Legal and Full range outputs

[Christoffer Glans]

I've tried to understand how this works. DaVinci works in RGB Full range natively as I understand. But when I change the settings to "unscaled legal" then does that really mean 16-235?
Right now, it doesn't seem to matter what output I choose regardless of workflow within DaVinci. If I choose "Auto", "Full range" or "Unscaled Legal", when looking at the output in any other NLE it shows full range 0-255. The only way I get it truly legal is to export as full range RGB and then import it into let's say Avid with RGB selected. In that way Avid creates a file that is true 16-235 legal.

But I don't understand why the output is full range regardless of of the output settings? Shouldn't I be able to get a 16-235 file directly out of DaVinci?
This issue created some trouble with a client who imported it wrong and it's super important to get it right. What is the standard way of working with this or is it a bug?

 

[Peter Chamberlain]

In you particulare example, are you setting the monitor scaling or render scaling?
Peter

 

[Christoffer Glans]

The monitor scaling and working space within DaVinci is unscaled legal. And I've tried all settings for the rendering (Auto, Unscaled Legal and Full Range) and no one of those works when importing into let's say Avid with 16-235 settings selected for import. It should be correct if I render out as Unscaled Legal and import it into Avid as 16-235, but it's not. It should look correct in the waveform, but it's not. Everything is out of range 0-255 if I import it as 16-235 in Avid, which means that every output from DaVinci is full range no matter the settings. If I render out at Full Range and import it as RGB Full in i Avid then Avid change it to correct video levels.

So all this works when I'm doing my own online, but I cannot garantuee that my clients knows this and they might assume it's 16-235 instead of 0-255.