Broadcast files for Digital Delivery

[Tim Kolb]

[Michael Hancock] “If you have Squeeze, or can set up a custom compression using Adobe Media Encoder or Premiere, here are my settings:”

Keep in mind that the ideal settings for output are based on what the playout server is using and getting as close to that as possible to avoid additional transcoding by the station.

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,

[Michael Hancock]

[Tim Kolb] “Keep in mind that the ideal settings for output are based on what the playout server is using and getting as close to that as possible to avoid additional transcoding by the station.”

Good point. Like Terry, we never got exact specs from any of the stations in our area that accept/require digital delivery so it was a lot of trial and error to get something that worked for us. There’s still one station in town that requires MPEG2 layer audio, but the rest are the same. I know some agencies just send Quicktimes and take the transcode hit, but we’re trying to avoid that.

That said, I still don’t know for sure if additional transcoding takes place on our files. I’m sure it does, but at least what we see on air looks like it does when it leaves our edit bay.

Terry, continue to push for Comcast to nail down some real specs so you can match exactly what their playout server wants. Failing that, try to set some time aside to do a batch delivery and have them test it on their end to see what works best.

It’s situations like this where I actual miss Beta tapes.

Michael

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I’ll be working late.

[Todd Terry]

Thanks for the ideas, guys, there were some tips there we will try.

Dave… it wasn’t within the QuickTime player that we were getting poor results. Every time we made a test file I would throw it back on a Premiere timeline so I could view it on a broadcast monitor. I figured this was the best test of what a file really looked like, or would look like on the air.

Michael… thanks for the detailed info. I will have our editor try your exact specs. I think he has probably pretty much tried that combo, except I belive he was generally using VBR (2 pass) since that is what we normally do. I’ll have him give the CBR option a try.

Tim… yeah, Comcast SHOULD have specs available, but they seem even more fuzzy about the whole thing than I am. We’ll keep pressing them. Funny that you mentioned movie screens… as we’ve been outputting and uploading files to play in cinemas for quite a while with never any trouble… but this has proven to be a whole new can of worms.

I was thinking about this just today when I had to make a Beta dub for a client… which took me about 90 seconds to do and another 15 seconds to put a label on it. I’m thinking it won’t be long before I’m looking back at today as the “good ol’ days.”

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Tim Kolb]

[Todd Terry] “Funny that you mentioned movie screens… as we’ve been outputting and uploading files to play in cinemas for quite a while with never any trouble… but this has proven to be a whole new can of worms.”

These guys only wanted 720p60…they had no 1080p spec. I suspect they looked at what a DVCProHD VTR would do and just lifted the spec. I had to talk the guy down over the phone and get the idea across that when a spot is shot at 23.976, transcoding to 60p gives you no benefit when you are asking for a digital file (and 2.5x the data size).

TV stations tend to have engineers around who know their stuff when it comes to analog. They tend to be clueless when it comes to digital filetypes and compression.

However, there is no excuse to have the capability to receive files but have no spec to furnish to a production house.

There simply aren’t that many ways to go, SOMEONE over there has got to have a specification.

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,

[George Socka]

Sorry, I dont understand. Flash as in swf as a player, I understand. A Flash player playing an h264 or flv or even mov media file I understand. Flash as a media file? How does that work?

George Socka
BeachDigital
http://www.beachdigital.com

[Tim Kolb]

Flash is being expanded all the time of course…but you can go to any number of sites on the internet and interact with Flash files.

Flash can have a video essence (like a television show) and it can have a layer that enables “hotsposts”. Advertisers buy placement in a show and allow a button to float over their product so viewers can take a pointing device and click on it…or they do it very starightforwardly on their dedicated ad…as television becomes more interactive (which it will have to to compete with the internet…hulu anyone?), it will need something more compelling that a phone number super on QVC.

Flash is already being implemented by playout server manufacturers…when the consumer device end of the market catches up and supplies the means to input from the viewer end, we’ll be bombarded with opportunities to interact with potential vendors, even during the content portion of our favorite TV show.

It’ll be…um…great…

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,

[Michael Banks]

Dave, I never understood until now why some MOVs looked absolutely terrible in QuickTime Player but looked and edited just fine in Adobe Premiere. Thanks for the insight!

Video Production Specialist
MarCom Video Room
Intuitive Surgical, Inc.
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