21. Music Videos

Home , Music video, Windowbox (filmmaking)

DATA STANDARDS AND STYLE GUIDELINES 21. Music Videos

21.1. Subtitles. Music videos must not contain subtitles or lyrics displayed as subtitles.

21.2. Lyric Videos. We do not accept official lyric videos in which the lyrics of the song are stylized as the main focus. Music videos must not contain static or scrolling lyrics, nor audio for karaoke.

21.3. Graphic Overlays. Music videos must not contain chyrons, static or scrolling lyrics, or lower-third graphics.

21.4. Release Dates or Advertisements. Music videos must not contain release dates, logos, or advertisements.

21.5. Nonstandard Music Videos. Music videos that are artist interviews, commentaries, behind the scenes, lyric videos, or similar in content must be bundled with a music album and cannot be sold individually.

21.6. Pornography. Music videos must not contain pornography.

21.7. Promotional Still Image Videos. Promotional videos (such as videos displaying only the cover art and audio or slide shows) will not be accepted.

21.8. Teasers, Trailers and Partial Videos. Music videos which have been shortened or edited into a promotional teaser, trailer or partial version will not be accepted.

21.9. Music Video Quality. Music videos with poor quality (such as glitches, blurriness, incomplete video or audio, no audio, out of sync audio and video, and so on) will not be accepted.

21.10. Explicit Content. Music videos that contain explicit language, nudity, drug references, or depictions of drug use must be marked “Explicit.”

21.11. Music Videos From Films. Music videos taken from musical films must contain a title version that refers to the film such as (From “Name of Film”).

21.12. Music Video Album. An album containing only Music Videos needs to be labeled " Video Album" in the Album title version.

21.13. Additional Information. Music videos must not contain the terms “Clips from,” “Official Music Video,” “Full Song Video,” “Full Version,” or other extraneous information.

21.14. Live Performance Music Videos. Live performance videos must contain only one song and include the term “Live” in the title version.

Territory specific versions (“Ao Vivo” in Portuguese, and “En Vivo” or “En Directo” in Spanish) should be used when applicable.

Time and venue should be formatted in the title as “Live at Place, Year/Date.” For example: One More Saturday Night (Live at Palladium, New York, 1977).

To be considered Live, audio and video must match and be from the same performance. Pre-recorded audio set to different performance footage is not considered Live. 21.15. Release Date. Music video release dates should be the earliest date a music video was aired on any online video platform, DVD, or TV broadcast.

21.16. Music Video Cover Art. Music videos must use a screen capture image from the videos for cover art. Other images, such as album cover art, will not be accepted.

21.17. Inactive Pixels in Music Video Cover Art. Only the active pixel area may be included in music video cover art. Music video cover art must not contain inactive pixels, black bars, or letterboxing on the outer portions of the video frames. Inactive pixels on the cover art will not be accepted and should be cropped out.

Note: Chaptering is not supported for music videos.

Apple ProRes 422 (HQ) or 4444 or 4444 (XQ)

VBR expected at ~220 Mbps

HD encoded dimensions accepted to support square pixel aspect ratios (PASP):

Encoded PASP Converted to ProRes From

1920 x 1080 1:1 HDCAM SR, D5, ATSC

1280 x 720 1:1 ATSC progressive

HD encoded dimensions accepted to support non-square pixel aspect ratios (this allows you to send HD video in the native dimensions of your best original source, for example in HD broadcast dimensions*):

Encoded PASP Converted to ProRes From

1440 x 1080 1:1.33333 XDCAM-HD, HDCAM

1280 x 1080 1:1.5 DVCProHD interlaced

960 x 720 1:1.33333 DVCProHD progressive

* If your original HD source pixel aspect ratio is non-square, contact your iTunes Technical Representative before delivery.

Native frame rate of original source:

29.97 or 25 interlaced frames per second for video-sourced material

23.976, 24, or 25 frames per second for digital-progressive or film-sourced material.

HD source may be delivered matted: letterbox, pillarbox, or windowbox.

The HD source may be delivered in its full-frame state with metadata included to specify the crop rectangle. See Music Video Single Crop Dimensions Metadata Example in the iTunes Package Music Specification for details.

If the HD source file is not delivered matted or if there are no inactive pixels, iTunes recommends setting all crop dimension attributes to '0' (zero). Important: All video must begin and end with at least one black frame. In addition, videos that begin with or contain empty edits will be blocked; the file can contain an empty edit in its edit list only if it is the last edit.

Dimensions should be 3840 x 2160 (UHD) or 4096 X 2160 (DCI 4k). Any DCI 4k asset can have optional crop values (Apple strongly recommends sending crop values for DCI 4k).

Apple ProRes 422 HQ or 4444 or 4444 XQ

VBR expected at ~880 Mbps for 422 HQ, ~1320 Mbps for 4444 and ~2000 Mbps for 4444 XQ

Content should be encoded using ITU-R BT.709 color space. For more information see http://www.itu.int/rec/R-REC-BT.709/en

Content should be delivered in the original frame rate of the source

4K source must be progressive scan and can be delivered in 23.976, 24, 25, 29.97, or 30 frames per second

4K source may be delivered matted: letterbox, pillarbox, or windowbox.

The 4K source may be delivered in its full-frame state with metadata included to specify the crop rectangle. See Music Video Single Crop Dimensions Metadata Example in the iTunes Package Music Specification for details.

If the 4K source file is not delivered matted or if there are no inactive pixels, iTunes recommends setting all crop dimension attributes to '0' (zero).

All video must begin and end with at least one black frame. In addition, videos that begin with or contain empty edits will be blocked; the file can contain an empty edit in its edit list only if it is the last edit.

If 5.1 Surround is available for a music video audio source, the audio should be delivered in 5.1 Surround in addition to providing a stereo version; otherwise the audio may be delivered in Stereo only.

Surround

LPCM in either Big Endian or Little Endian, 16-bit or 24-bit, at least 48kHz

Expected channels: L, R, C, LFE, Ls, Rs

Stereo

MPEG-1 layer II stereo

384 kpbs

48Khz

Included in the same file as the delivered video

Note: Apple strongly recommends using the image_time attribute to deliver the timecode for the screen capture over sending an asset file. Apple will use the frame specified with the timecode to create the image for you. See Music Video Single Metadata Annotations in the iTunes Package Music Specification for details.

Screen capture directly from delivered video (specifying the timecode with the image_time attribute in XML is preferred)

16:9 or 4:3 (for legacy videos) aspect ratio

Preferred size: 3840 x 2160 - 4K resolution

Minimum size (below this size will not be accepted): at least 1920 wide or 1080 high

JPEG with .jpg extension (quality unconstrained) or PNG with .png extension

RGB color profile (screen standard)

Only the active pixel area may be included (no letterboxing / black bars on outer portions of image to fulfill required aspect ratio)

Video screen capture will be rejected if it includes any of the following:

Motion blurred imagery

Low quality or pixelated imagery

Harsh crops of faces, arms, shoulders

Text containing the artist name or music video title

Third-party trademarks without authorization or usage rights

Unintentionally closed eyes

Do not increase the size of a smaller image to meet the minimum size standard. Excessively blurry or pixelated images will be rejected. Images must be taken directly from the video.

Important:

Do not increase the size of a smaller image to meet the minimum size standard.

CMYK color profile images will not be accepted.

Images must be taken directly from the video.