Preparing footage for national broadcast

[Angelo Lorenzo]

My production company predominately produces footage for the web and dvd distribution but we just finished our first commercial that’ll be used for a national broadcast campaign. I had a few questions.

1. For SD it looks like Beta tape is the most universal method of delivery so that shouldn’t be a problem?

2. Since HD doesn’t have too much of a unified format as far as tapes and decks, etc. will we have to be available to give every local station a tape/dvd in the format they request, or for larger networks like NBC, ABS, etc. will they require one format that they’ll distribute to local stations?

3. I’m still really confused as to the distribution pipeline of a national spot. Is footage handed down from the parent network, or is every local branded station left on their own?

4. If we have to do a multitude of HD tape formats, what are some good video mastering houses? Are they called mastering houses? My google search turned up no results.

5. What’s the most universal footage leader? We have 30sec bars and tone, 10sec slate, and a 10sec countdown before footage.

Footage does have NTSC standard audio levels that max at -12db and contrast will be compressed to NTSC broadcast standard before rendering.

[maurice jansen]

well in some country’s
all is diffrent from station to station
luckly in holland everything is the same.
i guess you have to ask every station what there delivery spec’s are
and make it the way they want. and yes this can be a lot of work.
if you are not familiar with this or do not have the time to go after the spec’s go find a dubbing house which know all the spec’s
yes this cost a bit but doing things all over again and again
ain’t a good choice. specialy when you have deadline’s

greet
Maurice