Broadcast Standards, 25p -> 50i. 50i > 60i. HELP!

C

Cobra8472

Member
Hi everyone.

In a bit of a pickle here..

The following situation has arisen:

I have shot, edited, and VFX'd a music video for a band. The problem is, that they are asking for PAL and NTSC broadcast versions of the video.

My current video is in 25/1080p. Pretty standard after shooting it in 50i on a GH-1.

I assume that 25p to 50i is pretty much straightforward, just rendering out the Premiere sequence as 50i.
However, I can find very little info on what is actually the accepted standard for TV Broadcast when it comes to PAL and Europe. What do I render it as? H.264? Any changes in colour profiles/Broadcast colors?

The biggest problem is most likely NTSC. How the heck are you to convert 50i to 60i, without major image quality issues, and without desyncing the song to the video?

I assume it is standard practice to actually broadcast at 60i in the U.S., or is 50i also utilized? What are the broadcast standards here?

I am extremely appreciative of any help or info in this matter. I have googled all day, and not come up with much info on the subject at hand.

Cheers,
Nick
 
50i is not used in the us (for broadcast) 60i is the NTSC standard.

As for exporting, H.264 is a compression, which I would not recommend if it is going to be broadcast. If you are going to post it on the web H.264 would be a good way to go.

As for changing the frame rate from 50i to 60i I think there should be no problem with that. Although I have never gone from pal to ntsc, I have however gone from 23.976 to 29.97. Here's how I have done it. I use After Effects to do most of my compressions, and I bring in the footage, create the comp, then change the frame rate (of the comp) to my desired frame rate. The only times I get syncing issues is when I interpret the footage as another frame rate.

Have you tried exporting the footage to 60i? If so does the audio come off? If you have tried it to no avail and you have After Effects, let me know I can walk you through the workaround that I do.
 
Cobra8472 said:
I can find very little info on what is actually the accepted standard for TV Broadcast when it comes to PAL and Europe.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately there is no standard, every station has their own rules called "Technische Richtlinen".

Here you can see one: http://prosiebensat1produktion.itmr.de/tv/pdf/Technische_Richtlinien_D.pdf

Most of them are pretty happy with this fomat/specs

SD = MXF OP1a/IMX 50 + 8 CH Audio

HD= MXF OP1a/MPEG-2 150MBit + 8 CH Audio or MXF OP1a/DNxHD 120 Mbit + 8 CH Audio

You can use Premiere to export this.

Make sure you luminance levels are within the specs (ITUR
BT.709-5), they also pretty anal regarding audio levels (-9 dBFS).

But I would call the station - just to make sure.

Hope that helps,

Frank
 
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This sounds like a job for a post house or a professional compressionist. Try calling around to get rates on conversions.

Also is your master an h.264 video file? You never saved off a ProRes or Uncompressed?

Do you still have the original edit from your NLE? You'll want to export from there and not from the h.264 for quality reasons.

A frame-rate interpret and audio slowdown is out of the question so you'll need to use some nice hardware to keep the time-scale the same but generate new frames. You're talking about expensive motion vector stuff, and hard ware based conversions.
 
Thank you all for the suggestions.

There is simply no budget for compressionists or a post house. Neither is there for any new hardware.

@Demistate, aye, I've got the uncompressed files. All VFX was done on this machine so everything is here.

Doing some tests, I do believe the solution will be to simply export to 60i NTSC by use of Premiere CS5's media encoder. The result seems to be alright,
and considering the fact that an NTSC version was requested after production had been completely finished, there is not much that can be done.

@Postmaster; thanks for the technical specs and details, they will be a massive help.

Cheers!
 
MPEG 2 OP1A query

MPEG 2 OP1A query

Hi,
As you have mentioned that it is possible to Export MPEG-2 op1a in MXF from Premier.
I request you if have done so can you guide me with procedure. I need to send a spot to a Broadcasters and the format required is MPEG 2, OP1A in MXF. I dont have much knowledge of this format so request your guidance.

Thank you,




Postmaster said:
Unfortunately there is no standard, every station has their own rules called "Technische Richtlinen".

Here you can see one: http://prosiebensat1produktion.itmr.de/tv/pdf/Technische_Richtlinien_D.pdf

Most of them are pretty happy with this fomat/specs

SD = MXF OP1a/IMX 50 + 8 CH Audio

HD= MXF OP1a/MPEG-2 150MBit + 8 CH Audio or MXF OP1a/DNxHD 120 Mbit + 8 CH Audio

You can use Premiere to export this.

Make sure you luminance levels are within the specs (ITUR
BT.709-5), they also pretty anal regarding audio levels (-9 dBFS).

But I would call the station - just to make sure.

Hope that helps,

Frank
Click to expand...
 
Postmaster said:
SD = MXF OP1a/IMX 50 + 8 CH Audio

HD= MXF OP1a/MPEG-2 150MBit + 8 CH Audio or MXF OP1a/DNxHD 120 Mbit + 8 CH Audio

You can use Premiere to export this.

Frank
Click to expand...

Just curious Frank -- I knew that Premiere Pro could export Mpeg2 MXF, but I have been unsuccessful at exporting multi-channel audio. As far as I could see it only exports Stereo. Can you tell me how you have overcome this?
 
I'm curious as to the need of multichannel audio. Does the station REQUIRE you to actually have a multichannel mix?
 
RX782 said:
I'm curious as to the need of multichannel audio. Does the station REQUIRE you to actually have a multichannel mix?
Click to expand...

I've never ran across a station that doesn't require a multi-channel mix. This is as old as time for me. Been doing it since my first gig as a TV editor, and still do it nowadays many years later. I'm baffled as to why Premiere Pro doesn't do this. FCP and AVID have been doing it for almost a decade. The quicktime architecture native supports this, so it doesn't seem like rocket-science to implement... Channels 1/2: stereo mix, Channel 3/4: Music and Effects at the VERY LEAST.
 
tfg said:
I've never ran across a station that doesn't require a multi-channel mix. This is as old as time for me. Been doing it since my first gig as a TV editor, and still do it nowadays many years later. I'm baffled as to why Premiere Pro doesn't do this. FCP and AVID have been doing it for almost a decade.
Click to expand...
Fascinating. The only things I've worked on have gone to local cable, and they never require multichannel, but I guess broadcast affiliates have higher standards hehe.
 
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