Frequently-asked-questions

WHAT ARE THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR ENTERING THE COMPETITION?

You need to read, understand and accept the Genero Competition Terms or the specific artist competition terms, both of which are linked to from the specific artist page you are entering for. You should also read, understand and accept the general website Terms and Privacy Statement. If you need anything clarified just Contact Us and we’ll be happy to answer your questions.

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WHO OWNS THE VIDEO AFTER I SUBMIT IT?

When you upload a video to Genero.tv you're granting us an exclusive license for the duration of the competition. After the competition finishes it automatically reverts to a non-exclusive license for all videos except the winning video. We retain the exclusive license for all winning videos and in most cases this is transferred to the artist/label so they can use it as the official music video.

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GMT AND CLOSING TIMES EXPLAINED

All closing times we quote are in GMT, which stands for Greenwich Mean Time. This is a world-wide time reference point, and we use it so that everyone knows exactly what time a competition closes. To be absolutely certain, we reccomend doing a Google search for "GMT time" which will return the time at that point. Sorry, but we cannot accept late entries if there is any mis-understanding or confusion about closing times.

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WHAT BROADCAST SPECS WILL I NEED TO SUPPLY IF I AM A WINNER OR FINALIST?

ALL winners, and some finalists are required to upload a broadcast quality version of their file, usually via FTP. If you are unable to supply a broadcast quality file to the client's specifications (see below as a guide), you will be disqualified from winning or being a finalist. The current specs which most of our clients require are as follows;

Codecs: Apple ProRes 422 (HQ) [preferred], Avid DNxHD or DVCPro HD
Scaling: Content may NOT be upscaled from SD
Frame size & rate: 1920x1080 (Progressive) [23.98, 29.97 or 25], or 1920x1080 (Interlaced) [29.97 or 25]
Color space: ITU-R BT.709
Audio: Stereo LPCM in either Big Endian or Little Endian, 16-bit or 24-bit, at 48kHz (Audio levels should remain constant at -6db as much as possible. Please prevent audio levels going below -12db.)

Top 10 reasons (of many!) for immediate rejection of a broadcast file;

1. All text must be TITLESAFE regardless if it is for online use only or not. (See below for details)
2. “Apple ProRes 422 (HQ)” is NOT “Apple ProRes 422”, if ProRes, must supply (HQ)
3. H.264, MPEG2 and MPEG4 are NOT supported file codecs.
4. Audio must be in STEREO. If both the L and R audio are identical, it is TWO CHANNEL MONO and will fail. (See below for details)
5. Audio as 44.1k is NOT supported; it must be 48k. AAC is NOT supported, it must be LPCM,
6. When delivering 5.1 AUDIO, the channels must be clearly named and labeled (either on the tape or the filenames).
7. 4:1 CADENCE is a failure point for Long Form content. (See below for details)
8. Content cannot be PILLARBOXED.
9. Audio and video must be properly SYNCED on all video content.
10. FIELD DOMINANCE issues resulting from reversing the wrong field (upper/lower) first.

Title Safe
Title Safe is a term that refers to the zone of a video frame where all of the titles and graphics applied are completely visible without being cut off. Videos need to be Title Safe in order for all text and graphics to be displayed completely within the viewing frame of a video. All content must be in title safe to be considered archive-worthy, REGARDLESS of the current intentions for its use. It may be meant for online use presently, but that can easily change in the future.

Two Channel Mono
This occurs when both the Left and Right channels are identical to each other. The audio coming from the Left and Right channels must NOT be identical. This should be checked on a stereo-meter as Final Cut will falsely define anything with two audio channels as stereo.

Mixed Frame Rates
Mixed Frame Rate issues occur when different types of source footage recorded using different frame rates are edited together before they are converted to a single, unified frame rate.

4:1 Cadence ( Long Form Content: Immediate Failure)
4:1 Cadence means you have 4 progressive frames of video, and every 5th frame is a repeat of the 4th frame. There should be no repeated frames at all. This issue is often the result of a 23.98 frame video being converted to 29.97 incorrectly. When done correctly, you will see 3 unique progressive frames followed by 2 interlaced frames. Content should be kept native to the frame rate at which it was shot. This also can occur when interlaced content is tagged as progressive.

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