Working to MOV makes for a faster and smoother sound-to-picture session as there's no waiting time for mechanical shuttling & locking. If you are planning to provide DigiBeta tapes, and they arrive well in advance, we will give you the opportunity to decide which way you'd like to work. Picture digitisation and/or laying-off of audio has to be carried out in real time. Depending on how busy we are at the time, the rate may vary between £100 & £150 p/h chargable in 1/4 hr blocks. Any resultant MOV's may be the smallest/quickest files that are suitable for the purpose. They will not be suitable for any other use.

MOVs can be delivered by FTP (we charge £10 per 500MB - under 20MB, no charge) or on a hardrive or USB stick. Don't send anything larger than 10MB by email. Generally we don't need or want huge high resolution files - 320x240 is generally fine unless we are doing ADR. The original frame rate should be maintained. Audio - keep the 48 kHz stereo audio tracks, with the same audio bit-depth and sample rate in case we need to use any of it. Ideally it would be safer to get files or tapes to us at least the day beforehand so we can check the files are compatible, and so they can be loaded into the system.

If files are non-compatible - i.e. WMV, then we may have to re-encode them. This will normally be chargeable - and can be quite time consuming.

MOVs are also relatively easy for sync voice recording via ISDN or Source Connect.

If you can't provide MOV files than we can digitise from DigiBeta.

"Wild" recordings (not to picture) are charged at £130 per hour (+ UK VAT). 2-line ISDN is £150 p/h (plus outgoing calls if we originate them). Source Connect is also £150 p/h. Add £20 p/h to ISDN & Source Connect prices for working to picture - whether as a guide, reference playback/view or full sync. For example, a 2-line ISDN link-up with picture would be £170 p/h + VAT.

For out of hours fees see this page. Late transport for engineers & runners may be charged if very early or very late. Fruit, biscuits, tea, coffee are complimentary - meals are charged at cost. Deliveries are charged, as are outgoing phone patch or ISDN calls.

During the course of a series, often the presenter is on location shooting a future programme when he/she is needed for the recording of the links for this weeks transmission! With studio-to-studio ISDN link-ups this is no problem. Presenter narration links for many TV programmes are often recorded this way.

We can undertake the voice-over/narration recording and the full post-production/sweetening process in our ProTools studios. Or, you may just need us to import an OMFi with completed audio that just needs sweetening/mixing. Alternatively the programme may need tracklaying to add SFX, music, atmospheres, room environments - plus cleaning-up and matching of location audio & so on & so forth.

Commonly, we import AVID OMFi's, Pro-Tools sessions, or EDL's for autoconforming. If we are providing you with OMF's - please double-check (& triple-check) what sort of OMF's are required - embedded audio, linked audio etc - as different video editing systems have different requirements. For example Final Cut Pro needs a different format than Avid Adrenaline, & so on...

We undertake many ongoing reversioning projects for broadcasters both in the UK and overseas. Once the new dialogue has been recorded it then needs to be mixed with the M&E or International Track to give a final mix. Often at this stage we'll find that only a partial M&E has been supplied, or that there are holes, or even some bad foley work that needs correcting. If you have doubts about the various components make sure you budget for some restoration work.



ADR
ADR is a specialised field - whether adding/replacing dialogue in the original language, or replacing one language with another. Matching lip-synch calls on specialised talents from the actors, voice director & studio engineers. Any script alterations/translations have to take into account mouth movements.

Depending on the budget and/or production requirements you can opt for full lip-synch, line synch or paragraph synch.

We do not have a full scale dedicated film-type ADR studio without a booth, but we regularly undertake ADR for suitable projects, quite often for overseas productions when some of the actors may have finished shooting & returned to the UK. See our testimonial page for some specific ADR comments. Again, please talk to us at an early stage - and send a detailed brief as to what outcome you are expecting.

ADR actors may need to be helped with their cues. The actors can be cued by means of pre-programmed on-screen wipes or countdowns. Although these can be entered on the fly, it saves a lot of expensive studio time if the scripts are supplied with time-code cues marked-up in a pre-determined word-processing format.

Ordinary studio microphones - no matter how good - often just don't give the right "feel" or the correct matching ambience. We may use highly directional semi-shotgun mics - or even lapel mics to capture the correct perspectives. Or we can hire-in the mics as used for the original recording(s). To do this, we will need specific info from you, and the reference files a few days beforehand.