Ok Guys... it's Deliverables time - have some ?'s.
by Kristoffer Newsom
on
Jun 8, 2008 at 9:24:05 pm
Our project is 99 minutes, we've finished on 10-bit uncompressed 4-2-2 high precision YUV, anamorphic SD (720x480 16x9), 23.98 FPS. Now we need to create our deliverables, which is proving to be more complicated than we originally anticipated, as we had expected to do a film-out originally, and haven't concerned ourselves greatly with keeping our images within broadcast safe ranges.
The way I've proposed to go about this is as follows:
1. Remove titling, output to DigitalBeta via BlackMagic or Kona card.
2. Teranex upres (or similar) to 1080P, output to D5.
3. Capture from the D5 tape to ProRes HQ, add recreated titles in HD.
4. Output back to D5 via BlackMagic or Kona III card.
5. Downconvert the D5 tape and dub to digiBeta.
6. Send both HD and SD masters off for Quality Control checks and certification (and perhaps additional dubbing and PAL conversions) before handing them over to our distributors.
Now I'm fairly confident that the Teranex upres will constrain our image into a broadcast safe range, but I'm not POSITIVE. I'm fairly certain that we'll see no artifacting or other issues when outputting back to D5, and that this won't harm our final product. I'm not totally sold on the idea of the downconverted HD master looking better than a straight output SD master, but this calls back into question the issue of lack of broadcast safe on the original digital master.
I've never prepared deliverables before, and we have a pretty tight budget to get all this done, which is why we'll be renting decks and doing as much of this as possible ourselves. I have a keyspan serial digital adapter for issuing timecode to the decks, so that'll help... but I could really use some advice from someone who's done this before so I'm not flying blind with a tight budget.
Thanks in advance for any advice, or any links to detailed articles on this subject (All I could find was stuff from the 90's. *sigh*)
Re: Ok Guys... it's Deliverables time - have some ?'s. by David Roth Weiss on Jun 8, 2008 at 10:30:26 pm
[Kristoffer Newsom]"we had expected to do a film-out originally, and haven't concerned ourselves greatly with keeping our images within broadcast safe ranges."
Kristoffer,
Okay, so now the plans have changed, that doesn't mean that all reason and responsibility should simply be cast aside. If I were you I would spend 99-minutes to QC the show and take notes regarding anything ouside of braodcast safe ranges and then go back and fix as needed.
David
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW's Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
Re: Ok Guys... it's Deliverables time - have some ?'s. by Kristoffer Newsom on Jun 8, 2008 at 10:57:08 pm
David,
whoah, nobody's throwing reason and responsibility out the window here... we're just trying to find the most efficient effective and transparent way of mastering our film now that the plan has changed, without having to color correct it again - that'd take more time than we essentially have.
Are you suggesting I apply Broadcast Safe filtering to individual shots that exceed levels, after checking the film shot by shot and making notes? Or blanket my entire master with that filter and then QC it to ensure it worked properly? Or are you suggesting I manually adjust the levels of every shot exceeding broadcast safe ranges?
What are the specific ranges QC typically uses as their benchmarks? nothing to exceed 100%?
Re: Ok Guys... it's Deliverables time - have some ?'s. by David Roth Weiss on Jun 8, 2008 at 11:26:12 pm
[Kristoffer Newsom]"Or are you suggesting I manually adjust the levels of every shot exceeding broadcast safe ranges"
Please don't take offense at what I said, its just that common sense would suggest that essential steps should not be skipped just because plans have change and time is short.
I am indeed suggesting that the entire project be QC'd and every shot exceeding broadcast safe levels be adjusted individually, just as if the filmout had never been planned. It is the most efficient and best way of dealing with the issue -- the Apple Broadcast Safe Filter simply does not replace the human touch.
The basics in NTSC land in the US are:
Black level = 7.5 IRE
White levels = 100 IRE
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW's Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
Re: Ok Guys... it's Deliverables time - have some ?'s. by Kristoffer Newsom on Jun 8, 2008 at 11:36:15 pm
Hi David, thanks for your help.
I'm not taking offense, it's just that you're telling me the exact thing I was afraid of hearing! X0
I'm now in a different city from my project, and starting a fulltime gig tomorrow morning so I'm really not going to be able to give it the human touch unless some major arrangements are made. The Director and I pretty much don't trust the project to anyone but ourselves, so either he'd have to come down to LA with all the hard drives, or I'd have to cruise up there for a couple weeks. *sigh* I'm continually amazed that anyone ever makes an independent film.
Re: Ok Guys... it's Deliverables time - have some ?'s. by David Roth Weiss on Jun 9, 2008 at 12:10:49 am
[Kristoffer Newsom]"you're telling me the exact thing I was afraid of hearing!"
Trust me, I am used to hearing that, but I am just the voice of reality. It's so very easy to become impatient at the end of a long project, but a big part of managing post is to resist the temptation to look for ways to cut corners as we draw close to the finish-line.
The bottom line is, we are in a business of precision and there's no substitute and no free lunch, the final steps have simply got to be done, less all the time and effort put in until this point will have been for nothing.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW's Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
Re: Ok Guys... it's Deliverables time - have some ?'s. by Kristoffer Newsom on Jun 9, 2008 at 12:16:19 am
no, you've definitely got a point, and that's pretty much been my motto throughout this whole project. I've been asked to put the cart before the horse a number of times (hence not being broadcast safe to begin with), this time it's less an issue of desire to have it done sooner and more a literal lack of time on my part combined with a lack of anyone else who can do it.
Re: Ok Guys... it's Deliverables time - have some ?'s. by Mark Raudonis on Jun 8, 2008 at 10:34:14 pm
Kris,
If you've never dealt with this stuff before, you may just want to contract it all out to a qualified post house. For example, you didn't even mention closed captioning, which is required by most buyers (certainly by ALL broadcasters).
You don't comment on the audio specs. Most broadcasters want Dolby AC-3 encoding. International audio specs are always different than domestic, and require special treatment (fully filled M & E), unique track assignments etc.
If you're delivering to a buyer, they will have pages and pages of tech specs for you to follow. I'd suggest you get ahold of that document and make your decisions based on what they require.
As for the rest of your plan, it sounds like you're chasing your tail! Outputing SD, up converting, new titles in HD, this all sounds way out of whack! I don't follow why you're going up to HD, and then back down to create a master. You really have to follow a dual path here. Your timeline is SD. Use that to create your SD masters, both texted and textless. If you want to use the terranex to upconvert, go ahead, but that master now has NOTHING to do with your original SD source.
Finally, a friendly word of advice. You admit that you're new to this part of the process. This is NOT simple stuff. You're dealing with extremely specific tech specs that require a strong base of knowledge to get it right. The cost of rejected masters will quickly erase any saving that you're trying to make by doing it yourself. If you don't have HD capable scopes to monitor this process, you're really treading on thin ice.
Re: Ok Guys... it's Deliverables time - have some ?'s. by Kristoffer Newsom on Jun 8, 2008 at 11:22:11 pm
Hi Mark,
Thanks for the advice... Getting ahold of the technical requirements document is definitely something I need to do, trouble is, I don't know who our buyer will be yet, and I imagine they've all got slightly different requirements. And then there's the question of how will I even GET that document? Is it usually something we receive along with all the rest of the paperwork involved?
The plan was to do a preliminary QC during the upres and if the HD intermediate was way out of range, we'd correct that in FCP. From what David has said, it's best to start in broadcast safe before going to HD in the Teranex, but I'm pretty sure the Teranex outputs only broadcast safe video, which is why I planned on using it as an intermediate.
The plan with the upres was to create an HD master of the film so we had that as a optional deliverable. Not all buyers are requesting an HD master, but many are. We didn't want to upconvert our current master with titles because the process is usually not kind to them, hence wanting to retitle in FCP after the fact. Furthermore, from the tests we've done before, the Teranex process helps smooth the colors in the film a bit (we're very satisfied with the current look and visual quality of the film, but that's like icing on the cake), and wanted to preserve that by doing a downconversion from the D5 master to digibeta to see if the quality of the end product was improved over the original direct to digibeta master. I know that's not the simplest, but it's what my producer wants.
Audio is stereo PZM, the ClosedCaptioning is all typed out and ready to be coded in. The trouble is, I don't think there's going to be budget to have a post house do all our deliverables (especially since we'll have to recreate our titles in High Def in order to create an HD master, and that'll require either time in their edit bay, or renting a D5 deck). I have a pretty solid technical base, even though I've never prepared a film deliverable before... I just need to know exactly what the QC is going to look at so I can make sure it'll pass. If I have to rent scopes to do this or an edit bay to QC the film myself first, then I'll do so. If anyone has any suggestions on houses in LA to QC a master, I'm all ears for that too, as well as the average costs for doing so... I'm just kinda flying blind until I have more information about what buyers want, which is partly why I posted here.
Re: Ok Guys... it's Deliverables time - have some ?'s. by Andrew Kimery on Jun 8, 2008 at 11:44:24 pm
If I was me I'd hold off on doing all this until I had a buyer. Right now your are just guessing at what a buyer would want and I doubt you'll be lucky enough to guess 100% correctly and not have to redo anything. As the saying goes, measure twice, cut once. Unfortunately you don't know what your measurement needs to be until you get a buyer.
Re: Ok Guys... it's Deliverables time - have some ?'s. by Michael Alberts on Jun 9, 2008 at 12:28:39 am
Since you are delivering this for TV broadcast how many act breaks have you included? How long are your act breaks, 5, 10, 15, 30 seconds? What is the requirement for total program time for a 2 hour broadcast? Have you left room for the broadcaster bug? These are only some of the many requirements that all change depending on what network picks up your show. There is no guessing involved. Once the show is purchased the broadcaster will give you a copy of their deliverable specs. No two broadcasters spec is the same.
Some may want 23.98, some 29.97. They may want a letterbox SD and not anamorphic.
Can you see where I'm going here.
Michael Alberts
Ambidextrous Productions, Inc.
www.ambidextrous.net
Re: Ok Guys... it's Deliverables time - have some ?'s. by Kristoffer Newsom on Jun 9, 2008 at 12:40:25 am
Michael,
I totally see where you're coming from. Some of the buyers we're going for are pay TV, others are other miscellaneous cable, and a few are network, you're totally right, they are all going to have various requirements that we'll have to fulfill, and it's very difficult to prepare those deliverables until they've told us what they need. David has a point though, that we can begin QCing the film and making sure it's all in spec already so that's one less thing to do once we have the buyer's requirements for the project.
Re: Ok Guys... it's Deliverables time - have some ?'s. by David Roth Weiss on Jun 9, 2008 at 12:55:48 am
[Michael Alberts]"Since you are delivering this for TV broadcast how many act breaks have you included? How long are your act breaks, 5, 10, 15, 30 seconds? What is the requirement for total program time for a 2 hour broadcast? Have you left room for the broadcaster bug? These are only some of the many requirements that all change depending on what network picks up your show. There is no guessing involved."
Indie filmmakers without a buyer shouldn't worry about all of the things you mentioned above, they simply need to tell their story and get their projects out into the marketplace. Broadcasters acquire finished projects all the time and are quite used to conforming those projects to their needs one way or another, either in-house themselves, or by getting producers to do it themselves.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW's Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
Re: Ok Guys... it's Deliverables time - have some ?'s. by Dan Brockett on Jun 9, 2008 at 3:03:37 am
Hi Kristoffer:
Not sure where you are located but if you are in LA, I noticed that Michael Alberts chimed in here. Just wanted to say that Michael provided these services for an A&E Biography that I produced and he is and his facility are very good at making your project meet the specs, we had no issues or problems with delivery to A&E.
I highly suggest farming this out to people who do this for a living. At the very least, you can output to your master format and they can make sure that it conforms to broadcast standards so you don't get rejected during QC.
Dan
Providing value added material to all of your favorite DVDs
Re: Ok Guys... it's Deliverables time - have some ?'s. by Michael Alberts on Jun 9, 2008 at 3:50:17 am
Hi Dan,
Thanks for the compliments. We actually purchased our own building recently and start construction on the new facility next week. I'll update you when we're ready to move in. We'll be throwing a big party!
Back to Kristoffer's dilema: I really feel you're spinning your wheels at this point. As Mark pointed out, a simple screening DVD is all you really need at this point in order to find a buyer. As for renting Digibeta's and D5's you're in for a real shocker. D-Beta's generally go for $300/day and a D5 runs about 800/day. If you've never done the mastering process it's going to take you some time to get it right. In the long run it's probably cheaper to make a QT file and take somewhere with those decks.
One thing you can do yourself right now is to QC the project yourself. However, that's not as easy as it sounds either. Just slapping a FCP broadcast safe filter on the movie in many cases doesn't take care or all the color or RGB gamut issues that will get kicked back by a network. A good set of hardware scopes should be able to warn you of these issues before you make you output however.
Best of luck. If you need more help there are plenty of people on the Cow willing to help.
Michael Alberts
Ambidextrous Productions, Inc.
www.ambidextrous.net
Re: Ok Guys... it's Deliverables time - have some ?'s. by David Roth Weiss on Jun 9, 2008 at 12:18:35 am
[Andrew Kimery]"If I was me I'd hold off on doing all this until I had a buyer."
Yes, but the reality is that masters that adhere to broadcast standards are created every day on projects without buyers. There are times when you've simply got to finish and so long as you keep everthing within spec you should be just fine. But, you've got to get everything to spec first.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW's Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
Re: Ok Guys... it's Deliverables time - have some ?'s. by Mark Raudonis on Jun 9, 2008 at 2:43:19 am
[David Roth Weiss]"Yes, but the reality is that masters that adhere to broadcast standards are created every day on projects without buyers. There are times when you've simply got to finish and so long as you keep everthing within spec you should be just fine. But, you've got to get everything to spec first.
"
david,
It seems like you're contradicing yourself. In one post you're saying go ahead and finish it, and in another you're saying the buyer will do it. So which one is it?
Broadcasters acquire finished projects all the time and are quite used to conforming those projects to their needs one way or another, either in-house themselves, or by getting producers to do it themselves.
If money is tight, and in this case it sounds like it is, then I'd suggest that you go NO FURTHER than a viable screening copy. If you sell it, then you can finish it properly. Until then, you're wasting time and money.
Re: Ok Guys... it's Deliverables time - have some ?'s. by David Roth Weiss on Jun 9, 2008 at 3:01:22 am
Mark,
I'm simply suggesting that Kristoffer QC the existing timeline, CC it get it within spec, and get it out there in the marketplace. Its why I avoided discussing all the other details. You and I seem to be in agreement.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW's Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
