Considering television lighting must have a minimum quality standard in order to satisfy the audience, the international exchange of programs and the archive, TLCI (The Television Lighting Consistency Index ) was developed by the EBU (European Broadcasting Union) Technical Committee in November 2012 in order to give technical aid to broadcasters who intend to assess new lighting equipment or to re-assess the colorimetric quality of lighting in their television production environment.
Knowing its performance limitations in advance can help in the choice of the luminaire, identifying the potential extra cost of color correction in post-production as against the cost-saving in power consumption of high-efficiency luminaires. Rather than assess the performance of a luminaire directly, as is done in the Color Rendering Index, the TLCI mimics a complete television camera and display, using only those specific features of cameras and displays which affect color performance. The TLCI is realized in practice using software rather than real television hardware. The only hardware that is required is a spectroradiometer to measure the spectral power distribution of the test luminaire, and a computer on which to run the software analysis program to perform the calculations. This mathematical calculation implemented software is the “TLCI-2012” which is specified in EBU Tech 3355 and available from the EBU as ‘TLCI-2012.zip’.
Five levels of TLCI
The Television Lighting Consistency Index averages 24 colors from the Macbeth ColorChecker chart: Dark Skin, Light Skin, Blue Sky, Foliage, Blue Flower, Bluish Green, Orange, Purplish Blue, Moderate Red, Purple, Yellow Green, Orange Yellow, Blue, Green, Red, Yellow, Magenta, Cyan, White, Neutral 8, Neutral 6.5, Neutral 5, Neutral 3.5, Black.
The maximum value is 100, with 100 being the best.
The TLCI values are more spread out into 5 levels
The significance of the TLCI numbering is nearly the same as CRI, but with important differences. As for the CRI, where a score of greater than 90 is widely regarded as the minimum for television use, the TLCI values are more spread out into 5 levels:
85-100
75-85
50-75
25-50
0-25
TLCI sample colors in television display
High TLCI vs high CRI
The TLCI metric (Television Lighting Consistency Index) was developed as an alternative to address the shortcomings of the commonly used CRI when used with photography equipment. Because the way cameras interpret light is slightly different from how humans perceive it, the TLCI attempts to provide a more accurate prediction of the color fidelity of a light source for broadcast use.
CRI tells us about how a light source renders colors based on human perception. CRI, however, does not necessarily paint a complete picture about how the light source might render colors on camera or on film. Thus, a light source with a high CRI is not necessarily a light source fit for use in film and photography. To this end, the TLCI (Television Lighting Consistency Index) was developed. The metric is analogous to CRI in that a high TLCI metric tells us that a light source will render colors well in a film or photography context.
YUJILEDS full spectrum LED technology with the highest TLCI values
Based on its expertise on LED phosphor and spectrum design, Yuji LED developed its unique VTC (Violet Chip) full spectrum LED with high TLCI. Its TLCI could become up to 99 which makes it a popular choice for film and photography lighting products. These high TLCI LEDs could be used in both soft light and hard light as the favorable light sources for film lighting, photography lighting, camera lighting and studio lighting.
What does YUJILEDS offer for high TLCI LED lighting?
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With the advanced LED technologies, Yujileds focuses on supplying specific solutions of high TLCI LEDs for photographers and lighting equipment manufacturers for television use.
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With the advanced LED technologies, Yujileds focuses on supplying specific solutions of high TLCI LEDs for photographers and lighting equipment manufacturers for television use.