Viacom Broadcast Specs in FCPX

[Bret Williams]

I don’t do broadcast but those look pretty lenient. If you edited in HD looks like all you need to do is add a 5 sec countdown with the 2 only being 1 frame and followed by 2 secs of black. Output to XDCam CBR, and make sure no audio is over -10 db and no chroma is over 120ire. I’d add a adjustment layer to the whole video or make it a compound clip and add broadcast safe filter then double check the levels on the video waveform. Should be obvious if you have chroma clipping at 120. They didn’t mention luma but the broadcast safe filter might handle it. Stick a few frames of black at the end (gap clip will do) and you’re done.

It shouldn’t be so simple, but their specs don’t seem very stringent. Perhaps some expert has a better idea?

[Howard Duy vu]

It’s actually pretty straightforward. I would output a ProRes master first (after you do what Bret suggests, which are all the slates and broadcast-safe things which are standard). The audio part is really easy because it’s a song, so you know where it will peak, so just make sure it’s under -10 db.

After you get your ProRes master, run it through Compressor, with XDCAM HD422i60 as your codec, 59.94 framerate, and top first field order. I’m guessing you cut this video at 23.976fps, so this step is to add the pulldown to get to 59.94 fps. You should be able to just have the “copy audio tracks from source” checked if you made sure your ProRes master was set to 48kHz stereo. The list looks complicated, but it’s all very standard.

[Bret Williams]

If you’re not familiar with compressor, and you did cut in 24p, you can add the pulldown in FCP X by simply duplicating your project (sequence) and then making a compound clip out of it. Make a new 1080i 1920×1080 project. Drop the compound clip into that. FCP X will add the correct pulldown and you don’t have to worry about upper/lower fields, etc. Then you can add the broadcast safe effect to that clip and bring down audio levels and any other brightness and saturation necessary. Export that as a master file and click on settings and choose the XDCam 422 (50mbs) setting. That’s what I’d do. I trust FCP X to do the interlacing correctly and there’s a lot of user error possible by going to compressor. You’re going down a little bit of a generation by going to ProRes first as well, but no human would ever notice.

[Howard Duy vu]

Yes, the compound clip method should work fine. Just wanted to chime in and say if you wanted to go the Compressor route as above, I misspoke about making the framerate 59.94. It should actually be 29.97 (so ignore their specs that say 59.94). 29.97i is actually 59.94 because it’s 59.94 fields per second already. If you go make a new timeline in FCPX and set it to 1080i, it will only have two options: 25i and 29.97i, so 29.97i is what you want in either case.

[Paul Live]

Thank you for the prompt response. Everytime I drop the compound clip into a 1080i timeline it changes it to 1080p.