Exports and the delivery check

Every file is exported from its own cut, then measured by tools and checked by eye before it leaves.

The four kinds of export

Key:

• MOV and MP4 are file types. ProRes 422 HQ is Apple's high-quality editing format; H.264 High is the common delivery format, and yuv420p its standard colour sampling.

• BT.709 is the colour standard of HD video.

• A closed GOP (group of pictures) means each group of frames decodes on its own, without frames from the next group. Half the frame rate is a group of 12 frames at 24 fps.

• CRF 18 (constant rate factor) sets H.264 by picture quality instead of by data rate; 18 looks close to the source. Mb/s and kb/s are megabits and kilobits a second.

• PCM is uncompressed audio; AAC is compressed audio.

• Interlaced, upper field first: each frame is stored as two half-frames (fields), and the one holding the top line comes first, as many TV channels require.

• LUFS is the unit of loudness, and dBTP the unit of the true peak (see Sound design and mix → Loudness: −23 TV, −16 online, −14 short social).

• MENA is the Middle East and North Africa.

Loudness targets:

• −23 LUFS for TV, and −16 for the online master and every online version not named a short social ad [official guidance];

• −14 for a short social ad (feed and story placements up to about 60 s), named per version in the version table (decided).

Measure each version on its own. How to reach the targets is in Sound design and mix → Loudness: −23 TV, −16 online, −14 short social, and stems are in Sound design and mix → Stems.

Clean files. Masters, social and TV files carry no review label and no slate. Never overwrite anything already delivered: a new file gets a new version name.

Channel fades (decided): when a channel's sheet requires a fade in and out, it goes only on that channel's export, never on the master or another version. Write it into that channel's row of the version table, and tell the delivery check that the faded head and tail are planned dark.

The delivery check, on every export. Each line fails the file:

Key: dBFS is decibels below full scale, the loudest level a digital file can hold. Digital zero is a total absence of signal, quieter than any real room.

The commands for each line are in Do it yourself below; run each on the exported file as written.

Read every listed range against the planned ones: the end-card hold, a channel's fades, a planned silence.

List every quiet stretch under −50 dBFS for review (command 5 lists them), each marked planned or not. A planned silence drops to air or room tone, never to digital zero, unless the treatment writes a full cut-away (see Sound design and mix → Planned silence and playback compression). Write "PPM not measured" in every TV report: PPM (a peak programme meter limit) is a figure some channels also ask for, and a loudness meter doesn't read it (see Sound design and mix → Loudness: −23 TV, −16 online, −14 short social).

Then by eye and by rule

• the first and last frames and every shot's key frames at full size (hands, product, label text, on-screen text, captions), because a crop can change what shows;

• Arabic text and captions letter by letter (see Graphics, captions, versions and delivery → Arabic typesetting and render checks);

• text holds and the end-card hold against the agreed figures;

• graded stills against the brand's values (see The grade and texture → Grade standards);

• the music licence covers paid media: the songs were generated and downloaded on a paid plan;

• platform rules at delivery: AI-content labels (TikTok requires one for realistic AI-generated content, and Meta has a disclosure control), and the safe areas for captions, logos and product, read from each platform's current guide;

• file names and sizes within each platform's limits (TikTok: 500 MB).

Watch and listen to every master and version yourself before anything goes out.

The client standard for the finished film

What the finished film is judged on, from a fail to award level. Solid is your minimum. The grade has its own standard in The grade and texture → Grade standards.

Do it yourself

Run the delivery check (ffprobe, ffmpeg, Premiere, DaVinci Resolve)

Run each on the exported file as written (an analysis command ends in -f null -, which reads the whole file and writes nothing).

1. Format and colour:

ffprobe -v error -select_streams v:0 -show_entries stream=codec_name,profile,pix_fmt,width,height,sample_aspect_ratio,r_frame_rate,field_order,color_primaries,color_transfer,color_space -of compact file.mov

Square pixels read sample_aspect_ratio=1:1, and BT.709 reads bt709 three times. field_order reads progressive on every file but TV. On a TV file, upper field first reads tt or tb (set it in Premiere's export settings, Video › Field Order: Upper First).

1. Frame count:

ffprobe -v error -count_frames -select_streams v:0 -show_entries stream=nb_read_frames -of csv=p=0 file.mov

A 30-second film reads 720 at 24 fps, 750 at 25.

1. Audio:

ffprobe -v error -select_streams a:0 -show_entries stream=sample_rate,channels -of compact file.mov

It reads sample_rate=48000|channels=2.

1. Loudness:

ffmpeg -nostats -i file.mov -af ebur128=peak=true -f null -

The summary at the end gives the integrated loudness (I) and the true peak (Peak). The maximum short-term loudness is the highest S: value in the lines above it; to print it alone, add this to the command:

2>&1 | grep -o "S: *-\?[0-9.]*" | awk '{print $2}' | sort -g | tail -1

In the timeline, Premiere's Loudness Meter effect on the Master track shows integrated and short-term loudness; take the true peak from this ffmpeg line or another true-peak meter. DaVinci Resolve's Fairlight loudness meter also works.

1. Black, freeze and quiet stretches:

ffmpeg -nostats -i file.mov -vf "blackdetect=d=0.1:pix_th=0.10,freezedetect=n=0.001:d=0.5" -af "silencedetect=n=-50dB:d=0.3" -f null -

It lists any black lasting a tenth of a second or longer, any freeze lasting half a second or longer, and every stretch quieter than −50 dBFS that lasts 0.3 s or longer. Set these durations yourself: the filters' defaults only report events of 2 s or more, so a short fault would pass.

1. Digital zero:

ffmpeg -nostats -i file.mov -vn -af "silencedetect=noise=-90dB:d=0.1" -f null -

Sources

• EBU R 128 and its supplement 1 (the TV target).

• The AES streaming recommendation (the −16 online target).

• Two audio practitioners for −14 on short social ads (no platform publishes a figure).