Submitting Tapes for Broadcast

[Ken McGrath]

I have been asked to submit my video of a local graduation to the local cable broadcast channel on tape. I will have to use two mini DV tapes (the ceremony is almost two hours).

It is standard procedure to overlap the second tape with the end of the first, or should I start the second tape exactly where the first tape ended? Also, any suggestions for what to put in the header of each tape (bars, tone, title, etc).

Thanks much. I know I should ask the broadcast house this question, but I want to sound like "I know what I am doing"

[Glenn Chan]

I don't believe there is a standard procedure for this. Normally you would create a master on a 2-hour tape. If the broadcaster will stick commercials in, your master might end up shorter than the full 2 hours and fit on like a 90-minute tape.

So you should probably talk to them.

1b- Because you have miniDV it is difficult to create a proper master (e.g. you want your program to start on the timecode 1:00:00.00.... but most consumer cameras don't let you do that over Firewire easily).

2- They will likely have someone looking through the tape trying to figure it out.

I would:
--Have a minute or a minute and a half of bars and tone, generated from your NLE's bars generator.

--Have a 10-second slate with important info: name of project, total running time (indicate 1 of 2 tapes), audio channels (likely 1&2 are a stereo pair), production company name + contact
Frame size: full frame 4:3 or anamorphic or 16:9 letterbox. (likely full frame 4:3)

--Have a 10 second countdown... for 2, the first frame of 2 should be held for a single frame with 1 frame of tone. This is a 2-pop and helps check audio sync.

--Program should start at the timecode 01:00:00.00... but this might be hard to do on miniDV. So you need to figure something out there... possibly indicate the timecode on which the program starts. If you do an assemble edit from your NLE, the first TC will be 00:00:00.00.

--You have half of your program in there. At the cut on the end, make sure you do something like a fade to black there. You need the audio to fade out to silence. And then in the next bit it needs to fade up from silence. Otherwise they may not be able to put together a clean audio edit between the two segments.

--2 seconds after program end, put a frame of bars& tone.
--Might as well put a title on the end indicating to switch over to the next half.

--Video levels should be legal. If using FCP, make sure that the broadcast colors filter actually renders correctly.

The master created above is NOT a standard broadcast master. But the point is that the person on their side can hopefully figure it out.

3- This is assuming they want to show the whole thing. If it's news and they are cutting it down, then they won't care too much how you format it.

[Ken McGrath]

Thanks Glenn, this helps tremendously!!!