Moving pictures from Dragon Con in Atlanta, GA. Sci-fi parody, interviews and more!

Technical Guidelines

Much like the submission guidelines, the technical guidelines depend on the type of video you are submitting to DragonConTV.

These have been updated with information on safe zone formatting and our how the overlay works for our corner bug logo.

Technical Formatting Guidelines for Fan Films and Music Videos

These are the videos that run on the hotel channels during the convention, so they need to be higher quality that what most people find acceptable for the web.

•  Video Resolution : HD 720p (1280×720) or 1080p (1920×1080).  Widescreen (16:9). Progressive (NOT interlaced) video.
  Please use 1080p or higher if at all possible (yes, we can parse 4k video).
•  Video Framerate : 59.94fps
•  Video Codes: MPEG-2, AVC/H.264, or HEVC (no divx, no xvid, no VC-1). MP4 or MOV container.
•  Sound Quality: Even, Clean, and Clear sound. Noise floor should be at least -60db. Peaks between -3db & 0db. Please ensure dialog is not buried by music, sound effects etc. Remember, this will be played in noisy environments; please mix audio accordingly.
•  Safe Area: Video is formatted for a 10-20% title safe area to compensate for issues with hotel TVs & conference room projectors. Recommended 10% action safe area & 20% title safe area.

For ease of use, we provide these handy overlays (PNG with transparency) to show the 10% safe zone (red), 20% safe zone (yellow) and corner bug location. You can overlay these in your video editing software to make sure that everything will show up on screen and our logo doesn’t block your content. To simulate the look of the corner bug, set the transparency of the PNG layer to 70%.

Technical Formatting Guidelines for DragonConTV Contributions

These are the clips that we run between convention events and on the hotel channels. We’re not concerned about the format of the clip submitted for review (as long as it plays), but the final version is only submitted in HD. We will need a file for the final submission, so don’t expect us to rip your video from social media or YouTube/Vimeo. As a test, please try to playback your AVC/H.264/MPEG2/HEVC file in the stock version of Windows Media Player or Apple QuickTime without any magic codecs or plugins (we love VLC, but it will play stuff that might break our broadcast system). Your final file should be high bitrate, in MP4 or MOV format, and preferably shared via Drive or Dropbox.

Yes, we’re really in HD!

In 2008, DragonConTV moved to widescreen videos. In 2009 we went high definition. Even though the hotel TVs don’t consistently broadcast in HD, our event rooms projectors and televisions, as well as all of our internal systems and DragonCon.TV's streaming membership, are all in HD. Our broadcast system for the in-hotel TV system is based on HD-SDI.

Bottom line: Even if the jokes aren’t that great, the video will be pretty.