Teletect Finisher

In audio, a mastering or "finishing" chain is the final set of gentle tone and level adjustments made to a mix before release. Finisher brings that idea to video: small corrections that make a picture sit well, rather than effects you are meant to notice.

Detail is horizontal YUV peaking, from off up to about four times the luma high-pass gain, with chroma at half that strength. Large corrections are capped so edges don’t overshoot into hard outlines. Detail Width (Switch 7) sets the frequency band. Detail sharpens what is in the source; it is not a noise reducer and cannot restore detail that isn’t there.

Exposure models the diode coupling of a unique analog processor in approximate RGB. A weaker color channel is pulled up toward the strongest channel when the difference between them exceeds a threshold. Raising Exposure lowers that threshold across the full range. The result brightens and desaturates strongly colored areas, the way highlights burn toward white on film, while neutral grays and black stay fixed. The strongest channel is never raised, so the picture can’t sum above its original peak. At 0% Exposure is bypassed exactly.

Highlights is a bipolar, photo-style control. Below center it recovers (darkens) highlights; above center it lifts them. It acts only above mid-gray, with a smooth onset, so black and mid-gray stay anchored. Tone Range (Switch 11) sets how strong it is.

Saturation scales color from none (0%) through unchanged (100%, center) to double (200%).

Leveler is a slow automatic brightness trim. It nudges the overall level up or down, by at most about an eighth of the range, to keep the picture consistent as the source changes. It adds or subtracts a correction rather than compressing contrast, and its estimate holds through blanking. Leveler Speed (Switch 10) sets how fast it follows.

Shadows is bipolar and anchored at black. Below center it deepens shadows; above center it lifts dark detail. A curved mask protects the very darkest values and fades the correction out by mid-gray, so both full-range and nominal video black stay where they are.

Fine sharpens with taps one pixel either side in SD, two in 720p and three in 1080 formats. Broad blends in taps twice as far out, adding a lower-frequency emphasis while keeping the fine detail. Both positions sharpen color as well as brightness.

Full passes the entire 10-bit range. Legal clamps the output to legal video levels for equipment that expects them.

Hard has no effect below the Exposure threshold and a sharp corner where it begins, like a real diode. Soft rounds that corner over a broad region, so the crossover fades in gradually. Both have the same slope beyond the knee and reach the same result at maximum Exposure.

Slow follows the scene gently; Fast reacts more quickly to cuts and lighting changes.

Gentle or Deep range for Highlights and Shadows.

Mix blends the original and processed pictures. Use it to compare before and after, or to dial back the whole treatment at once.

Exposure is modeled on a unique analog processor design that couples its color channels through diodes. A diode conducts only once the voltage across it passes a threshold, so a weak channel is pulled toward a strong one only when they differ by enough. Finisher reproduces that behavior digitally in approximate RGB. Large color differences are reduced, which desaturates and brightens vivid areas, while near-neutral tones pass untouched. The lift is capped at about 80% of the gap between channels so color is reduced but never inverted.

Many brightness controls move everything, including black. Finisher’s Shadows and Highlights are shaped masks: Shadows works between a protected black toe and mid-gray, Highlights works above mid-gray, and both have smooth, zero-slope onsets. Black, mid-gray and the controls' center positions are always neutral, so you can adjust tone without shifting the picture’s foundations.

All knobs and the fader keep their full 10-bit resolution. Gain curves are rebuilt during blanking and new control values are approached in small steps, so adjustments are smooth while you turn a knob.