OT: Which format to deliver for local broadcast

Cliff Etzel wrote on 2/9/2009, 11:27 AM
I'm being asked to create a finished video project to the local TV stations.

Not having done this before, I need to know what's the best file format to deliver a finished video via DVD. It will need to be NTSC but not sure if an mpeg2 file is good enough or any other file format (widescreen DV?)

Any suggestions?

Cliff Etzel - Solo Video Journalist
bluprojekt | solo video journalism blog

Comments

Coursedesign wrote on 2/9/2009, 11:31 AM
You need to simply ask them which formats they can accept.

It varies all over the place, now more than ever (because they generally have more modern equipment today, and more familiarity with newer formats).

Just call them and ask for the Chief Engineer, that may be your best bet.
kentwolf wrote on 2/9/2009, 11:50 AM
In my experience, a DV tape containing the content has been the delivery medium of choice. DV tape is a pretty universal format, or so it seems.
Coursedesign wrote on 2/9/2009, 12:52 PM
MiniDV tape is a common format in general, but less common at TV stations. You cannot assume that they will accept DV25 other than if they have a history of accepting consumer-shot videos, and then your video may not get the best handling and processing.

A few stations shoot DVCAM cassettes in DV25 for local news, but this is not common.

rs170a wrote on 2/9/2009, 12:55 PM
Not that many years ago, BetaCamSP was standard everywhere.
These days, as Coursedesign says, call and ask as everyone seems to differ in what they prefer.

Mike
Zelkien69 wrote on 2/9/2009, 4:32 PM
I recently finished my first broadcast commercial (I'm a live event and web guy), and it really was as simple as calling the station and in my case talking to Melissa. She said a high bitrate MPEG-2 on DVD was fine. I just needed to add a 60 second test tone and 60 seconds of NTSC color bars. No countdown or flag at the begining was needed. I rendered a 8,000,000 bps file and all went well.

Keep you colors legal.
Cheno wrote on 2/9/2009, 5:07 PM
some stations are taking digital HD versions of local stuff too - again, just call the station and see what they prefer. Here locally, it's been DVD delivery for the better part of the last 5 years.
Coursedesign wrote on 2/9/2009, 5:33 PM
I just needed to add a 60 second test tone and 60 seconds of NTSC color bars.

Even many seasoned pros deliver tone & bar tapes that get rejected because their bars are just clips (not from the camera) and the video submitted doesn't actually match the bars (white levels can be too low and black levels too high, even with "broadcast safe" colors). And the tone should of course reflect specific level specs (which vary between stations!).

Local stations may not be too picky, but major networks will just return what they don't think they should have to accept.

Butch Moore wrote on 2/9/2009, 6:15 PM
Probably not relevant here, but thought you'd like to know.

We have two cable ad insert systems that are now providing ftp sites where we simply upload the finished :30 & :60 second commercials to our own folder.

After successful testing, we send them an AVI compressed using WinRar. A quick email verifies delivery to the customer, account executive, production manager and traffic manager.

Not everyone is comfortable with this method, but it has worked well for us.