MUSIC VIDEO DELIVERY SPECS

BASIC REQUIREMENTS

FORMAT, FRAME RATE, RESOLUTION, INTERLACING & TELECINE

Videos must be in their original format, whether NTSC or PAL, and should arrive in their native frame rate, native resolution and native frame progression.
If the content is natively interlaced, please leave the footage as is. Please do not de-interlace content or it will fail in ingestion.
If your content is 23.98P/24P, the telecine should always arrive reversed when submitted as a digital file.
The resulting video must have a clean progressive image with no duplicate or interlaced frames.
All videos should be at least 720 pixels wide (not up-converted from 640 pixels wide).

CHYRON
Music videos should not contain chyron, including titles, credits, logos, watermarks, promotional dates or graphics, websites, etc. Credits are submitted with metadata.

AUDIO
Audio must be in stereo and in the highest available quality.

VIDEO IDENTIFICATION
If you are delivering more than one video per tape, videos should contain a title card bumper and/or countdown with the label, artist, video title, song version and any existing
ISRC's with 2 seconds of black between the card and the first frame of audio or video. Label, artist, video title and song version should also be listed on any physical deliveries
whether data DVD, USB drive or tape. Please name digital video files as Label_Artist_Song.

DEADLINE
Videos should arrive at least 30 days before the release date.

VIDEO TAPE FORMATS
We accept Beta SP masters, Digital Beta masters and Digital Beta duplicates of Beta SP or Digital Beta masters. Please do not send us the only copy of your video because your
tape will most likely not be returned. If you are delivering a batch of music videos, we recommend duplicating the videos to one Digital Beta tape and properly identifying them as
per the instructions listed in Video Identification above. Please make sure any tape duplicates are properly dubbed without glitches and in stereo.

DIGITAL FILE FORMATS
Digital file submissions must be in a lossless and/or uncompressed format. For minimal file size, we recommend Apple Pro Res 422 HQ.
If your project was not edited in Final Cut Pro (required to encode Apple Pro Res 422 HQ format), then we will accept most uncompressed formats
including Apple or Blackmagic Uncompressed 8/10-bit or Uncompressed 8/10-bit AVI. As a general reference, Pro Res HQ files will be over 1GB in size
and uncompressed files will be over 4GB in size. If the video file is under 1GB, it is most likely in the wrong format.

H.264, DV, MPEG2, MPEG4, DIVX, WMV etc. are not acceptable submission formats, and videos cannot be up-converted from these formats.
Videos captured from tape should be digitized via SDI to Pro Res HQ or an uncompressed format. Firewire-to-DV codec captures will not be accepted.
Up-converted media will not be accepted. Videos should be in full/native resolution (at least 720 pixels wide) and cannot contain pillars. There should only be one video per video file.
We accept content in all aspect ratios, whether letterboxed or anamorphic, and recommend listing the aspect ratio in your video's identification.
Audio should be in at least 16-bit 48.000 kHz PCM stereo format.

DELIVERY METHOD

PHYSICAL DELIVERY
We highly recommend delivering your video on data DVD or USB drive.

You will be provided with a mailing address to mail your Data DVD or USB Drive once you have submitted your payment.







DOCUMENTARY, FILM and MOVIE VIDEO DELIVERY SPECIFICATIONS

VIDEO FORMAT OPTIONS
8/10-BIT UNCOMPRESSED video file in .MOV container; or
APPLE PRO RES 422 (HQ) video file in .MOV container; or
AVID DNxHD video file in .MOV container; or
DIGITAL BETA tape

REQUIRED SPECIFICATIONS FOR ALL SUBMISSIONS:
Original/master resolution, frame rate and interlacing cadence
Cannot be up-converted from compressed media (e.g. H.264, MP4, DV, MPG, WMV)
Cannot derive from DVD's, miniDV's or other consumer-grade masters
Must have frame independence - no frame blending or duplicate frames, often caused by NTSC-PAL or
PAL-NTSC conversions, editing 24 fps video in a 30 fps edit timeline, de-interlacing 24P footage containing a telecine cadence, or by mixing frame rates
Audio uncompressed, in stereo or surround sound, and not up-converted from a compressed format like MP3
No watermarks, bugs, DVD logos, promotional intros, release dates, or websites
If music video, no credits, titles and/or chyron (these should be supplied separately in metadata)
If subtitled movie or TV show, subtitles should be delivered separately (not burned in) in valid SRT format with correct timing

FOR VIDEO FILES ONLY:
Exported from edit timeline or captured directly to this format from the uncompressed master (cannot do through Firewire)
Audio should be in PCM (uncompressed) format, 48.000 kHz, 16-bit
If shot in 24P, video should arrive in 23.98 or 24 fps progressive (no interlaced frames)
Clearly labeled (e.g. Company_MovieTitle.mov, Label_Artist_Song.mov, Company_Show_Season_Episode.mov)
For reference, typical file sizes for music videos range from about 1.2GB to 10GB and movies range from about 30GB to 150GB

FOR TAPES ONLY:
If edited in HD, must be delivered as video file
Beta SP (analog) is acceptable only if it is a master and not a duplicate, and if no Digital Beta version is available
Clearly labeled with the contents of the video, on the tape and the tape's hard case
More than one video per tape is acceptable only if the tape's case is clearly labeled with each video's details and start time

COMMON REASONS FOR QUALITY CONTROL REJECTION:
The video is de-interlaced, and therefore pixels are visible on diagonals
The video has duplicate or merged frames
The video is cropped, less than 720 pixels wide or contains black pillars (curtains)
The video has artifacts, glitches, dropped frames or audio clicks, pops or outages
The video shows signs

DELIVERY METHOD

PHYSICAL DELIVERY
We highly recommend delivering your video on data DVD or USB drive.

You will be provided with a mailing address to mail your Data DVD or USB Drive once you have submitted your payment.