Countdown before commercial

[David Roth weiss]

Adam,

Open FCP help and type in countdown, it will expalin where to find it and how to use it.

DRW

[Bouncing Account needs new email address]

There’s one in the “Print to Video” output.

You can set your commercial to start at the head of the timeline and then choose to add the countdown feature and use “Print to Video” to output to a tape.

Now, I’m curious as to what kind of TV station (cable?) WANTS a countdown.
They have not needed a countdown to play a spot in a very long time.

I have never, in decades in the TV business, NEEDED to use a countdown on a video commercial.
There ARE still some spots that come in that HAVE them, but MOST do not, they just have slates.

[Ed Dooley]

The local affiliates here in Vermont asked me for a countdown recently.
Ed

[Bouncing Account needs new email address]

[Ed] “The local affiliates here in Vermont asked me for a countdown recently.
Ed”

What makes no sense is that the stations run spots from hundreds of production houses from across the country.

Many national and local spots do not have countdowns.
And, I can’t imagine that they turn down paying customers because the reel does not have a countdown.

Again, they don’t ROLL THEM LIVE anymore, they cue up the tapes and dub them into some sort of spot playback system.

How inept a tape operator do one have to be to not be able to tell when a spot STARTS?

I’ve spent a lot of years in tape rooms and never been “thrown off” by not having a countdown.

[Chuck Reti]

I’ve never done a spot, local or national, that did not have a countdown. The ad agency clients expect it as part of the finished delivered spot. More importantly, as mentioned earlier, the countdown nowadays serves mainly as a background for the slate, which identifies and verifies the content to follow by Agency, Title, Production or air date, Length and ISCI Code. The station and network traffic and sales departments do like to have that information tied to the spot to make sure what’s on that tape is what the label says it is.

And, how many commercial editors out there have experienced the hell of having an agency producer or art director insist on critiqueing the kerning and typeface on your counddown slates??

Chuck Reti
Detroit MI

[Tom Matthies]

And…
The audio two-pop in the countdown will help defeat a system with audomatic gain on it’s audio input. I always put a two-pop on my countdowns at a few db more than the tone on the colorbars. This will prevent the automatic gain on a system from bringing up the noise floor on the otherwise silent slate/countdown. A good, robust two-pop will drive the automatic gain circuits back down where they belong and prevent the first second or two of audio on the spot from being over driven my the system when it ingests the spot.
Tom

PS-I always put a 5 second, academy-type countdown on my spots. No real reason…I’ve just always done it that way for many years. Old school… The classics never go out of style. And nobody actually looks at the countdowns anyway except the agency people and the technical folks ingesting the spots.

[John Davidson]

This is the format most networks require for any element loaded into it’s LMS system on Digibeta format.

First TC on tape at 58:00:00.
bars/tone from 58:30-59:30
black 59:30-59:50
:05 slate from 59:50:00 to 59:55:00 listing title, production company, house numbers, etc. Any sound here is purely for your own pleasure.
:05 black from 59:55:00-1:00:00:00

The commercial hits on 1:00:00:00 with a 4-7 frame fadeup, depending on your whim, or the creative of your spot. Some spots kick off with a flash, some fade up nice and slow.

Different library manement systems load in different ways. Some air spots digitally off of a server, some run automated tape loading systems. Some run D2, some run dbeta. The format above applies to all of them.

I will say that I delivered a spot that runs during a live unnamed show that had no slate requirements, delivery specs, and only wanted BetaSP format. They were, however, only airing this spot from playback and not an LMS, so they didn’t care.

Different networks and stations have different specs, however in my experience the above mentioned will make everyone happy. I’ve had enough coordinators freak out about not meeting those exact specifications that I’m happy to pass this hard earned lesson on to others.

[David Scott]

We run a 30sec countdown clock (inc slate) before all the progs we air, it allows a failsafe for the TX controllers and also gives the director peace of mind during live show playins.

[Adam Demientieff]

Thanks for the advise! I always wondered what the print to video did. I was recording to DV from the timeline. Now I have tone, slate and countdown thanks again.

I am giving the tapes to a planing committee for a upcoming conference. The person who asked me to do it from the committee was formerley an anchor at a news station.

Have a great day.

Adam

[Bouncing Account needs new email address]

[Adam Demientieff] “The person who asked me to do it from the committee was formerley an anchor at a news station.”

Yep. No doubt.

Let me say up-front that if you WANT to “jazz up” your productions with a countdown… that’s cool and spiffy. (I’m sure many clients love the “showbiz” feel.)

But, before we get too far into saying these things NEED to be on a tape, let me ask:

What director calls for an extended pre-roll during a live broadcast?

What kind of “live” playback system REQUIRES a pre-roll?

Countdowns end 2 FULL SECONDS before the “program material” starts.

Do you mean someone in the year 2005 cues and “parks” a video tape more than 2 seconds AHEAD of where the recorded segment starts?
That’s got to create an opportunity for a lot of “dead air”.

Before someone gets “bent” about this, please understand that I hail from “back in the day” when it actually took FIVE to EIGHT FULL SECONDS before a (2″ Quad) tape even “locked-up” (stabilized) and was ready to air.
Academy Countdowns (on the tape) where a nice feature as you, by necessity, “counted the talent into” a pre-recorded segment.

But today, with virtually INSTANT-roll playback, who needs or uses a countdown?

A newscast control room in bygone days used to be a noise-fest of crew members, producers and directors watching (and counting backwards aloud) the academy countdowns.
But, in today’s control rooms you just hear, “Ready VTR 8… Roll 8, take it!”

In the “olden days” VCRs had MECHANICAL timers viewable only on the front of each VCR (the deck was the size of an upright PIANO).
The only way to “see” and monitor the pre-roll was with the “academy leader”.

But again, in present-day production, academy countdowns are mainly “cute and quaint” but just not very useful.

All of the above is for “LIVE” playback of segments.

“Commercial spots” would have even LESS need for a countdown as the “dubbing tech” at the station will just manually “drop a start cue” at the point the commercial begins.
The tech can SEE and HEAR where the spot begins, after all, and will also check to see if a 30 second spot, in fact, IS the correct length (which in MOST cases is 29 seconds, give-or-take 15 frames).