General Practices on Deliverables

[Baz Leffler]

David… we do programs for many countries and each one is made to the distributors specifications. They usually include the ‘deliverables’ requirements in their contract including their technical specs but I am sure if you asked them they would send them to you. Each one is slightly different including DA88 track assignments and timecode start points so there is no ‘rule of thumb’ that applies.

cheers baz

[Michael Brown]

Baz is correct. There is no standard. However, our tech specs require separate “textless” masters, with discrete tracks on DA88 or DAT with matching timecode. Our audio house usually delivers DA88 with 1: Mix L; 2: Mix R; 3: Music L; 4: Music R; 5: SFX L; 6 SFX R; 7: DIALOGUE 1; 8: VO/DIALOGUE 2.
Translators we’ve used prefer the textless video master to have dialogue on track 1 with music & effects on track 2 (assuming a Beta SP). Many of them do not have DA88s or DAT machines.

Mike Brown
Video/Film Producer
American Heart Association

[David Davidson]

Thanks for those replies. We’ve received deliverables lists from different distributors, not from different countries. Our lists from each distributor seem pretty close i.e. 2 or 3 aspect ratios for the D-5/NTSC/PAL formats w/ textless elements on end, D&M&E track assignments are the same, da88 track assignments same, etc.

Is it your experience then, in a distributor deliverables situation that many variants of outputs are required depending upon country? Or is it more likely assembly variations will be the distributor’s issue after deliverables are sent?

Thanks for your insights.

davi
d

[Baz Leffler]

David…. the way the system works is that ‘counties’ buy the programs based on the distributors ‘program specifications’… Countries buy the programs as is and its up to the individual countries to make good the program to their own requirement.

I have often had distributors ask for ‘separate’ components after completion which was then created at a separate cost to them.

Recently we made a doco that went to about 30 countries via a distributor and Germany requested an alternate M/E mix which we provided on timecode DAT. (strange thing was that they had all the components already in multiple forms (master mix, M/E, DA88) but requested us to create it.. meaning more money for us a well).

As for a totally separate ‘textless master’… we haven’t done one of those in years. We just place the textless ‘cut to cut’ portions 30 sec after the end of the main program.