AI Video for Broadcast in Australia: Free TV OP-59, ProRes 422 HQ and Legal Levels
What Australian free-to-air, Netflix and YouTube HDR actually require from an AI-generated spot, and how Apostle delivers CAD-cleared, OP-59-compliant masters from Sydney to every market in the country.
“Broadcast-ready” is a testable state, not an adjective. An AI-generated TVC either meets the delivery spec or it bounces at QC. We make AI-native campaigns in Sydney and deliver them to networks, streamers and platforms across Australia, so here is what the specs say and where raw AI output falls short.
Australian free-to-air
HD commercials and programs are delivered as QuickTime ProRes 422, LT or HQ, with MXF OP1a by agreement for some programs. Nine’s program spec calls for 1080/50i ProRes 422 HQ at 184 Mbit/s as a .mov. Video is ITU-R BT.709 with legal levels from -1% to 103% luminance.
Audio follows Free TV OP-59 (Issue 4, October 2018), measured per ITU-R BS.1770-3: integrated loudness -24 LKFS, tolerance plus or minus 1 LU, maximum true peak -2 dBTP, 1 kHz reference at -20 dBFS. TVCs carry 12 frames of complete silence at head and tail, and the clapper states OP48 and OP59 compliance. Clearance through ClearAds (CAD) is mandatory before any network will accept the spot.
Free-to-air currently prefers SDR Rec.709. UHD and HDR sit under OP-73 and OP-74: 25p or 50p progressive, Rec.2020, no interlace.
Where AI output fails: an 8-bit H.264 generation is neither the codec nor the bit depth, rarely the frame rate (most models are 24 fps, not 25 or 50), and never carries the loudness, silence or clapper requirements. All of that is post-production work.
Netflix-style streaming
Netflix accepts only Dolby Vision masters on ingest. HDR delivery is 12-bit DNxHR 444 or ProRes 4444 XQ, with a Dolby Vision metadata XML carrying at minimum L1 data for every frame. HDR10-only masters are not accepted. Colourimetry is P3-D65 with ST.2084 PQ; loudness -24 LKFS; no upscaled or upmixed material.
Where AI output fails: no generator writes Dolby Vision, and Topaz Hyperion 2.5 does not either. The trim passes happen in Resolve, after the grade.
YouTube HDR
YouTube requires HDR uploads tagged with a PQ or HLG transfer function, Rec.2020 colour primaries and a Rec.2020 non-constant-luminance matrix, at 10 or 12-bit, in MOV, MP4 or MKV with HEVC, VP9 Profile 2 or AV1. Grade in Rec.2020, not DCI-P3. If ST.2086, MaxCLL and MaxFALL are missing, YouTube assumes a Sony BVM-X300. Resolve writes the primaries and transfer tags; it does not write MaxCLL and MaxFALL, so we run the YouTube HDR Metadata Tool on full HDR10 deliverables.
Tagging SDR as HDR is not an HDR deliverable. It looks wrong on every HDR display.
OOH and digital signage
There is no single industry spec. Most networks are SDR Rec.709, often 8-bit, with 10-bit preferred for large gradients, at whatever pixel dimensions the panel demands, often portrait or very wide. We generate at native 4K, upscale with Topaz to the panel’s dimensions, and confirm bitrate with the network’s player before delivery.
How Apostle gets an AI spot through QC
- Generate at the highest native bit depth and resolution the chosen model offers, with the frame rate planned for the deliverable.
- Uplift 8-bit sources through Topaz Starlight Precise 2.5 and Hyperion 2.5 to 10-bit ProRes or 16-bit EXR.
- Grade in a colour-managed Resolve project, with an HDR timeline when the deliverable needs it.
- Dolby Vision analysis and SDR trim for streaming.
- Master from one grade: ProRes 422 HQ 1080/50i for Free TV with OP-59 audio, 12 frames of silence and a compliant clapper; ProRes 4444 XQ plus Dolby Vision XML for streaming; HEVC Main10 with correct Rec.2020 and PQ or HLG tags for YouTube; panel-native files for OOH.
- CAD clearance, then delivery.
We do this for Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide and Canberra campaigns, and for regional markets through the same network feeds.