Feb 2009 legal or not legal

[Bob Zelin]

what are you talking about ?
Your levels must be at or below 100IRE, and most TV stations have legalizers/proc amps/clip amplifiers to process everything anyway.

Transmission is the only issue. They can remain all analog Beta/analog DVCPro, as long as the transmitted signal is a digital signal. Which means if they put an AJA FS-1 or similar product from Cobalt Digital, Miranda, Evertz, etc. just before transmission, they are now a digital station. It’s got NOTHING to do with what they are editing with. People will continue to send in their VHS tapes to Americas Funniest Home Videos, and will continue to be aired (with crap VHS quality), as long as it gets frame sync-ed, and converted to SDI before it hits the transmitter. What do you think happens with all the cable feeds that are ALL DIGITAL today – do you think that they don’t use Beta media ?

Bob Zelin

[Devin Crane]

Ok so when Feb 2009 hits I will still have to keep the whites at or below 100 IRE?

[Bob Zelin]

yes –
standards will remain this way, and standards by many stations (like Discovery) will become more stringent. Discovery requires Sony SRW-5500 delivery, with 8 discreet channels of embedded audio. AND they demand that audio be monitored by a Dolby LM-100 audio meter. Now, I only have one client (Brighthouse Networks) that owns one of these, and I have no idea of how they can tell if the customer owns one of these meters, but that is the specification.

Delivery requirements are MUCH MORE than just watching your “white” levels – there are pages of documentation that must be adhered to that varies from each broadcast operation. These are called delivery specifications, that are available from each station TOC.

Is this a pain in the ass – YOU BET IT IS ! This is what editing manufaturers refer to as “conform products” – edit systems that can deliver a finished product (but people deliver on every piece of crap on the market – you can get away with anything these days, from most stations – but not all).

Bob zelin

[Devin Crane]

I understand the stations requirement lists, I have been dealing with this for years. And I understand that every station is different, I just want to know the changes in what’s legal and not legal since NTSC will become obsolete in a matter of months. Or does everything stay the same from NTSC to ATSC.

[Joe Murray]

What Bob’s getting at is that what’s legal is whatever you can get away with, and this is going to be different from one network to another. PBS and Discovery have tighter standards than others, but if you want to be safe you’ll continue to stay in spec. If you plan to deliver to networks that value quality, you should learn to work within the specs they require, and then you’ll still be safe delivering to anyone else.

Joe Murray
Edit at Joe’s
Charlotte, NC

[Devin Crane]

What I’m getting to is what’s the difference in standards with NTSC and ATSC. I know every station will be different and have there own set rules.

However In NTSC white levels can’t go above 100ire or else they interfere with the audio, also the setup levels are set to 7.5 and so on. ATSC shouldn’t have those problems, I’m looking for someone who knows about this.

[Bob Zelin]

Listen Devin, is this you question – “I just want to know what to do so I am not driven crazy by all these different broadcasters”.

This is the answer – you will be driven crazy for THE REST OF YOUR CAREER. I have been doing this (video engineering) since 1978, and since the stone age (linear editing), “nothing” is good enough, nothing that you do is “broadcast quality” according to those that want to torment you, and charge your clients for “fixes” that you did wrong (when you have done nothing wrong).

Over the years, I have ammassed a collection of test equipment, to use to prove to these morons that there is NOTHING WRONG with my clients tapes, and to this day, with all the test gear in the world, I still have clients tapes rejected by stations for “this and that”, and not conforming to the delivery requirements.

This is part of the game, and you will face this FOREVER. The only place you don’t get this is on Youtube (and other internet delivery services) – but JUST WAIT. As this becomes more mainstream (and God forbid – regulated) – there will be delivery requirement, and there will be a whole new set of rules (that both you and I don’t understand) that will have to be met.

You can go out and buy a HD scope for $12,000 tomorrow, and the station will reject your tape because “the editors edit system replaced the close captioning in the vertical interval, and we can’t read the close captioning information”. It’s never over Devin.

Bob Zelin

[Devin Crane]

A simple I don’t know would be suffice.

[Bob Zelin]

Devin –
when you find the guy that says to you “yes, Devin, as of February 2009, you no longer have to worry about where your black levels or white levels are – those days are long over” – you know that you have met an idiot.

That is simple enough.

Bob Zelin

[Charley King]

Bob,
You referred to the linear editing days as the stone age, does that mean since I started in B&W Live, I am pre stone age?
This thread brought up something that happened sometime in the 60’s.
We had a tape turned down by one of the other TV stations stating it was not technically correct and would not playback on their machines.
My tape Operator told me to take a trip with him and we went to teh other station. He walked in sked if the tape loaded on their machine was running shortly, and was informed it didn’t go for almost a half hour.
He took it down, purt up his “Ampex” test tape and set up their machine, put our tape on it played it back showed the guys it played good, took it down, set the machine back to where they had it set. Loaded their tape back up and turned to them and said don’t ever send one of my tapes back saying it is no good.
As we were leaving they were going through their machine resetting it to proper standards.
No, some things never change. there is always gonna be someone that doesn;t wnat to accept your stuff. And yes BOB, if people will adhere to the standards for broadcast, they should have fewer problems.

Charlie

ProductionKing Video Services
Unmarked Door Productions
Flamingo Las Vegas Hotel
Las Vegas, Nevada