Here are things we need to deliver:

  1. Dialog Continuity
  2. Copyright
  3. Music Cue Sheet
  4. 2257 Compliance
  5. Contracts for every performer or person in credits

Physical Deliverables

  1. Hard drive (to make video tapes from)

There is a lot of stuff to deliver. The paperwork is tremendous. That's OK. We just go through it one thing at a time.

Document everything. Here's an example of the .rtf file we put on the hard drive for delivery of the picture.

What is on this drive?
(Note that the audio tracks are in an order we now consider archaic.)


The Industry Standard

The industry standard is to deliver a DigiBeta tape in NTSC or PAL with tracks 1 and 2 being the full English stereo mix and tracks 3 and 4 being the stereo "M&E" mix.
As you may or may not know, the world is basically divided up into NTSC countries and PAL countries(external link), with the addition of another format (SECAM) which is, as far as I know, edited in PAL. The joke is that NTSC stands for "Never Twice the Same Color" and SECAM is "System Essentially Contrary to the American Method".
But we do not actually SHOOT in any of these standards. No. For complex reasons we shoot in a standard of 23.987 frames per second, in high definition.
So we always have the lab convert our HD master to standard definition in NTSC and PAL. Note that some PAL countries might ask for NTSC and vice-versa. We give the buyers whatever they ask for, no matter how confused it makes us. They have their reasons for wanting what they want.

The Pandora Machine Standard

Our preference is to deliver a Quicktime movie — flattened — with upwards of 20 tracks of audio. Here's an example of the track breakdown:
1. English stereo left
2. English stereo right
3. M&E stereo left
4. M&E stereo right
5. 5.1 English left
6. 5.1 English right
7. 5.1 English center
8. 5.1 English LFE
9. 5.1 English left surround
10. 5.1 English right surround
11. 5.1 M&E left
12. 5.1 M&E right
13. 5.1 M&E center
14. 5.1 M&E LFE
15. 5.1 M&E left surround
16. 5.1 M&E right surround
17. English commentary left
18. English commentary right

Here's what that looks like in the movie Inspector in Quicktime Pro:
Quicktime Pro Inspector
Now the only way you're going to edit the Quicktime movie so the tracks have the correct names is to go in and name them in Quicktime Pro. As of 2011 Apple no longer supports Quicktime Pro but if you'd bought the Pro version in the past it'll still be hidden deep inside your operating system somewhere as Quicktime 7.
Go find it and launch it.

Clare Stevenson as Aurora in Millennium Crisis

In any case, we must be able to deliver a hard drive of the movie (usually in Quicktime ProRes422 format) to the lab that makes the DigiBeta masters. We like Duplication Specialists(external link) out on Long Island to make our HD and DigiBeta masters.
We deliver a portable hard drive, with a "what is on this disk.rtf" file on it. See the abovemost image.

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