Why You See These Bars? The Importance of SMPTE Color Bars in Movies | Explained.

Have you ever wondered why you see a set of colored bars before a movie starts? These are known as SMPTE color bars, and they play a crucial role in ensuring the quality and consistency of color in film and television production. In this video, we'll explore the history and purpose of SMPTE color bars, and explain how they are used by filmmakers and video professionals to calibrate and adjust color levels. By the end of this video, you'll have a better understanding of why these bars are so important in maintaining color accuracy in video production.

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An example of the calibration would be seen at the bottom right, where we see the following signals in order:

Blacker than black

Black

Lighter than black

Tune your brightness so that you can only see the lighter than black bar. That's only the tip of the iceberg, as those bars you mention are also used for color calibration, contrast control, and even around the magenta-red area, sharpness.