Digital Capture and Delivery Solutions

PPD offers solutions for Producers, Directors and Editors who prefer to edit in their own Final Cut Pro, Avid Media Composer, Avid Symphony or Adobe Premier suites.  

For example, a CBC documentary is currently being edited using the production company’s in-house Avid Media Composer. PPD digitized all the HDCAM footage to Avid media and copied the files to the client’s hard drive. Once they have picture-lock they will send us the Avid sequence to conform, colour grade, close caption and create a descriptive video (DV) track. We will then process the audio tracks with our Dolby-E encoder and lay the final documentary back to HDCAM (with Dolby-E) as well as to HDCAM-SR with separate audio stems.

Another client edits a Triathlon TV series in his office which is over 85 km. from PPD.  Once an episode is locked he couriers us a fully rendered QuickTime movie along with a transcript. We caption the episode, output from our Avid Media Composer with closed captioning (CC) to HDCAM and ship directly to TSN, ready for broadcast. Our editors quality control the show during output to ensure there are no technical glitches and that broadcast standards are met.

Our clients come to PPD for digital media outputs and delivery knowing that we carefully watch every show we output. It’s not just another dub. If our assistant editor notices a problem with the QuickTime movie file we will call the client to discuss the issue and their options. Our client’s love the fact that we take an interest in their shows and that they don’t get rejected by the broadcaster for something which could have easily been fixed when the show was output to tape.

If you require video capture from DVCPRO-HD, HDCAM or HDCAM-SR or output to any of those formats PPD has the experience and talent to deliver.

Independent HD Feature Film Deliverables

When independent filmmakers finally get their film sold through a distributor they are often faced with a daunting list of deliverables. PPD has been working with independent producer Judd Tilyard of Dimeworth Films to prepare all the deliverables for their 88 min. HD Feature “Battleground”.  It was shot on Red Camera and edited on Sony Vegas. Judd gave PPD a fully rendered QuickTime movie (1080p23.98) with an image ratio of 2:53:1. The film needed a minor change to the credits which editor Michael Burshtyn carried out. Then we added textless elements, a trailer and 10 tracks of audio to the timeline, (including the 5.1 stems). There was a concern regarding video and audio levels on the original QuickTime movie; using our HD Harris Scope we were able to adjust levels to Broadcast Safe Standards as required before creating the other versions. 

The deliverables called for three versions of the film in both North American and European broadcast standards. To achieve this we panned and scanned the film for both a 16:9 full-frame version and a 4:3 full-frame version. PAL transcoded dubs of each format were also created.  In the end we delivered three versions of the movie, (including textless elements and a trailer), on HDCAM-SR at 23.98 and 25, on Digital Betacam at 29.97 and 25, and on DVDs at 23.98 and 25. 

Judd commented that he was “thrilled with the great service, prices and technical expertise at PPD!”.