EFFECTIVE JUNE 5, 2024: As a reminder to the February 22 announcement sent via email and posted to the Discovery Production Guide (accessible via your login to Discovery’s Producers Portal) – WBD’s updated Photosensitive Epilepsy testing policy for content delivered to Discovery’s Producers Portal goes into effect on June 5, 2024. Please note, this testing applies to content delivered globally, but local jurisdictions outside North America may have different procedures after technical evaluation.
We will have a new resource page available on the Production Guide and distributed via email as soon as we can. We appreciate your cooperation at this time and are available to answer any questions you may have.
PLEASE REVIEW: Below are answers to some PSE-related “Frequently Asked Questions” we have received from our production community since February. Please read below and reply to this email or your network contacts with any questions.
- As of June 5, 2024, WBD will only be using the Cambridge Research Systems Harding Flash Pattern Analyzer to assess for PSE failures on incoming program master files delivered to Discovery’s Producers Portal. If your teams have delivered content to us since February 2024, you may have seen Harding notes on your tech evaluation reports already, as that is when we began running this analyzer. Since February, content has only gotten a full fail status where the Harding analyzer and our retiring analyzer detected the same harmful patterns.
- All new episodic masters and content delivered after June 5, 2024 will be subject to this assessment only.
- Existing episodic masters and content accepted before this date will remain accepted/approved unless there is reason to request redelivery.
- Pre-checking or paying for certain tools is not a requirement of delivering to Discovery’s Producers Portal. All content will be assessed on inbound delivery regardless.
- You may continue pre-checking with tools that do not run Harding FPA, but a pass certificate from another analyzer does not guarantee that your master will pass the Harding analyzer, and certificates from non-Harding analyzers will not be accepted going forward to overturn a Harding analyzer failure.
- WBD will be using Telestream Qualify to complete the Harding FPA assessment. As we gather information about any other software tools tuned to Harding FPA (such has Harding FPA Desktop), we will provide that information as a part of our permanent resources.
- The Harding FPA is a unique algorithm with different sensitivities than our retiring analyzer.
- All framerates delivered via Discovery’s Producers Portal after June 5, 2024 are subject to the new testing algorithm. The retiring policy excluded some framerates.
- Your Technical Evaluation report is available via the Producers Portal (or via email for some operating territories). As always, you will receive timecode-based feedback about any technical failures, including PSE.
- PSE failures that are full vendor faults and out of the allowed specification boundaries, which will typically require redelivery, will be marked as a “VF” in the right-hand column of your report if you receive a PDF. Other content may be flagged if it is close to failure parameters. If you ever have questions about accessing or interpreting your report or next steps, please reach out.
- In some situations, local legal and/or regulatory guidelines outside of North America may dictate how/if your network requires redelivery or edits for PSE faults. Please reach out to your network contact if there are any questions about your local territory’s rules.
- Your network contacts will be able to explain to you options available for extenuating circumstances, such as Harding failures close to scheduled premiere. Licensed acquisitions with failures also may be handled case-by-case, depending on operating territory. WBD has considered these possibilities within our policy.
COMING SOON: NEW CONTACT INFO: Our production deliverables support email address is changing soon! For now, you can still contact us at production_ops@discovery.com, and we will send an update when our new support email is live.
US Productions: RATE UPDATE: regarding the US AoN production insurance program, there will be an increase to the rate this year, going from $1.01 to $1.06. This is in effect from May 1, 2024.
Thank you for your attention to these matters.