What is a Legalizer? And Why Do You Need One?

In our busy world of editing and post-production, we need to ensure that any final deliverable conforms to the different broadcast regulations that exist around the world. You may already be aware of these if you are currently producing file-based deliverables and are utilizing quality control software.

Part of the QC process is to check whether the video signal in a file conforms to the template standard being used, or more accurately if it falls within the acceptable limits of a particular specification (or is legal). Video can become illegal for various reasons; maybe the original source itself was captured incorrectly or, as part of the editing, grading, or visual FX process, values were manipulated that caused the file to be considered illegal. Depending on the region, delivering a file to a broadcaster that is considered illegal can be costly.

There are several ways to legalize media files:
  • One approach is to take advantage of “software effects” in editorial packages that apply a degree of legalization.
  • Another approach is to rely on tools in QC products that attempt to fix the video as part of the quality control process. 

Neither is ideal as they can add additional rendering time to the whole process or re-encode the file to fix the issue and have very limited settings. However, having access to a fully configurable legalizer as part of your workflow arsenal can be a real benefit and help stave off issues when it comes to deliverables.

Whether you are Automating Avid Ingest and Delivery Workflows or simply managing a camera card ingest workflow Telestream ContentAgent v3.11 will make sure the files you ingest are legalized. ContentAgent’s legalizer tool can be found in the Platinum transcoding node. The Legalizer comes pre-configured with a set of tested industry-standard templates that should be your go-to choice as a starting point. You can also create and apply your own custom ones as part of an automated deliverable creation workflow.

A video legalizer feature is an integral tool for anyone providing broadcast deliverables. It can save you time and makes the generation of compliant video for multiple markets a simple process as part of your QC workflows. Telestream ContentAgent also can provide audio compliance as part of the same workflow, such as R128 loudness analysis and correction to enable an overall legalization automated process.

For more information please visit Telestream ContentAgent, or watch some of the videos on the resources page.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Back to Top