commercials specifications

[Rafael Amador]

Today I’m 49. happy-birthday to meeeeee..

The only format (of the olds) I’ve never touched is the 2″ ( Once I sow one in london).
My first job in TV was packing adds to be broadcasted. Just sticking them toguether in a 90 minutes Betacam tape, with 1 sec black in-between.
The matter of the preroll was not important (5 secs pre-roll can be a waist of time when your edditing news.Betacam works fine with 3s). The commercials used to arrive with Bars, tone (1000Hz, 0 VU) and a black just before the first image frame. Also the first frame image in the 00.00.00 TC. They used to be some specs, quite but flexible. One minute bars and 20 or 30 s black, but In the end nobody cares too much. In Christmas that you’ve got hours of commercials to be broadcasted the day after, who can stop to set properly the levels of a commercial?
Only when the advertiser calls you by phone screaming: What happens with my add that seems that the screen is burning?. Or what about the audio?. No body can hear the jingles. Then we used the bars and tone, and we corrected the levels.
Bars and tone, seems not much funny, but is the only way to make sure that your film will be properly broadcasted. Even if somebody make a bad copy (anagogic) of your film, if you adjust the system with the bars, your film get the proper levels. Is the only way for you to show that when looks or sound bad when broadcasted, IS NOT YOUR FAULT.
sorry for the nostalgia (Betacam I love you)
Salud,
rafel

[Bob Woodhead]

I was working during a football (not soccer) live feed through an un-named network’s Master Control… the TD (not at the stadium, we’re at NOC) had been “perking” up his coffee with a splash o’ Jack… we go to break, everyone leans back for a moment. Remember this is a NOC, with lots of other feeds accessible, and the TD happens to be a fan of another team that playing on another major network. So we come back from break, take the live feed… recue stuff from the break… lean back again… and the Exec. Producer (who just happened to be in the NOC that day) starts shouting “THAT’S NOT OUR GAME!! @*^&%$#”…. You can imagine the rest. Oh yeah, to keep this on topic, this was during the era of inserting spots into the program 1” reels. Grin… another time I’ll tell the story of what happens when the take-up capstan motors fails on a one-hour show reel that’s on-air….

Bob Woodhead / Atlanta
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