Commercial in AE 6.5 -- help with composition settings!

[tweir10988]

I am currently making a commercial for a local construction company that will be shown on some ABC, CBS, ect. station. I found some parameters on the local Wink News website. I have the standard version of AE 6.5. I was wondering if I could still make the commercial HD by just making the composition 1920 x 1080 or if there is more to it than that. I am using high resolution photographs for the video -- not video footage. I am also on a PC.

This is truly my first attempt at such a project so any advise would be appreciated. Any composition settings that you could recommend are also appreciated. Below are the parameters i found on the CBS website.


QUICKTIME CODEC: UNCOMPRESSED 8 BIT (not 10 bit)
Upper Field First, 1920 x 1080, Audio 48khz, Frame Rate 29.97

QUICKTIME CODEC: H264
Upper Field First, 1920 x 1080, Audio 48khz, Frame Rate 29.97

QUICKTIME CODEC: ANIMATION
Upper Field First, 1920 x 1080, Audio 48khz, Frame Rate 29.97

QUICKTIME CODEC: PHOTO
Upper Field First, 1920 x 1080, Audio 48khz, Frame Rate 29.97

QUICKTIME CODEC: STANDARD DEFINITION
Upper Field First, 720 x 486, Audio 48khz, Frame Rate 29.97

Rules for Submission of HD Commercials
The Following Formats are Preferred and Acceptable
JOIN THE
REVOLUTION!
The following formats CANNOT BE ACCEPTED:
QUICKTIME CODEC: Uncompressed 10bit, QUICKTIME CODEC: ProRes and WINDOWS MEDIA FILES.

Thanks!

 

[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

I am currently making a commercial for a local construction company that will be shown on some ABC, CBS, ect. station. I found some parameters on the local Wink News website. I have the standard version of AE 6.5. I was wondering if I could still make the commercial HD by just making the composition 1920 x 1080 or if there is more to it than that. I am using high resolution photographs for the video -- not video footage. I am also on a PC.

This is truly my first attempt at such a project so any advise would be appreciated. Any composition settings that you could recommend are also appreciated. Below are the parameters i found on the CBS website.


QUICKTIME CODEC: UNCOMPRESSED 8 BIT (not 10 bit)
Upper Field First, 1920 x 1080, Audio 48khz, Frame Rate 29.97

QUICKTIME CODEC: H264
Upper Field First, 1920 x 1080, Audio 48khz, Frame Rate 29.97

QUICKTIME CODEC: ANIMATION
Upper Field First, 1920 x 1080, Audio 48khz, Frame Rate 29.97

QUICKTIME CODEC: PHOTO
Upper Field First, 1920 x 1080, Audio 48khz, Frame Rate 29.97

QUICKTIME CODEC: STANDARD DEFINITION
Upper Field First, 720 x 486, Audio 48khz, Frame Rate 29.97

Rules for Submission of HD Commercials
The Following Formats are Preferred and Acceptable
JOIN THE
REVOLUTION!
The following formats CANNOT BE ACCEPTED:
QUICKTIME CODEC: Uncompressed 10bit, QUICKTIME CODEC: ProRes and WINDOWS MEDIA FILES.

Thanks!

I don't do anything with broadcast. I am sort aware of a couple of items that I don't know how in AE one would 'get at them'... you can put your material through a 'broadcast' safe filter, but how the result looks on a vectorscope is unknown to me. If you are close enough, the engineer may curse... but get your material to their requirements...

I use AE for all/most of my webbased output, and use output dimensions that definately do not match 'broadcast' requirements, such as 1024x600 output, at 24 fps... or whatever... so my presumption is that setting the dimensions to conform to some HD standard is entirely acceptable. The only other aspect is the pixel aspect ratio... again I'm targeted for computer/web so square pixels are fine by me... but would the broadcast engineer feel the same way...

 

[milksac]

I am currently making a commercial for a local construction company that will be shown on some ABC, CBS, ect. station.

You have the comp settings needed to generate the spot for CBS. You need to find out what format ABC and any other network you are submitting to will accept. Some networks do not accept files and need the spot delivered on HDCAM.

For legal purposes make sure you have clearance on the photos, VO and music.

Regarding the technical side, the local stations set their own standards that you're expected to comply with. Again this information would be provided by each broadcaster. Ideally you should check your work using a waveform & vectorscope to make sure it falls within the technical specifications provided by the broadcaster. Without scopes there's a chance that your spot will be rejected for being out of spec. Not to worry though, there's also a good chance it will not be rejected. It's amazing how poor the QC has become in the industry over the last decade. I think if the check clears for the media buy they will air just about anything.

Finally from the CBS specs: http://media.winknews.com/documents/High_Def.pdf

All commercials that are submittd in these High Def formats will play out in HD on our digital channel. They will automatically be down converted to Standard Definition for play out on our analog channel. This conversion will effectively cut off the edges of the HD commercials to convert them into a 4 x 3 format. So please make sure all necessary video and graphics are contained within the standard 4 x 3 frame.

They are doing a center cut for the downconvert. As noted above, make sure that all your graphics fit inside a 4:3 space in the middle of the 16:9 space (aka center cut). IOW if you put the phone number or web address for the client in the far edges of the HD frame it will be cut off on the downconvert, which is likely to tick off your client.