This document serves to outline the technical equipment requirements for a QC Room working on Netflix Branded Content via Asset QC.
Requirements for all types of QC
- A Unity Environment
- In order to properly perform QC, all audio and video must be reviewed on equipment that neither adds nor reduces Audio or Video information to the program stream.
- Room Isolation
- Outside light and sound should not come into the QC room
- Don’t situate your QC room near high traffic hallways, walls facing the street, or rooms with windows that cannot be easily blacked out.
- Rooms should have sound proofing or sound baffling to reduce noise bleed.
- Monitor should be able to play back at least UHD resolution and be Dolby Vision/HDR capable
- Monitor should be regularly calibrated for use in P3 or REC 709 colorimetry
- We recommend either a professional grading monitor or a high end prosumer Dolby Vision TV
- Ex. Sony X310, LG C9, Panasonic EZ1000, Sony Master Series
- Speaker should be in at least a 5.1 surround environment, Stereo can be QC’d in headphones
- If QCing Atmos, then speaker arrangement should be at least 7.1.2
- Speakers should be regularly calibrated and set to 72dB spl
- No EQ should be applied to sound
- In order to properly perform QC a unity environment in the QC space needs to be maintained. What this means is that all audio and video must be reviewed on equipment that neither adds nor reduces Audio or Video information to the program stream.
- In Audio QC, added EQ balancing could accentuate or obscure audio issues that we want to be flagged. All EQ curves for QC review should be flat and the signal path through should be at reference. Don’t put any presets on your receiver if you have one connected to your Chromecast.
- In Video QC, monitors should not be adding motion smoothing or color information to the picture.
- Enough room for the operator to sit with the monitor in full field of view and within the span of each surround speaker
Download QC Specifics
- IMF Playback hardware or software that can playback full resolution and native frame rate IMFs at full speed in Dolby Vision and SDR tone mapping (Dolby Content Mapping Unit hardware or software)
- Examples are but not limited to Blackmagic Resolve Studio, Colorfront Transkoder, Rohde/Schwartz Clipster
- Audio playback software that can handle multitrack output and bussing for Atmos, M&E and PM QC
- Ex. Pro Tools, Adobe Audition
- Pro Tools Ultimate is required for Dolby Atmos BWAV ADM QC along with Dolby Production Suite of plugins
- Storage that can hold at least 16TB, high speed disks or solid state
- Can handle bit rates up to 800MB/s
- Internal RAID or External SAN
- An internet connection that has at least 500mbps download speed
- Faster connections are better
- SDI connection to video monitor, capable of carrying at least 12 bit video
- IMFs will be 12 bit
- Regular calibration and updating of hardware and software
Cast QC Specifics
- Google Chromecast Ultra 4K connected via HDMI
- A wired or wireless network connection that allows machine pairing
- Computer will need to link to Chromecast in order to send video signal to the TV, network permissions may need to be granted or a dedicated wireless network created
- A laptop or desktop computer with the latest version of Windows and Mac OS and capable of connecting to the Chromecast and the Internet
- Latest version of Google Chrome browser
- An audio receiver/decoder that can handle at least 5.1 audio streams
- Dolby Vision TV that is at least 42 inches wide