of the Vectorscopes, you can choose between the following modes: Colours and Mono and can set the signal intensity, from the Preset Widgets tab of the Scopes Settings.

Every vectorscope but Video CbCr display colours in absolute units. This allows you to compare the value of a colour relative to specific gamut boundaries. Traditional video scopes simply display the value of a colour relative to the boundaries of its specific integer encoding, e.g. there is no way to compare DCI-P3 vs. Rec.709. These absolute scopes are particularly well-suited to checking the colours from camera-raw source footage in either logarithmic or scene-linear working spaces. However they can also be used with video colours (e.g. to check whether a DCI-P3 master has any colours outside the Rec.709 gamut).

Widget	Available Settings	Image
Vectorscope	Video CbCr: This Vectorscope displays the value of a colour relative to the boundaries of its specific integer encoding (in Colour mode).
Vectorscope	Dolby CtCp: The chroma axes from Dolby's ICtCp colour space (also part of Rec.2100). This space was specifically developed for HDR video applications.
Vectorscope	CIELAB a*b*: The chroma axes from the CIELAB colour space. This is a roughly perceptually uniform space that is used in Photoshop and in ICC colour management. This colour space was developed before the advent of HDR video.
Vectorscope	CIELUV u*v*: The chroma axes from the CIELUV colour space. This is a companion space to CIELAB - similar but more oriented towards video applications. It is essentially a CIE u'v' chromaticity diagram that is scaled by lightness so that the gamut converges to a point at black. This colour space was developed before the advent of HDR video.
Vectorscope	CIE xy: This is the classic CIE chromaticity diagram. It allows comparison of colours in relation to a gamut boundary. The points on the graph represent colour independent of luminance. Blends between two colours in scene-linear space fall on a straight line on this graph. A standard guide representing the current Vectorscope orientation preference (Rec.601, Rec.709 or Rec.2020) is always displayed within the widget. In addition, you can individually enable / disable four extra guides using the "Guides" dropdown button located in the Presets Widgets tab. The options are: DCI-P3 ACEScg Alexa WideGamut ACES2065-1

Waveforms

There are four Waveforms to choose from. For each Waveforms, you can select between the following modes: Red, Green, Blue, RGB, RGB Parade, Luminance - Colours and Luminance - Mono, and can set the signal intensity, from the Preset Widgets tab of the Scopes Settings.

Widget	Available Settings	Image
Waveform	Video: This Waveform displays the dynamic range values of SDR Video.
Waveform	Log: This waveform displays a very wide range of floating-point values via a pseudo-logarithmic scaling on the vertical axis. It allows you to quickly check the maximum values of your media even if these are much larger than 1.0. It also allows you to quickly check for negative values. The numbers on the vertical axis are floating-point linear values regardless of what colour space the source media is in. Colours in log colour spaces are linearized before before calculating the waveform. This waveform is not intended for use with video colour spaces.
Waveform	F-Stop: For this waveform, the colours in the media are displayed in terms of the number of photographic stops (f-stops) relative to 18% grey. These are the traditional units photographers/cinematographers use to judge lighting and exposure in a scene. Each stop represents a factor of two (doubling or halving) of the amount of linear light, or exposure. Colours in log colour spaces are linearized before calculating the waveform. Requires scene-linear or log colour spaces. It is incompatible with Video and Data color spaces.
Waveform	PQ: This waveform displays the luminance of a video signal in units of nits (also known as candelas per square meter). The vertical axis is scaled using the SMPTE ST-2084 "Perceptual Quantizer" function, which is pseudo-logarithmic in nature. This waveform is intended for graphing HDR video media that are already in a PQ space. Other colour spaces are linearized and then the PQ encoding is applied for the waveform. For SDR video signals, the white point is normalized to 100 nits.

3D Cube

Widget	Available Settings	Image
3D Cube	You can choose between the following sizes: 8x, 16x and 32x, Preset Widgets tab of the Scopes Settings.

Scopes Settings

The Global Scopes settings, which affect all widgets, can be adjusted from the "Scopes Settings" dialog window, accessible from the Scopes context menu. The following parameters can be set:

• The number of widgets displayed in a viewport (1 to 4).
• The Scopes view background. You can choose a coloured background of your choice.
• The Reference colour.
• Signal Data Precision.

Signal Data Precision

You can also adjust the signal data precision inside the widgets. Signal Data Precision determines the maximum analysis signal width, in pixels. Selecting a lower resolution has a lesser impact on the playback. This setting is available in the new "Preferences" tab, located in the Scopes Settings dialog window. The available settings are:

Dynamic Updating

The information displayed in the Scopes view widgets dynamically updates during playback, under certain conditions:

• The Playback Maximum Precision setting is set to a value other than "No Update".
• The view currently set in the viewport displaying the Scopes view is the same as the view selected in the current viewport, when in multi-view.

Colour Management

You can define a Monitoring Colour Space for the Scopes view in Preferences / Colour Management / Monitors. The Monitoring Colour Space selects which type of display should be used with your selected Viewing Transform when calculating the values displayed on the scopes. Note that this may be different from your Graphics or Broadcast monitors. For example, you may be on a laptop and have your Graphics monitor set to use its ICC profile but want the scopes to monitor in Rec.709. Or you may have your Broadcast monitor set to output X'Y'Z' but want to monitor in DCI-P3.

• In the Player, the Viewing Transform is inherited from the clips being displayed.
• In a Viewport, the Scopes view has its own viewing transform that can be defined from the viewport.

As for the actual colours used within a Vectorscope, Waveform or Histogram widget: they are colour managed. This ensures that the scopes represent the colours as they are displayed in the image you are monitoring.

Diagnostic Controls

The viewport diagnostics controls (Exposure, Contrast and Gamma) can be modified in the viewport, even while the Scopes view is enabled. You can apply the modifications to the Scopes widgets or not, using the Apply Diagnostics setting, located in the Preferences tab of the Scopes Settings dialog window. It is disabled by default.

Presets

You can save custom Scopes Settings as presets, using the Add Preset option from the Current Preset dropdown button.

• A new preset must be created before you modify the settings, because the last modified settings are preserved for the existing presets avoiding the need to re-save it.
• Existing presets can be deleted using the "Delete Selected Preset" option located in the Preset dropdown button. The "Default" preset can be edited, but cannot be deleted.
• Presets can be selected from within the Scopes Settings dialog window, or from the Scopes context menu.