Audio Durations in TV Commercials

[BobbyDazzler]

Hey Guys, Currently in Australia every tvc going on free to air tv is required to have half a second of silence at the front and back. (So a 30sec advert has 29 seconds of audio).
I was just wondering if this was a universal style requirement in other countries?
I'm feeling this is a pretty outdated requirement, as I believe it is legacy of some sort of analog workflow.

Cheers
Dave

[Park Seward]

Back in the day of film commercials, there was one second of silence at the head because it took 24 frames to get to the sound after the spot started since it took 24 frames to get to the audio after the picture started.

And at the tail, picture would end one second before sound. Usually, audio fade would match picture.

It comes down to the splice point. Cut the picture and you cut the sound 24 frames later since it takes one second for the splice to get to the sound head.

Why someone would make a hard rule is a mystery to me. There is no rule like that in the States.

[Leverson]

I think this is only an Australian thing. I've had to do it before when mixing TV commercials for Australian broadcast and thought it was odd. I've never seen that requirement for any other country I've had to deliver to though.

[Chief Technician]

Originally Posted by Leverson

I think this is only an Australian thing.

I have seen this for deliverables sent to the U.K.

[spoons]

The UK still has this convention I believe. 6 frames of silence top and tail with no critical audio with in 12 frames of the top and tail.
I think this was originally used to define the start and end of each Ad in an Ad break. So it was clear when one ended and next started. In fact I think I'm right in saying that there used to also be a logo 'blip' between each Ad on ITV but that was dropped.
Being a UK expat in the US it's still seems odd to me that Ads here run seamlessly.

[you kay]

If you have a v/o up to the last frame of ad1 and the next v/o starts on frame one on ad2 surely the ads are going to sound like they clash.

[Park Seward]

When editing for TV, I would start a 10 frame dissolve from black at 1:00:00:00 and fade to black starting at 1:00:29:20 for 10 frames. The next spot would start at 1:00:00:30. Audio usually followed the picture dissolve or might be a hard cut at 10 frames in.

[Petevsi]

Hiya
It used to be the first and last 12 frames where mute for UK ads, resently that changed to 6 frames mute front and end. That said I have had to deliver ads that where full length from first to last frame of video for some HD broadcasters so I tend to make sure the VO starts at lease 12 frames in to prevent it crashing with other ads.
If you look up the AdStream spec sheet for deliverable it lists there requirement for each country which is really helpful since it seams everyone wants something different :)
Pete

[mbauer1]

Hi,

I've been the states the past 7 years but spent the first 10 years of my career in Australia mixing commercials.

The rule is old and outdated.

It comes from when commercials and programs were played back from tape.
The ruling was for a 25fps commercial, you needed a half second of silence at the top and tail (12 frames approx)

You could get away with non essential information pushing as far as 6 frames either side, but not dialogue.

I don't know why the ruling still exists, for digital playback it's not needed.

[Tstein]

We used to have a similar convention in the States many years ago. A 30 Second spot was 29.5 sec, a 60 ( yes we used to do 60's) was 59.5 sec,... This was done away with when the advertisers realized they were paying for a half a second of silence!