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Broadcast Technical Specifications
I had orginally posted this in the Premiere Pro Forum, but someone there replied: “It looks like these are actually PAL specs. You may have a better chance getting the right answer in the After Effects Forum. There are quite a few more European Mods who should be able to help you with that.”
I am preparing a show to be broadcast on satellite TV. Would anyone care to explain these technical specifications from the broadcaster in plain English, and how to achieve these specs in Premiere Pro 2 and/or After Effect? Thank you very much for any assistance.
“The tape should have as a minimum, one-minute of EBU 625 75% bars &
0dB tone(s) – i.e. the tone(s) should be recorded at PPM4 or minus
4VU. The sound levels on the recording should be in correct
proportion to the line-up signals and maximum levels should not
exceed PPM6 i.e. – they should be no higher than 8dB -
6 Replies
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For more info, you may wish to consider the Broadcast COW:
https://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/new_view_posts.cgi?forumid=21 -
Hi Brian,
Yes that’s PAL. But is a big mess. Specs for recording analogic. Beta-cam or so. These are the parameters of the PAL composite signal.
When i learnt this 20 years ago, the horizontal line used to last 64 msecs.(and thanks God, didn’t change) That is the same that they are asking you (12msecs horizontal blanking + 52 msecs the active line).
To see if all the parameters of your signal are OK, you would need an external oscilloscope. With the wave-form monitor that you get in FCut or ColorFiness you can see only the active image. you can not see a lot of the signal (Sync level, vertical and horizontal blanking, lines for test signals, vertical interval time-code, etc) because al this invisible part of the video signal, it doesn’t exist in your digital file.
All this things are added to the image in the moment that you output a video signal. And your system do it by itself. For example, if your computer is connected to an external monitor, PAL or NTSC, your video card add all the syncs.
Just put in the beginning of your film the EBU(UER) bars. FCut has a bars generator. I don’t know PPro. The only thing that you have to be careful is with yours picture levels. keep the levels legal. FCut warns you when them are not so.
In PP i don’t know how it works. In AE you should use a video-scope to control the levels. I use a plugin of SinteticAperture. The window is quite little, but enough to help you adjust your image levels. Any way there is an effect in AE to keep the levels legal.
About the Vertical Time Code, if you go to print to video, in many magneto-scopes you can choose the lines where to record it. Just choose the lines they tell you. But if there is not VITC they don’t care. So don’t worry.
They also talk about the Safe Area (80%). this is for you yo take in account the part of the picture that could be cropped when watched in a TV set.
The audio levels they talk about, are to be monitored in an anagogic system. For that you should talk with somebody more in the audio field.
I hope I haven’t confuse more.
Salud.
rafael -
You know, I’d find a post house in town that understands all those specs. Then I’d ask them if I could give them a digital file in PAL Quicktime (and AIFF) that would allow them to create a tape to that spec.
Just a thought. 🙂
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Steve,
All those specs you can get with you computer and a small camara with Firewire.
The legal levels of your film, you must set them with your editing or compositing software (PP,FC, etc) even if you don’t go to print to video. The rest of the parameters are automatically set when convert from digital to analogic. Any camera, any Video card with Video Out (Composite or components) do it alone. In any case you get a standard PAL or NTSC video signal.
Salud,
rafael -
Indeed.
But if our friend isn’t sure how to get those specs, or isn’t sure how to confirm that he has created those specs, it might be good to outsource … at least the first time.
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Your right Steve. If you must handle a well finished job, and I’m not sure about, better get the help of an expert.
Rafael
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