Costs to deliver to TV stations on tape?

[Tyler Grutsch]

I work as a directorproducer for one of the smallest NBC stations in the country (Helena, MT) and we just started to transition away from taking physical ‘dub tapes’. FTP digital upload is our prefered format.

[Al Bergstein]

Thanks for that input.
bill, this is only for budgetary purposes. If we have to do them, at least we’ll have it in the budget. Obviously, some channels still require them. But, you are right, likely we won’t need to, but…

Alf

[Patrick Ortman]

Just echoing the “multiply it by five” rule: even if you’re tapeless, you’ll find that a lot of stations require things in different ways than others. We just finished a spot for the midwest, sent it to 3 broadcast stations and a cable network, and every single one of them needed something slightly different.

This is one of those things that the client never really knows (or cares) about, and you have to nail it.

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PatrickOrtman, Inc.
Los Angeles Digital Agency and Video Production Company

[Richard Herd]

[walter biscardi] “[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.”

A good friend of mine just got a job doing that, in San Jose, CA. No kidding, from 8 PM to 4 AM he puts HDCAM tapes into a deck and then onto a server, which then sends to where they need to go, before the broadcast day begins.

[Bill Davis]

I don’t want anyone to think I’m denying that there are a LOT of stations still “requiring” tape.

I’m just saying that a LOT of them are doing that from INERTIA.

The sales folks pass along that “requirement” to the clients. The clients comply. And that tape gets delivered to someone in the shop who immediately transcodes it back from tape into the same kind of digital file where it started.

My overarching point is that NOBODY’s sharing accurate information up and down the line.

This is because the broadcast industry is still built on a SILO mentality. Once upon a time, Engineering set the standards, that got to Sales, and that was the accepted STATION chain, overseen by station management who kicked butt if something didn’t get done right. The Station Chain interfaced primarily through Media Buyers in the middle who coordinated what stations needed which formats controlled by the media buy. At the OTHER side of this transactional process – The media buyer coordinated with the Ad Agency, the Agency talked to the Production Team. And there was quality control and accountability built in along the whole chain of command.

Look out there today and what do you see?

The Station Chain is in RUINS. There is NO engineering staff. You’re lucky if you have a minimum wage overnight guy feeding your costly antiquated tape into a digitizer. Much more likely the station will want YOU to be responsible for the upload yourself!

On the other side, you may or may NOT have an agency, that agency may or may not have a media buyer. It’s just as likely that the “producer” responsible for EVERYTHING on the former Agency side is some youngster with FCP on a laptop.

There is NO chain. There is NO supervision.

And worse, virtually NO standards. I don’t know if I mentioned it or not, but on my last few distributions, both the agency and I were informed that it didn’t really matter whether we sent HD and SD formatted tapes because they were going to just take my HD file, upload it ONCE then electronically “pillar box” and auto feed it into the cable system to run as that station’s SD cable feed! So our carefully prepared HD format spots WOULD BE cropped on some stations and there wasn’t anything to be done about it because the whole split off the HD, SD cable signal was walled off from human intervention.

I’ve heard reports of systems showing the work in letterbox, pillarbox, and even SQUEEZED – all auto broadcast from the same 16×9 HD original.

And I shudder to imagine what my carefully created pictures looked like after getting bounced around the country on digital feeds and re-formatted, squished and codec’s into submission.

That’s the reality today.

So read the “instructions” and pay for those physical tapes if you like. But behind the scenes, I’m telling you that broadcast is devolving into a “least common denominator” industry. And it’s so screwed up that very often nobody in the stations is left to tell anyone that the page of “delivery standards” that specify the type of tape must be submitted — are left over from before the engineering staff was all let go 8 months to a year ago. AND that the kid feeding the station promos into the SAME stream where you’re work is going tomorrow is NOT using a tape stage anymore. So why should you?

That’s what I’ve seen out there over the past year.

YMMV.

Good luck.

“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

[Patrick Ortman]

Bill clearly deals with some of the same stations I do 🙂

Everything said is true, but I have found a few holdouts here and there- guys and gals who really care about making our work look as good as it can (including one guy who went out of his way to make sure our HD spot was NOT pillarboxed). These tend to be the “older dog” guys who came up through the ranks, back when there were ranks to come up through.

Just wanna salute the good guys who are still fighting the good fight.

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PatrickOrtman, Inc.
Los Angeles Digital Agency and Video Production Company

[Eddie Gonzalez]

if I want to output from Avid a final rendered master file to deliver via FTP to stations in USA (those that might accept a file instead of HDCAM-SR or D-5)…what should the specs of that file be?

1) which container (e.g. .MOV, .AVI, .???)
2) which frame rate 59.94 or which ?
3) which resolution (1080p, 720p, or other?)
4) what other specs for that file?
5) CODEC ?

Thanks,
Eddie

[Shane Ross]

The answer to ALL those questions is…what they ask for. Different stations/networks have different specifications as to what they want. Give them what they want. And we don’t know what they want.

Shane

GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Eric Moeller]

I normally don’t post anything on boards but I read the last post and couldn’t resist. I work for Extreme Reach and as an online distribution service, we understand the divide between creative and broadcast operations and try to bridge it as best as possible – but it does ultimately come down to the broadcast ops team winning out because they are ultimately the one’s broadcasting. However, our core business as an online distribution service is to know exactly what stations need – most of them DO accept electronic delivery and we deliver the files in the exact format they ask for, so there’s no re-formatting involved. On top of that, we ask that post houses upload either AVID, Pro Res or MPEG FILES and then we take care of getting ALL of the stations what they need. No tape needed. No special hardware needed. Just your workstation and an internet connection. We take the guesswork out of it. I’m sorry if this now sounds like an ad itself but – there is a solution to this issue and it’s Extreme Reach.”