Safe area (television)

Not to be confused with Broadcast-safe.
Safe areas on a PAL screen.
  Invisible area
  Action-safe area
  Title-safe area

Safe area is a term used in television production to describe the areas of the television picture that can be seen on television screens.

Older televisions can display less of the space outside of the safe area than ones made more recently. Flat panel screens, plasma displays and liquid crystal display (LCD) screens generally can show most of the picture outside the safe areas.

The use of safe areas in television production ensures that the most important parts of the picture are seen by the majority of viewers.

The size of the title-safe area is typically specified in pixels or percent. The NTSC and PAL analog television standards do not specify official overscan amounts, and producers of television programming use their own guidelines.

Some video editing software packages for non-linear editing systems (NLE) solutions have a setting which shows the safe areas while editing.