TECHNICAL STANDARD FOR DELIVERY OF HD COMMERCIAL AND SPONSORSHIP COPY TO This document is a complete guide to the common technical specification for delivery to ITV, Sky, Channel 5 and Channel 4 (including broadcasters that take commercials from Channel 4 Advertising Sales such as UKTV channels, The Box Plus Network and BT Sport). The first three pages of this document outline parts of the specification that are unique to ITV. The main body of the document contains the specification as adopted by the above parties. The Specification includes: • Technical Specifications, i.e. the technical production methods which must be used, and the parameters which all material must meet to be acceptable by the broadcasters. Picture and Sound Quality requirements, which also form a binding obligation on producers of material. Assessment of quality is by nature subjective, and is highly dependent on the nature of the commercial or sponsorship. Some of the Quality Requirements are expressed in relative terms (“reasonable”, “not excessive” etc.), and it will be necessary to make a judgement as to whether the quality expectations of the intended audience will be fulfilled. • Delivery Requirements, which specify the form and layout of the material. Further technical help or guidance regarding this specification maybe obtained from the following: Contact Email Telephone Bill Brown +44 (0) 20 715 66542 [email protected] Head of Media Standards +44 (0) 7917 577 700 Matt Price +44 (0) 20 715 67424 [email protected] Broadcast Service Manager +44 (0) 7725 025 542 Sponsorship Delivery This Technical Specification outlines the full details for HD Commercial delivery as well as relevant elements for HD Sponsorship material, however it must be noted that Sponsorship clock numbers, file naming conventions and approval processes differ from commercials and are broadcaster specific. Please see the broadcaster section of this specification for sponsorship delivery details. Material submitted for transmission must satisfy a Quality Control process pre-delivery. Material failing the QC process may be rejected and returned to the supplier for repair. Please ensure you are using the current version of this document, available at: http://itv.com/technicalstandards TECHNICAL STANDARD FOR THE DELIVERY OF HD COMMERCIAL AND SPONSORSHIP COPY Commercial and Sponsorship Supplier Details: This specification defines the delivery from the Commercial and Sponsorship suppliers to ITV, UTV and STV and not from the advertising copy producers. HD Copy Delivery Details th ITV, UTV and STV will accept HD in addition to SD deliveries from 9 April 2016. Please note any commercial content already held in SD, which is re-supplied in HD, must be re- supplied with a new clock number and therefore will be required to be re-submitted to Clearcast. Please ensure for network ITV you order for all ITV delivery points including UTV and STV. Digital delivery can be arranged through any of the following providers: Adstream 0207 539 8500 [email protected] www.adstream.com Honeycomb 0330 043 5373 [email protected] www.honeycomb.tv IMD 0207 468 6850 [email protected] www.groupimd.com ITV Sponsorship Delivery & Compliance Requirements • For information regarding Sponsorship delivery please contact the ITV Commercial Operations team at [email protected] and [email protected]. • When you place an order for delivery with Adstream, Honeycomb or IMD this needs to be sent to both ITV Southern Transmission Centre (Chiswick) and ITV Northern Transmission Centre (Leeds). • On some occasions these may also need to be delivered to UTV and STV as well. Please check with ITV Commercial Operations to ensure you are delivering to the correct Transmission Centres before placing an order with Adstream, Honeycomb or IMD. • ITV Commercial Operations will inform you of the date Sponsorship needs to be delivered by. This will usually be a minimum of two clear working days before you go to air. • Every Sponsorship Ident requires a unique clock number, which is supplied by ITV. • Please advise the ITV Commercial Operations team of how many Clock Numbers are required and the durations and these will be set up for you. • Any Sponsorship Idents delivered without the ITV generated Clock Number will be rejected by Transmission and will need to be re-delivered with the ITV Clock Number. • All Sponsorship Idents require compliance approval by ITV Compliance prior to transmission. The contact details for Compliance will differ for each deal and will be sent out once a deal is agreed. • Please send pre-production scripts to the Compliance team to arrange initial compliance guidance. All pre-production scripts should be compliance approved before production and all post production videos should be compliance approved before clocking. • The final clocked Idents need to be sent to compliance five working days before transmission. These can be sent as MPEG files and do not have to be broadcast quality. • A Music Cue Sheet will be sent to you by ITV Commercial Operations with music details required for each individual Ident. This will need to be filled in and returned prior to transmission even if no music has been used. Please forward this information to [email protected] and [email protected]. Page 2 of 21 UK Version 1.1 - Feb 2017 Broadcaster Version 1.2- Oct 2016 TECHNICAL STANDARD FOR THE DELIVERY OF HD COMMERCIAL AND SPONSORSHIP COPY • Please note when you submit the Clocks for final approval these will need to be accompanied by a Photosensitive (PSE) pass certificate demonstrating that the content is PSE compliant. For details on how to gain access to this free service please contact [email protected]. All enquiries relating to ITV Sponsorship delivery should be directed to the following: Contact Email Telephone David Barton [email protected] +44 (0) 20 715 66592 Sponsorship & Compliance Manager 5.1 Audio Requirements ITV do not currently transmit content with 5.1 audio. Commercial and Sponsorship material delivered to ITV for transmission should be supplied with a stereo mix in accordance with the requirements outlined in Section 3 (Technical Requirements – Audio) of this document. Page 3 of 21 UK Version 1.1 - Feb 2017 Broadcaster Version 1.2- Oct 2016 TECHNICAL STANDARD FOR THE DELIVERY OF HD COMMERCIAL AND SPONSORSHIP COPY This page is intentionally blank [Broadcaster Opening] Page 4 of 21 UK Version 1.1 - Feb 2017 Broadcaster Version 1.2- Oct 2016 TECHNICAL STANDARD FOR THE DELIVERY OF HD COMMERCIAL AND SPONSORSHIP COPY This page is intentionally blank [Broadcaster Opening] Page 5 of 21 UK Version 1.1 - Feb 2017 Broadcaster Version 1.2- Oct 2016 TECHNICAL STANDARD FOR THE DELIVERY OF HD COMMERCIAL AND SPONSORSHIP COPY Contents 1 GENERAL QUALITY REQUIREMENTS .................................................................................................................... 8 1.1 PICTURE QUALITY ........................................................................................................................................................ 8 1.2 SOUND QUALITY ......................................................................................................................................................... 8 1.3 SUBTITLES AND AUDIO DESCRIPTION (A.D.) ..................................................................................................................... 8 2 TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS – VIDEO ................................................................................................................ 10 2.1 HIGH DEFINITION VIDEO CODEC ................................................................................................................................... 10 2.2 HIGH DEFINITION IMAGE FORMAT ................................................................................................................................ 10 2.2.1 Origination .................................................................................................................................................. 10 2.2.2 Post-production ........................................................................................................................................... 10 2.2.3 Field dominance .......................................................................................................................................... 10 2.3 VIDEO LEVELS AND GAMUT (ILLEGAL SIGNALS) ................................................................................................................ 10 2.3.1 Measuring signal levels ............................................................................................................................... 10 2.3.2 Tolerance of out of gamut signals ............................................................................................................... 11 2.4 ‘BLANKING’ .............................................................................................................................................................. 11 3 TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS – AUDIO ............................................................................................................... 12 3.1 TERMS, REQUIREMENTS AND GUIDELINES ...................................................................................................................... 12 3.1.1 Guidelines for True Peak Audio Levels ......................................................................................................... 12 3.2 METERING REQUIREMENTS