OTT platforms: Cinematography

Lockdown though hit the entertainment industry it has also provided a gateway for future,  Movie theatres have been a great source of entertainment for a long time. And, now with changing times and increase in OTT platforms and streaming apps in India  providing great content to the viewers, there is a clash between OTT Platform Vs Theatres. Due to the increase in the number of movie watchers, the future of movie streaming apps, OTT Platforms and movie theatres looks very bright.

OTT platforms like Netflix, Amazon, Disney Hotstar has brought some changes and specifications where a content has to be delivered in a particular technical specifications.

Right from choosing camera, resolution, post production and delivery.

Image Capture Specifications

• Resolution- 4k UHD – 3840x 2160 and above
• Preferred format- Camera RAW  / Compressed format- native Log S-Log3 / Log-C / V-Log / Canon Log etc.
• Compression – 10 bit Log and above
• Bit rate no less than 300 Mbit/s &  image color  sampling  4:2:2 and above.
• Camera Sensor resolution should be 4k

Secondary Cameras:
● Any cameras other than the primary camera (crash, POV, drone, underwater, etc.) visuals will be restricted to 1 minute per 10 minutes of edited content.

Cameras recommended for their original productions

ARRI
ARRI Alexa LF Arri RAW / Pro Res HQ
ARRI Alexa 65 Arri RAW

RED
RED Weapon W 8K Monstro Red Code RAW
RED Weapon W 8K Dragon Red Code RAW
RED Weapon W 8K S35 Helium Red Code RAW
RED Epic W 8K S35 Helium Red Code RAW
RED Weapon 6K Dragon Red Code RAW
RED Epic 6K Dragon Red Code RAW
RED Epic W 5K S35 Gemini Red Code RAW
RED Scarlet W 5K S35 Dragon Red Code RAW
RED Raven 4.5K Dragon Red Code RAW

SONY

Venice Camera RAW / X-OCN / XAVC-I
SONY F65  RAW / F65 RAW – LITE /XAVC-I (4K)
SONY F55 RAW / F65 RAW – LITE / XAVC-I (4K)
SONY F5 XAVC-I (4K)
SONY FS7, FS7II XAVC-I (4K)
SONY HDC 4300 4K Baseband Video
SONY PMW- Z450 XAVC-I QFHD 300 mode
PANASONIC
PANASONIC VariCam 35 V RAW / AVC-Intra 4K
PANASONIC VariCam LT V RAW / AVC-Intra 4K
PANASONIC VariCam Pure V Raw
PANASONIC AU EVA 1 All Intra 400

PANASONIC  S1H / Lumix BGH 1

CANON
C300 MkII Canon RAW / XF AVC 4K
C500 Canon RAW
C700 Canon RAW / XF AVC 4K / ProRes HQ

BLACKMAGIC

BLACKMAGIC DESIGN Ursa Mini Pro 4.6K – Cinema DNG RAW

IKEGAMI

IKEGAMI UHK-430 4K 4K Baseband video

PANAVISION

PANAVISION DXL 2 Red Code RAW

Content delivered  must consist of four types of assets as mentioned below
1. Source Video/Audio
2. Source Metadata
3. Source Subtitle file
4. Source Images (Artwork)
All four types of assets must confirm to the specifications as provided below.
Source Video/Audio Specifications

File Format
Video and Audio files must be delivered in one of the following formats:
Container MOV MXF MPG MP4
Video Codec ProRes 422 H.264, MPEG2 H.264, MPEG2 H.264
Audio Codec PCM PCM AAC, MPEG2 Layer II AAC, AC3

Delivery frame rates

Frame Rates 23.976 / 24 / 25 / 29.97 / 30

Video file to contain Display Aspect Ratio (DAR) and Source Aspect Ratio (SAR)
details. Preferred DAR is 16:9.

Digital Color Grading should be done with software  recommended  running latest firmware versions.
● Filmlight / Baselight
● DaVinci Resolve
● Nucoda FilmMaster
● Autodesk Lustre
● Quantel Rio

Delivery should have a  SDR (standard dynamic range with 100 nits brightness ) which is the regular form of delivery but recent specifications for immediate future will have to look out for  a HDR graded output (1000 nits brightness).

Another important form of content delivery code is Dolby Vision

• Dolby Vision on consumer advantage  sends dynamic metadata to the TV. It also supports 12-bit colour depth, which is 4096 shades of primary colours. Besides this, Dolby Vision aims at reproducing 10,000 nits of peak brightness.

This indicates that TVs with Dolby Vision can produce 10 times the amount of light than HDR10. Although, there are very few TVs that support 10,000 nit value.

Speaking to D.I colorist Prasath Somasekar of knack studios  says Dolby Vision delivery format has lot of advantages where multiple resolution like Full HD, 4k video  can be packaged into one stream.

After D.I Grading with trim pass images  can be converted to Dolby Vision high dynamic range format.

iGene Mr.Dhanapal says Calibrated Monitor plays a key role for Grading HDR contents, his post production house is equipped with SONY BVM 310 monitor for the first time in Chennai.

Netflix, Disney Hotstar have also listed Monitors to be used for HDR grading for their original productions.

Other than their originals produced by  Netfilx, Amazon prime and Disney hotstar doesn’t specify particular brand of cameras for their streaming but key points are to be considered.

These  are Netflix’s key setting (highlights) of Non-Approved cameras:

1. Resolution: On any given camera system, the highest available resolution should be used with maximum utilization of sensor size.
2. Record Format: The highest quality should always be used (RAW).  When recording compressed formats, opt for the highest bit-depth and lowest compression available. Intra-Frame formats are preferred over GOP-based formats as well.
3. Color & Transfer Function: Recording should always happen in the camera’s “native color space”. NOTE:  Many cameras default to the Rec.709 or sRGB color space.  While fine for monitoring purposes, this is not a color space that should be used for capture, and care should be taken to record in the camera’s native color space instead.
4. File Naming: A non-approved camera may utilize non-standard naming or may not allow manual configuring of file naming, which can lead to overlapping file names resulting in issues during conform. This issue must be taken care of by your Netflix Post Manager.
5. Timecode: It is recommended to record a timecode feed from the sound department onto one of the audio tracks on the camera if a dedicated timecode input is not present.
6. Camera Card Reliability: Use media formats that are designed for the rigors of production, and are recommended by the camera manufacturer.
7. Overheating: A non-approved camera may exhibit issues during long takes or when shooting in hot weather.  If these scenarios are expected, adequate testing should be performed to verify the camera will be able to perform adequately. 
8. Clip-length Limitations: Many consumer/prosumer cameras have a built-in limitation on how long a single video clip can be.  This can be as little as 10 minutes and must be taken into account if your production requires long takes.

There are even sound design specifications Speaking to Award winning Audiographer M.Ravi  he says sound peak level for mixing should pertain to -27db for the OTT platforms.

Cinematographer Mahesh Muthuswami who has cranked camera for ZEE5 originals Malaysia to Amnesia Directed by Radha Mohan released this week.

Mahesh validates his key point

”The Tech team from the OTT platform , briefed us their technical standards and minimum capture format requirements.  I used a Panasonic Pure Raw 4K for the image capture and lensed it with Cooke Primes.

The first and foremost thing which  came to my mind, was how would the content be watched. OTT originals, rarely get released in Big screen theatres. Watched primarily in Televisions , Laptops and Handheld devices  may be..So the main differentiating factor  would be that  in big screen the image gets projected , whereas in all these devices its all Digital Display, probably LEDs or AMOLEDs.

At the grading stage , my colorist Rajasekar suggested , lets go the monitor way , instead of  the standard projected screen image reference and  we graded in a reference grade Professional monitor.

That way , we started much, much closer  to how the audience would watch the content , finally.

At the image capture stage , if we have to consider HDR , then  ideally there should be a HDR Production monitor. Our standard production facilities still doesn’t offer that facility. Neverthless , for someone who is used to exposing in film negative capture format , one could just expose , as if you would for a film negative. As simple as that , it was , at the capture stage.”

Movie making has seen lot of changes over the century ,still a cinema is always best viewing in theatres.

Pandemic times should end and people will return to cinema halls to enjoy films and OTT platforms will co exist support the movie making business.

CJ Rajkumar

Author/Cinematographer