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Costs to deliver to TV stations on tape?
We are putting together a budget for a production that is likely to eventually go to a cable or tv station. While likely insignificant, (my assumption) our budgeting person wants to take as many variables into account as possible. If we are asked to render out from FCP in ProRes to to some format and deliver on some kind of tape, what is the usually cost for that? A few hundred? A few hours? Is there any shop that specilizes in this kind of thing for broadcast, say in LA? I bring them a hard drive and they convert it to HDV? Or what else might broadcast be using these days?
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19 Replies
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[Al Bergstein] “? I bring them a hard drive and they convert it to HDV? Or what else might broadcast be using these days?”
I’ve never heard of any broadcaster accepting HDV other than maybe local news. Most broadcasters accept HDCAM for a tape delivery. There should be a slew of post houses in LA that will lay your project to tape.
Here we lay our shows to DVCPro HD and then send those tapes off to CaptionMax who create the HDCAM master as part of their closed captioning service.
If we don’t need closed captioning, we send our masters down to CineFilm locally here in Atlanta for conversion to HDCAM.
Typical 30 minute HDCAM clone is around $250 including the tape stock.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media -
In LA there’s “alpha dogs .tv” which has something called the digital service station which is set up to do exactly what you’re asking.
For budgeting purposes don’t forget that most delivery contracts require many different versions: texted, texless, split trk audio, “clean” audio and “dirty” audio (bleeped). This is a much more time consuming task than just making dubs. Each version is a unique output.
My suggestion is to take whatever you were thinking and multiply it times FIVE!!!! Seriously. You’ll thank me later.
Mark
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No, I’ll thank you both now! Thanks!
Alf
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I too recommend Alpha Dogs for output.
NOTE!!
Due to the Tsunami in Japan, the factory that makes HDCAM and HDCAM SR tapes has been shut down. No new tapes are being made, so existing tapes are going for a premium. The price on them has just about doubled now. So keep that in mind.
Shane
GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
Maybe a little off topic, but are you sure the stations need it on tape at all? Many stations now accept programming and spots via FTP upload, which can be much cheaper than mailing out tapes. There are various outfits that will handle FTP distribution on your behalf, from your supplied master. Pathfire and Dg-Fastchannel are just two of these, new ones pop up weekly.
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ExtremeReach too.
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I three recommend Alpha Dogs for this service. Fast turnaround and great service from these guys. And also, take into account the 5x the cost comment above, as I recently had this issue. We had only included 1 betacam tape into the costs, but ended up with 4 different outputs due to each networks demands, and had to recharge the client for the 3 extra outputs we never considered.
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Thanks. Good input.
Alf
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Do NOT waste your time and effort going to tape unless a station SPECIFICALLY tells you they MUST have it.
Virtually NO serious operating stations require tape anymore. Even the smaller cable markets and local stations likely have inexpensive FCP or Avid stations in house producing content for air and NONE OF IT goes to tape before it gets served to the audience.
If you’re distributing widely, you should have a media buyer involved (or you’ll waste a LOT of money on ad rates that would be a lot lower if you have a knowledgable pro negotiate them) and that media buyer should know precisely what formats each station requires.
If you go through the stations directly, expect them to send you pages of cryptic “spot standards” that they’ll tell you you must conform to to make the spots airable. But in the back rooms of their own operations NONE OF THEM are producing to these standards. They’re almost always cutting their in-house stuff on the same FCP or Avid systems that we all use – and SOMEBODY on any station’s in-house promo creation team knows the encodings you need to use to make your stuff airworthy.
I haven’t delivered a physical tape to any broadcaster in at least nine months.
So be VERY cautious before you waste money going from digital to tape – only to force the broadcaster immediately transcode it from tape to digital in order to air it.
BIG waste of effort and time.
YMMV.
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Conner
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[Bill Davis] “Virtually NO serious operating stations require tape anymore.”
Really? That’s why we have to ship out HDCAM Masters to meet network and station specs these days? I don’t know. I always thought folks like PBS, Food Network and others we have shipped to are pretty serious operating stations, but then I could be wrong.
[Bill Davis] “So be VERY cautious before you waste money going from digital to tape – only to force the broadcaster immediately transcode it from tape to digital in order to air it.”
I don’t thing there are any networks left that broadcast from tape. They ingest the tape and then file the tape away in a library. But they are still requesting HDCAM tape from us.
I would much prefer to simply send them a digital file, but so far, we’re not getting that as an option. There are a few out there that are starting to give us digital specs like NBC, but for the most part, it’s still a tape world when it comes to delivery.
You MUST go by the technical specifications for each station, you cannot make a blanket statement like what you said above.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media
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