Regions Covered
✔ Albania
✔ Bulgaria
✔ Bosnia and Herzegovina
✔ Croatia
✔ Cyprus
✔ North Macedonia
✔ Greece
✔ Israel
✔ Kosovo
✔ Malta
✔ Moldova
✔ Montenegro
✔ Serbia
✔ Slovenia
To maintain a consistently high quality product, XR requires all material to be supplied to the following specifications:
Requirements at a glance
| Unique identifier(s): |
The clock number on the order must contain a maximum of 20 characters • B : Brand/Agency |
| Pre/post roll required: | No |
| HD/SD: | HD |
| Audio: | Market dependant, please see Audio Levels |
| File naming: | ClockNumber_Product or Product_Title_Duration_Audio |
| Clearance: | Managed between the broadcasters and local media agencies, no pre-clearance required. |
Content Layout
For this region a clock/slate is not required
Important note about TVC duration
With the exception of content for Greece and Cyprus, TVC duration must be to a whole second and not have additional frames.
File Specification
| Preferred | Accepted | |||
| Format | MXF Wrapped XDCAM 1080/50 | Apple ProRes 422HQ 1080/50 | MPEG-2 Transport Stream 1080/50 | |
| Container | MXF | MOV | MPEG-2 Transport Stream | |
| Video Codec | XDCAM 422 | Apple Quicktime ProRes 422 (HQ) | MPEG-2 | |
| GOP | Long GOP | - | I Frame Only | |
| Profile | MPEG-2 422P@HL | HQ | 422P@HL | |
| Frame Size | 1920x1080 | 1920x1080 | 1920x1080 | |
| Frame Rate | 25 FPS | 25 FPS | 25 FPS | |
| Scan Type | Interlaced, Upper/Top Field First | Interlaced, Upper/Top Field First | Interlaced, Upper/Top Field First | |
| Aspect Ratio | 16:9 | 16:9 | 16:9 | |
| Pixel Aspect Ratio | Square Pixels (1.0) | Square Pixels (1.0) | Square Pixels (1.0) | |
| Video Bit Rate | 50Mb/s CBR | - | 100Mb/s CBR | |
| Chroma | 4:2:2 | 4:2:2 | 4:2:2 | |
| Audio Codec | Integer (Big/Little Endian) PCM | Integer (Little Endian) PCM | PCM | |
| Audio Bit Depth | 24bit | 24bit | 24bit | |
| Audio Sample Rate | 48kHz | 48kHz | 48kHz | |
| Audio Bit Rate | Uncompressed | Uncompressed | Uncompressed | |
Title Safety
EBU R.95-1
All graphics, text, and frame composition elements should be placed within the safe title area to prevent key content from being cut off.
Bulgaria Title Safety
10% Title Safe (80% Total Area)
5% Action Safe (90% Total Area)
Video Levels
All video signals should comply with ITU-R BT.709-5 and video signals should not exceed the specified limits.
Video levels should not exceed 700mV, or fall below 0mv
Luminance (Y) -1% and 103%
(between -7mV and 721mV)
RGB video levels -5% and 105%
(between -35mV and 735mV)
Out of gamut tolerance
Whilst XR and the Broadcasters will reject illegal video levels, they understand there may be instances where it is difficult to completely avoid. Following EBU recommendation Rec.103-2000 they will therefore allow a small tolerance, assuming that no more than 1% of the active picture is in error.
Audio Levels
Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cyprus, North Macedonia, Greece, Israel, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro and Serbia
PPM / Max Peak
- Permitted Maximum Level : PPM 6 (-10dBFS)
- Alignment Level : 1kHz@ -18dBFS
- Ballistic : PPM Type IIa as per IEC 60268-10
Refer to EBU R68-2000 for guidance on alignment levels
Croatia, Malta, Slovenia and Bulgaria
EBU R.128-2014
- Integrated Loudness Program : -23 LUFS
- Target Level Tolerance : +/- 0.5 LU
- Maximum True Peak : -3dBTP
- Maximum Momentary : -15 LUFS
Audio level conversions
Content delivered mixed to max peak ('R68'/PPM) can be converted to meet the EBU R128 program loudness requirements.
Care must be taken where converting from R128 to 'R68'/max peak, as this may result in unintentionally low audio levels.
Audio Channel Configurations
| Channel # | Audio |
| 1 | Stereo Left |
| 2 | Stereo Right |
| Channel # | Audio |
| 1 | Stereo Left |
| 2 | Stereo Right |
| 3 | AD Narration (mono) |
| 4 | AD Narration (mono) |
| 5 | Mute |
| 6 | Mute |
| 7 | Mute |
| 8 | Mute |
Subtitles
Greece
Closed captions are accepted, supplied video file must contain CC logo.
example:
Subtitles should be provided in STL format:
| Open HD ONLY | All other broadcasters | |
| Format: | EBU stl | EBU stl |
| Encoding: | 1253: Greek (Windows) | 1253: Greek (Windows) |
| Code page number: | 850 | 850 OR 737 |
| Disk format code: | STL25.01 | STL25.01 |
| Frame rate: | 25 | 25 |
| Display standard code: | Level 1 – Teletext | 0 open for subtitling |
| Character table: | Latin/Greek | Latin/Greek |
| Language code: | 70 | 70 |
| Country of origin: | GRC | GRC |
| Timecode: | 01:00:00:00 | 00:00:00:00 |
Israel
With the exception Channel 9 – The local broadcasters have a mandatory requirement that all commercial content is to be supplied with open subtitling (ie in-vision).
There is no requirement for sponsorship to contain open subtitles
Other markets
All other markets can only accept open/burnt in captions.
Audio Description
Audio Description (AD) makes content more accessible to individuals who are blind or visually impaired.
Greece
Certain broadcasters in Greece can accept files with AD, these are clearly labelled on the platform when you place your order:
When booking the airtime, the local media agency must make the broadcasters aware that copy will be supplied with Audio Description.
Please refer to Audio Channel Configurations for the correct channel layout. Broadcasters who can't yet accept AD must be sent files without additional audio channels.
Clearance
Compliance checks are handled by the individual broadcasters once they receive the spot from XR, no pre-clearance required.