VNR

freedom

Well-known member
I may be producing a VNR. Looking for tips. This will be a public policy issue (not related to dems/reps, guns, abortion, etc) that we would like to distribute to all stations in Florida. How to package this so stations will look at it? Are vnr's even still accepted? Can I mail thumbdrives?

Thanks
 

FeedingFrenzy

Active member
VNR's are a quagmure for stations. If your VNR gets used, they will run it with a disclaimer or "video provided by" key during the entire VNR. They, most likely will not run it as you produced it. Remember, its a Video News Release. This means they will cut it to fit their needs, and what even more likely is that it will be used for VO. As far as dristubition, thumb drives are a better option than DVD's, but have you thought about sending out a downloadable link? You can give more format/choice options for downloading. HD, SD, .mov, .mfx, h.264, ProRes, etc. Make it easy for them. One big advantage to having them download your file, is you will know who downloaded which file and that may help when you need to provide usage analytics.
 

freedom

Well-known member
Feeding, thanks.

I'm fine with a disclaimer. I plan on sending a series of short clips. Each interview will be preceded by a title card with name, title and brief background. I wont have a lot of b-roll to supply but will try to get as much as I can.

My thought was thumbdrive. I'm thinking that something physical in hand might be more likely to get used.

How much of an issue is format these days. I expected that to be a total non issue. Planned on h.264 encode.
 

FeedingFrenzy

Active member
The thing with Thumbdrives, is many IT departments have systems locked down so external drives are rendered inactive. Then you have to hope the editor or producer will know how to take it from the drive into the edit program, plus keep hoping they don't misplace the drive altogether. Also, you just gave them something they can re-purpose/re format and use for whatever meets their needs.....at your cost. Another thing to keep in mind to playback. H264 is difficult for older computer systems to playback. Most newsrooms don't have the latest and greatest upgrades. Some might even still be running with Windows XP!
I almost choke mentioning this, but consider a password protected YouTube or Vimeo page. Most stations know how to download from YouTube & Vimeo, or they have hardware to allow recording from those sites. This will take all format worries from your plate, and allow for greater distribution. Does your client already have a website? Just have them add a video link to that YouTube or Vimeo page for downloadable video.
Just my advice, but as far as your project goes......have fun. I'm in Florida and curious what this subject turns out to be.
p.s. If you encode h264, use at least 20000kpbs. You might even want to give x264 a look. A free program called Handbrake uses this. You can also get the free codec from the x264 site to embed for QT encoding.
 

Necktie Boy

Well-known member
I agree with FF with some form of web distribution(DropBox, Google). Having different codecs for them to download.

You could go with drives, but you would need to double check each one. I picked a PSA on thumb drive, and the files didn't work.

For your VNR, a written press release, explaining you cause with names of interviewees names and titles.
 

tschelle

Active member
We (big university) load our video onto an FTP server to be downloaded by the TV stations. A news release gets emailed with contact information and links to the FTP. Our broadcast media coordinator follows up with personal email to assignment editors and/or reporters with links to the video.

We may be moving towards something like DropBox or Google Drive, because a lot of people can't figure out how to download from FTP, even without a username or password.

We encode the video as h.264 .mov files, since nearly all NLE and video players can play this format. A lot of times, we don't have time to encode multiple versions with different codecs.

We split the video up into a few files e.g.
1. sound.mov
2. b-roll.mov
3. more_b-roll.mov

This way, they can download what they want, if they don't want it all. It also makes the files smaller, so they can download faster, if time matters.

Sometimes we put up slates with the sound, sometimes we just let the person say and spell their name. It just depends on who's editing, and how much time we have. We do a lot of quick turn around to try to make the local news.
 
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