delivery to station

[Sven Seynaeve]

Most stations here in are still working on SD and haven't invested in HD technology yet. I want my productions to be on highest quality possible in the future as i'm going to have a budget from 200k to about 600k for a production and post facility.(telescopic crane , mk-v ar steady, movietech magnum dolly,
lighting, electro , edit suite(wich i already have), recording studio(wich i already have), scratch color grading, 2k projection etc...

anyway , the price a hdcam sr is at this time and the digibetacam slowly dying, i
would have to come up with a good system to provide my productions to these
broadcasters and not losing to much money because they won't accept harddrives because some of their systems can't read it . If you got any ideas on delivering hq media to them and what the most appropriate formate to do so please let me know.

I'm the meantime waiting on my red i'm thinking of still purchasing a hpx 500 for doing some corporate material in the near future. Is this a possible way to deliver trough p2hd maby??
and still be able to have red raw delivered for high res?

 

[GlennChan]

I think digital betacam will take a long while before it dies off. SD broadcasting will stick around for a long time (much like how AM and FM radio are still around), and digital betacam will stick around because it works (and it works well). Post facilities are still buying new digital betacam decks.

There is potentially a better solution but until broadcasters start implementing those solutions I don't think you really have a choice. Get a dbeta, betaSP, and for HD it's one or all of HDCAM SR, plain HDCAM, and/or D-5.

 

[Scott Webster]

In New Zealand one of the 2 major networks has announced it will no longer be accepting tape (or any media for that matter) for commercial spots. Spots must be submitted via the net.

From 1st October 2007 TVWorks will only accept electronic material –this can be sent to them from either DubSat or EBus

TV3 and C4 broadcast in 16:9 FHA aspect ratio –commercials should arrive in 16:9 (anamorphic) or 4:3 full screen (preferably not letterboxed)

Bars should be 75% EBU and Tone -20dbFS (full screen) and should relate to the commercial content accurately
Peaks in audio must not exceed -12dbFS and vision levels must be legal for PAL

 

[GlennChan]

Neat. Can you use that kind of delivery for longer length material?

 

[Scott Webster]

Neat. Can you use that kind of delivery for longer length material?

Not with our broadband service!:ranting2:

But it's just a matter of time.

Dubsat

Ebus

 

[Craig Meadows]

In many small to medium markets analog beta sp is still the common deliverable. Some of the stations never transitioned to digi-beta while others went affordable digital with dvcam, hdv, dv, etc. Along the Florida panhandle we rarely are asked for anything else other than good old beta sp.

Some of these stations are subscribers to services like Fast Channel or DG Systems (they have since merged) whereby you upload your spots as MPEG-2 (MP@ML and 4:2:2P@ML) files for the stations to d/l to their servers. As broadband speeds improve more of these types of services will develop and tape will become a dinosaur.

Years ago, now I am dating myself, we would master to 1" type-c machines and deliver on 3/4" tape. 1" open reel in it's day was a quality format but 3/4" on the other hand was, well, bad.

In the end, like many mediums, the higher quality you start out with the better it will look down the chain. Which is why Red One is so important.

 

[Lucas Wilson]

Years ago, now I am dating myself, we would master to 1" type-c machines and deliver on 3/4" tape. 1" open reel in it's day was a quality format but 3/4" on the other hand was, well, bad.

Hey man... it doesn't date you that much. Until very recently, ABC was still requiring masters on D2. Yes, that's right... D2. All that beautiful 35mm cinematography for dramas got laid to D2... and then hit the oh-so-wonderful broadcast chain to get to your screen.

Less than 10 years ago, I was doing online editing in Birmingham, AL, where one station still required spots on 1-inch. Scary. And some radio stations wanted audio masters on 3/4". Never did understand that one...

Ah.... the joys of broadcast delivery.

Lucas
-----
ASSIMILATE, Inc.
LA, CA, USA

 

[Poi Boy]

I don't understand why stations don't just go to something like quick time files..would be so much better for everyone..except maybe Sony.
Aloha
-A

 

[Jason Murphy]

...would be so much better for everyone..except maybe Sony.

Which may go some way towards explaining why stations don't do everything in Quicktime. Not that there aren't others, but hey, never underestimate the power of Sony in the broadcast marketplace.

 

[Sven Seynaeve]

Thanks for the replies.
It seems that there's no great sollution discovered yet in this field and stations have no clear statements to what they are up to do and what they'd like as a standard, so i continue my search to the best method.

 

[Lucas Wilson]

I don't understand why stations don't just go to something like quick time files..would be so much better for everyone..except maybe Sony.

Uh... it would not be better for everyone...

A lot of delivery mechanisms are based on MPEG-2. If you want to build a hardware-assisted device for encoding and decoding, then you buy an SDK for MPEG and you're done as far as fees and licensing. I doubt Apple's licensing structure for QT would be as favorable. All the standards for MPEG and the Technologies for MPEG are open and free.

Tape and tape decks and MPEG devices have amazing error detection and correction capability, and will maintain guaranteed realtime performance based on a variety of metrics. You have to layoff to decks and MPEG encoders - realtime "rendering," essentially.

Quicktime licensing is expensive, error detection and correction are limited, realtime playback is strictly a function of the computer that houses the QT Movie, and rendering is rarely realtime at HD resolution.

Now... if the cameras *acquired* Quicktime, then the chain would be smooth. And I then return you to the "licensing" discussion.

The reason Sony and Panasonic rule here is because they don't release pieces in isolation. They release a complete end-to-end workflow. There are no "quicktime cameras" or "quicktime decks."

So - in a broadcast delivery chain, it would really only be better for FCP users, or people whose infrastructure was QT-based. But - Apple realizes that and has hired some great people to push into Broadcast, and has some fantastic technology for it.

I'm just pointing out that - especially in broadcast - things are never in isolation. Workflow and speed of delivery is king.

Lucas
------
ASSIMILATE, Inc.
LA, CA, USA

 

[Poi Boy]

OK Lucas, I see your points. Some of the stations here load the material from tape to Hard drives and broadcast from there. Seems to me a bad idea to output my files to beta sp ( what most prefer) just to have them re digitize.
Aloha
-A

 

[Mark Crabtree]

Speed

Speed

In San Antonio there is only one broadcast station with an HD server capable of simultaneous playback for SD and HD. After producing a TV spot in both SD and HD versions we made a BetaSP for the SD server. Unfortunately the station has no HD vtrs so they suggested quicktime. We loaned their delevery guy a firewire drive with an HD avi and an HD quicktime version to be safe. The station hooked up the drive to their HD newscutter and rendered the spot out in the codec used by the newscutter and then sent it to the server. This took over an hour for this one spot. The station notified me that if I wanted to run any more HD spots I must give them my HD vtr with the spots on tape so they can capture realtime from the deck's HD-SDI. I do not think TV stations are going to ever embrace the HD future by buyng every flavor of HD vtr so they can accept dubs. Some kind of HD standard for delivery is going to have to be developed that is real time or faster and I don't see anything like that right now.

 

[Sven Seynaeve]

I had contact with the owner of a large video equipment distributor yesterday and told him I was currently looking for a good delivery method. As far as his knowledge went he told me that pretty much all off the commercial stations should be able to have at least a hdcam deck available right now at the moment for load in , does this match your experiences also guys?

I thought being able to have one for around 30k. If HDcam would still have a remaining future i think i could come up with the budget, but then i hope i don't have to do some copies afterwards to digibeta or similar to see that my tapes couldn't be read by them.

 

[GlennChan]

Your needs will likely depend on what the broadcaster wants and what the client wants. If it is a television series, the broadcaster will usually specify (in their contract) what format the deliverable is. In other situations the broadcaster will be somewhat flexible as to what formats they accept (e.g. betaSP, digital betacam).

If you do television series, you might also want to get both PAL + NTSC equipment, and possibly a standards conversions box. The production may have foreign broadcasters. It really depends. You may find that most of your work is delivered on dbeta (PAL and NTSC), some HDCAM, and some betaSP. Mastering on HDCAM SR. And for a short while some broadcasters wanted D-1 (dead format now), and PAL betaSP.

Or your facility may not do that kind of work... it might only make sense to own a betaSP and dbeta.

Or don't own any decks at all, and just get your masters done at another company. If they have a FCP system, supply a hard drive with a compatible Quicktime and lay your master off from there. (This makes sense for productions shot on DV/HDV/DVCPRO HD/DV50, which can be edit natively without needing an uncompressed online system).