Delivering to Broadcast Format from FCP? (Digibeta/Betasp)

[MattRobertson]

So recently I filmed a music video for a gospel music artist, and we were going to submit it to the gospel music channel to play on the air. This is their instructions to get your content to air on the station:

Video Submission Procedure​

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We require either DigiBeta (preferred) or BetaSP for air and a DVD or VHS copy (preferably with burned in time code, if available) for screening.
You will need to enclose two forms with your video submission. The first is our standard video clips release which gives us permission to air your video(s). You need only to submit this form with your initial video shipment. The second is the video credits form which gives us the information we need to have the proper credits on screen when your video(s) airs.
Submit forms and Beta with DVD or VHS copies of your video(s) to:
Gospel Music Channel
1514 East Cleveland Avenue, Suite #240
Atlanta, GA 30344

How do I go about creating a DigiBeta or BetaSP format from a FCP 720p24 sequence filmed on my HMC150. Excuse my ignorance, but these are both tape formats correct? Therefore I would probably have to rent a digibeta deck and print to tape from the FCP sequence, correct? Any other things I need to consider before sending into them for broadcast? I made sure to apply broadcast safe filters to the whole sequence before exporting, and kept all titles well within the TV safe zone. Also, how do I burn in the timecode using FCP? Can't you accomplish this using compressor?

Thanks in advance for the help.

 

[Cools]

Yes, you need to get a deck (and a capture card to connect to the deck if it's SDI or some other pro format - the capture in this case can do the down conversion for you). The easiest solution is to find someone who already has all this equipment or let a local post house do the transfer for you (at a fee).

Both of those tape formats are SD (720x486) so you'll have to figure out how to fit your wide screen HD content into a smaller frame. For example, do you crop the left and right sides? Or do you have black bars at the top and bottom? Or can you submit it as anamorphic (squeezed horizontally and then un-sqeezed back during airing? Talk to the channel about this. If you use a post house route then talk to them about the best format to give them (possibly uncompressed on DVD or disk), etc.

Regarding broadcast legality. Some places are very strict about legal values for luma and chroma so if you use the Broadcast Safe filter make sure to set it to Very Conservative or Extremely Conservative. That should give you safe results, though you can do more specific things by using the scopes and the color correction filters.

Also, if you use them, be careful of bright colors. Make sure they don't exceed 93 IRE on the scopes (some broadcasters don't want you to go over 90) and aren't too saturated (especially red, blue, yellow and cyan).

Lastly you can use the Timecode filter in FCP to "burn" the timecode. Nest the your final sequence and apply that filter to the whole clip.

Hope this helps.

 

[Cools]

Forgot to mention one more thing: Some broadcasters need bars, tone and head and tail segments as well as timecode that starts at a specific time (usually the content starts at the 1 hour mark).