DVD specs for submitted footage

Hello to all,

I secure content for a nationally syndicated TV show with the footage being provided by record labels, publicists, recording artist, etc.,... More and more I am receiving footage on DVD as opposed to tape. In some cases the quality of the DVD is not sufficient for broadcast. Are there any specifications I can provide to avoid receiving DVDs that are not quality enough to broadcast?

As always, thanks in advance.

Peace,
Lisha

No DVD would be broadcast-quality. I have to use them often enough, myself, but never for going out to broadcast. The only way is to tell them to stop using DVDs to archive their video material. Amazes me how many places still don't understand what an ancient, insufficient format DVD is...and how DVD is not a viable format for archival purposes.


www.derekmok.com

Thanks Derek. It amazes me as well. We've been airing footage pulled from DVDs for about 2 years now. The trend started with 1 or 2 record labels, but now it seems as if most of the record labels, at least for the genre we deal with, are sending DVDs. At times I ask for tape and the response is as if I'M the crazy one. I'm trying to avoid receiving DVDs which are so compressed that there's absolutely no way it can be aired. I recently requested Digibeta, BetaSP, DVCam or MiniDV from a label and they said all they had was a DVD. They sent the DVD and it was awful. On the other hand, I received a DVD from a major label just today and the quality is good, picture looks great.

For the labels/publicist that do not have tape, any suggestions as to what language to use to avoid them sending me DVDs that are so compressed they cannot be aired? Seriously, a label representative asked, "What kind of DVD should I send?" Another music show has been accepting DVDs and of course that has also been thrown in my face.

I was also asked about Quicktime files. What specifications should I use for footage being delivered as a Quicktime file?

Thanks again!

> For the labels/publicist that do not have tape, any suggestions as to what
> language to use to avoid them sending me DVDs that are so compressed they
> cannot be aired? I was also asked about Quicktime files. What specifications
> should I use for footage being delivered as a Quicktime file?

Heh heh. Unfortunately, your guess is as good as mine. Some of these guys can't even tell the difference between a video DVD and a data DVD. They can't tell the difference between a .wmv and a .mov, an AVI vs. a QuickTime file, or an H264 file vs. a DV NTSC file.

You give them the specs you want, but then generally you have to do some handholding, eyeball their files and archives yourself if possible. And at the end of the day, you deliver as best you can. I did two internal promos last year with nothing but YouTube captures. Even dipped into my personal music-video DVDs to extract some slightly more decent footage. These days, people really think you can pull material out of thin air.


www.derekmok.com

You mentioned broadcast. You would then need broadcast quality masters- usually digital beta, hdcam or hdcam sr. I'm not sure about what's the practice in the recording industries, but nobody should be sending dvds for broadcast or for further editing as that would cause the quality to deteriorate even further.



www.strypesinpost.com

So true Derek. I do a moderate amount of graphics for TVCs and I have a very specific set of rules for logos from the clients, which are almost always completely ignored.

I think most people don't understand even the tiniest bit of what you need them to know before they send something, panic, and just send any old crap from their website, expecting you'll sort it out, which of course you do because you have to.

I guess the best course for you, Lisha, is to tell them it won't pass QC at that quality, and they need to organise a better copy. That's true, right? The term 'DVD' is as variable as the length of a piece of string, because it depends on how it was shot, edited, compressed, authored and burnt. Each step could make the final product useless even if all the others were fine.

> I do a moderate amount of graphics for TVCs and I have a very specific set of
> rules for logos from the clients

A high-quality, postage-stamp-sized JPEG...

> The term 'DVD' is as variable as the length of a piece of string

Yes, indeed. Even if they'd started out with an Uncompressed 1920x1080 HD file as the source, they sometimes don't even get that if the HD file was sourced from a 320x240 file, it would look like garbage. It's astonishing how many people think that you can actually improve the quality of a file by pushing it through even more encoding blenders.


www.derekmok.com