Technical Standards and Documentation Guide for the Delivery of Gold Level HD Programmes July 2012 S57GHD-5-2012-Production Page 1 of 21 S57GHD-5-2012-Production Executive Summary of Technical Standards and Documentation Guide for the Delivery of Gold Level HD Programmes. July 2012 Television New Zealand has taken a new approach, with this issue of the Technical guide. Programmes will now commission three grades of production. These three grades of production will be: - Gold A top end high definition (HD) production to the highest possible standards. Silver A second tier HD production where the content or environment makes achieving Gold standard production quality impractical or uneconomic. Bronze A high quality standard definition (SD) production. Separate documents have now been prepared to cover the three levels of production standards. There are many standards that apply to television Programme delivery to TVNZ Ltd. While this may appear daunting at first, there are a few points that summarise the key aspects. Please refer to the Technical Standards and Documentation Guide for the Delivery of Gold Level HD Programmes July 2012, for a detailed explanation of production and delivery requirements. Television is a dynamic industry that is in a continual state of change. This document is subject to change without notice. Users should establish the currency of this document. Executive Summary Programmes must be delivered in High Definition (HD) format. HD Programmes These shall be 1080i/25 (Interlaced at 25 frames per second with two fields). The minimum audio requirement is for a stereo mix (Lo, Ro), or a surround encoded stereo mix (Lt, Rt) on channels 1 & 2. Programmes can be delivered in the following format: - • HD-CAM SR tape File Delivery Specifications for file delivery of programmes are being finalised. An additional document detailing the file delivery options will be issued once TVNZ is in a position to accept this method of delivery. Until then tape delivery is the preferred method. Multi-channel sound Material is being increasingly preferred with 5.1 multi-channel sound. Delivery of 5.1 multi-channel sound is possible subject to the conditions specified in this document. It should however be noted that not all transmission channels or platforms have support for multi-channel sound. Audio Peak Levels and loudness This is becoming a very controversial topic with viewers and as a consequence, governments have been considering legislation covering loudness of television stations. The audio loudness of a Programme must be normalised to - 24LUFS. Measurement should be to ITU BS.1770-2 standard and related documents. Please refer to main document for full details. Closed Captions Closed captioning for HD material must be supplied as a separate data file to EBU Tech.3264-E 1991. Refer to the main document for details. Audio Description Audio Description will be available on some transmission platforms. Refer to the main document for detailed delivery standards. Page 2 of 21 S57GHD-5-2012-Production Aspect ratio All Programmes will be delivered in 16:9 widescreen. Safe action and graphics areas All Programmes should be produced for a 14:9 action and 14:9 graphics presentation format as specified in EBU R 95-2008 recommendations. A summary is shown below. High Definition (1920x1080) with 14:9 action and graphics safe areas 16:9 Frame 1080 lines Raster edge 80% of 16:9 Width. 93% of Height 21-560 14:9 Action Safe 584-1123 14:9 Graphics Safe 70% of 16:9 Width. 90% of Height 14:9 Central 1004 lines zone edge 40-541 603-1104 972 lines 4:3 Central 48-533 zone edge 611-1096 1344 Pixels 288-1631 1562 Pixels 179-1740 1920 Pixels 0-1919 Page 3 of 21 S57GHD-5-2012-Production Table of Contents Executive Summary ................................................................................................................. 2 HD Programmes .................................................................................................................................. 2 5.1 Multi-channel Sound ..................................................................................................................... 2 Audio loudness .................................................................................................................................... 2 Closed Captions ................................................................................................................................... 2 Audio Description ................................................................................................................................ 2 Aspect ratios ........................................................................................................................................ 3 Safe action and graphics areas ............................................................................................................. 3 Requirements ........................................................................................................................... 5 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................ 5 Changes .............................................................................................................................................. 5 1. General Technical Requirements ....................................................................................................................................... 6 2. High Definition ....................................................................................................................................................................... 9 3. Subjective Assessment Quality Requirements.............................................................................................................. 11 4. Gold Production Delivery ................................................................................................................................................. 12 5. Aspect Ratios and Safe Areas ........................................................................................................................................... 13 6. Mix and Effects Tracks ........................................................................................................................................................ 13 7. Closed Captions ................................................................................................................................................................... 13 8. Audio Description ............................................................................................................................................................... 13 9. International Standards and References ......................................................................................................................... 14 10. Contacts ............................................................................................................................................................................... 15 Appendices .............................................................................................................................. 16 1. Default Dolby Metadata for Surround Sound Programmes...................................................................................... 16 2. Acceptable Audio Channel layouts for HD-CAM SR ................................................................................................. 17 3. Layout for tape delivery to TVNZ Ltd ........................................................................................................................... 18 4. BLITS 5.1 Channel Identification and Line-up tones ................................................................................................... 19 5. Measurement and Management of loudness for New Zealand Television Broadcasting .................................. 20 Page 4 of 21 S57GHD-5-2012-Production TECHNICAL STANDARDS AND DOCUMENTATION GUIDE FOR DELIVERY OF PROGRAMMES July 2012 This document defines the technical standards for delivery for Gold Standard High Definition Programmes. This replaces all previous standards publications for Programme delivery. Television is a dynamic industry that is in a continual state of change. This document is subject to change without notice. Users should establish the currency of this document. Although this document is titled “Technical Standards” it also includes production guidelines and some delivery requirements for it to be used also as a compact reference for those charged with delivering Programmes. Introduction The purpose of this document, and associated material, is to set out the technical requirements to ensure that material delivered is of a satisfactory standard and can be handled in an efficient manner. All material must conform to the appropriate International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), European Broadcast Union (EBU), Free TV Australia and our own recommendations, standards and practises. The fundamental requirement for Programme material is that the product delivered is of a high technical standard and quality Changes The following significant changes have been made to the specification in this edition. Minor changes such as re- wording of sections are not indicated: - 1. Elimination of all references to analogue systems, 2. Modifications to audio loudness requirements to incorporate the