Technical specifications for CBC commercial delivery

CBC Aspera Protocol and Technical Specifications for Television Commercial Delivery

CBC Television Commercial Delivery Procedure (PDF)

CBC Aspera Protocol and Technical Specifications

These technical specifications apply to commercials provided to CBC for distribution on the Television platform.

Preferred Delivery
CBC recommends the use of these paid delivery services. Their primary value is the ability to meet our Technical Requirements, including closed captioning, every time, without delaying your campaign.

COMPANY EMAIL DESTINATION
Extreme Reach Canada csrcanada@extremereach.com CBC Toronto HUB
DMDS/ Yangaroo biren@yangaroo.comy CBC Network (All Canada) HUB
Airdate/ SpotGenie Mike.lata@airdate.ca CBC Toronto HUB
LaMajeure Cynthia.littler@lamajeure.com CBC
Comcast (U.S.) June_edwards@cable.comcast.com CBC Network (All Canada)
Javelin Leslie.Hilleman@adstream.com Canadian Broadcasting Corp. Stations Hub CBCCA


Questions? Please contact: pmgcommercialmanagement@cbc.ca

 

FTP (Aspera)
Our internal FTP site (Aspera) may be available for smaller, local clients who only send a couple of spots a year and are able to comply with our technical specifications.

Contact a CBC Commercial Management administrator for an account:

  • Email pmgcommercialmanagement@cbc.ca for all inquiries. Only one invitation request is required per person the first time you need to set up an account.
  • Provide the email address that will be used to upload the commercial. All your notifications and information will go to this address. It is unique for each user and cannot be shared.
  • An email will be sent to the address provided stating that you have been invited to submit to the "SalesDeliveryDropbox". Click the URL link in the email to proceed (please save this email link for any future uploads, as it will not expire).

CBC will accept only one (1) file per upload. If you have several spots to send, you will need to repeat the steps below for each commercial.
*** DO NOT SEND ZIP FILES OR SEPARATE CLOSED CAPTION FILES.*** Everything must be wrapped in a single mxf video file.

Metadata Required

  • Title: Title or Description of Commercial
  • Advertiser: Name of Advertiser
  • Commercial ID: Unique Identifier of commercial (see below)
  • Duration: The length of the commercial
  • Product/Service: The product or brand in the ad
  • Telecaster Number: All spots require TVB-issued approval number - imperative to add to assure your commercial doesn't miss its first air-date. ***REVISED commercials require a new telecaster no.
  • *indicate* if spot is closed captioned
  • Any special notes to add
BREAKDOWN FOR CREATING A COMMERCIAL ID
CHARACTERS NAMING CONVENTION
1-4 Prefix name of Advertiser
5-8 Year material was sent
9-11 User generated
12 Use "T" for Television
13 Use "E" for English, "F" for French
14-15 Use "HD" for HD material
16-17 Use "TR" if the spot is a Tech Rev

I.E. First spot for John's Auto Shop sent in 2017 - an Commercial ID would be labeled as: JOHN2017001TEHD

Quality
The subjective image and audio quality of commercials should be excellent (imperceptible impairments). The dialogue must remain intelligible throughout the entire commercial.

File Naming
The file name must be alphanumeric. The name shall not contain any accent, special character or space. The maximum length of the complete file name shall not exceed 80 characters.

File Structure

TIME CODE DURATION AUDIO VIDEO
09:59:57:00 2 sec Silence Slate
09:59:59:00 1 sec Silence Black
10:00:00:00 --- Commercial Commercial
--- 1 sec Silence Black

*** If possible, please submit creative without Bars and Tones off the top

 

HD ESSENCE - SPECIFICATIONS  
    HD Video  1920x1080, 4:2:2 with 8/10 quantizing (per SMPTE ST 274 : 2008)
Constant 29.97 frames/sec interlaced, upper field first
Safe title zone: 90% height and width of the full HD picture
Colour space in compliance with Rec. ITU-R BT.709
   Audio  PCM, 48kHz, 24-bit, -2dBTP Max
An audio mix ranging from 2 tracks (stereo) up to 6 tracks (5.1) and a stereo mix for DV
Track allocation 5.1:
1:L, 2:R, 3:C, 4:LFE, 5:Ls, 6:Rs, 7:DV-L, 8:DV-R
Track Allocation Stereo:
1:LT, 2:RT, 3:Unused (Silence), 4:Unused (Silence), 5:Unused (Silence), 6:Unused (Silence), 7:DV-L, 8:DV-R
Integrated commercial loudness: -24LKFS +/-1LU (measured using UIT-R BS. 1770-3 algorithm)
 Described Video (DV) If no DV is available, a stereo mix of the commercial is required on tracks 7 and 8
Lip Sync 1 field maximum tolerable sound and picture misalignment
Time Code   Present, drop frame mode, continous (from start to end - not visible on screen)
Closed Caption  • The CC Track shall have the same duration as the video track
• The CC must be formatted for a 29.97fps Drop Frame Time Code
• ***If using Pop-On closed captioning, please assure first line is Paint-On so our encoder can capture all captioning accurately.***

 

File - Specifications

FILE WRAPPER VIDEO CODING AUDIO CODING TIME CODING CLOSED CAPTION
MXF (.mxf)
**Preferred Format**
(HD) XD CAM HD422 @ 50Mbps

(SD) IMX50 (MPEG50 SD in AVID)
PCM Per SMPTE ST 377-1:2011 CEA-608 type encapsulated into CEA-708 type data, carried in ANC per SMPTE ST 436:2006, 8 bit coding
Quick Time (.mov) XD CAM HD422 @ 50Mbps

(SD) Apple ProRes
PCM Present Shall be carried in the .mov file

Note: CBC/Radio Canada inserts the AFD value in the HD commercial file such that the legacy 4:3 receivers automatically select the letterbox display.

Closed Captioning Tips
To prevent Closed Captioning from being clipped at the start of the commercial try any of the following

  • Have the first caption paint on instead of pop on
  • Use a period as the first Caption at the start of the video for a few frames
  • Offset the first caption by a few seconds by one second to allow enough lead time for the Closed Captioning

 

Commercial Revisions or Resends

  • We cannot edit any commercials so all material must be sent with one piece of creative per upload, and any material changes need to be sent as a new spot with a **new** Commercial ID
  • As a general rule, a new house number is created whenever a new Commercial ID is sent to us
  • A new Commercial ID - changes of any video or audio in commercial requires a NEW TELECASTER APPROVAL
  • PLEASE NOTE: If the Commercial ID hasn't changed, we treat the spot as a duplicate unless otherwise instructed

 

REVISION REQUIREMENTS OF ADVERTISER AND SALES REP COMMERCIAL MANAGEMENT
Script Change to Audio or Video New Commercial ID (can add "R" or "REV" to end of original Commercial ID)
Re-submit for Telecaster Approval
Send new Traffic Instructions with updated Commercial ID to the Scheduler
Creates new house number
Technical Reasons Same Commercial ID and Title as the original E-mail pmgcommercialmanagement@cbc.ca explaining the reason for the re-send
When sending material through a delivery service, indicate the reason for resending in the Notes/Tags field
No need to resubmit for Telecaster Approval

Examples
  • Improve audio/video quality or fix frame rate
  • Add BVS Encoding
  • Fix clipped Closed Captions
  • Fix aspect ratio
  • Fix duration
  • Fix audio mix or clipped audio
  • Fix spelling/grammar/typo
Transfers to the same house # (whether the original creative has gone to air or not)
Add Closed Captioning Use the same Commercial ID as the original and add "CC" or "Closed Captioned" to the end of the original Title E-mail pmgcommercialmanagement@cbc.ca explaining the reason for the re-send It's the agency's choice if they wish to revise and send new scheduling instructions to Traffic No need to resubmit for Telecaster Approval Transfers to the same house number

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