Deliverables & QC
Why this lesson
Section titled “Why this lesson”A grade isn’t finished when it looks right — it’s finished when it passes. Professional delivery means packaging your master in the format the destination requires (an IMF for streamers, a DCP for cinema) and surviving a QC pass against a written spec: correct color encoding, legal ranges, and safety checks like Harding. This is where careless work gets rejected and rewound, and where a colorist who understands the deliverables becomes the one facilities trust. The explainer carries the concepts and the video gives you the clearest available teaching on IMF; the hands-on QC pass pairs with the Dolby QC from 3.7.
The explainer
Section titled “The explainer”IMF — the streaming master. IMF (Interoperable Master Format) is a SMPTE-standardized, componentized master: instead of one flat file, it stores video, audio and subtitles as separate track files, assembled by a CPL (Composition Playlist — an XML that says “play this video, with this audio, with these subtitles, in this order”). A PKL (Packing List) inventories every file; an asset map links asset IDs to filenames. The payoff is the two problems the video names. A QC fix to a few frames? Deliver a new CPL plus a short insert track file — not the whole two-hour program. A new language? Swap the audio track and replace only the handful of shots with on-screen text; the rest of the video track is reused. Netflix uses IMF App2E (Application 2 Extended), which supports HDR and high frame rate. For a colorist, the practical reality is: your master goes out as an IMF, versions are cheap, and re-deliveries are surgical.
DCP — the cinema master. A DCP (Digital Cinema Package) is the theatrical equivalent — the format a cinema server ingests. It’s JPEG 2000-compressed, wrapped in MXF, structured with its own CPL/PKL, and often encrypted (a KDM key unlocks it for a specific screen and date window). Its defining color trait is the encoding: a DCP is not Rec.709 or even P3 tagged as such — it’s X′Y′Z′.
XYZ — why cinema is device-independent. DCP color is encoded in X′Y′Z′, derived from the CIE XYZ master space from Lesson 3.1. Because XYZ describes color independently of any device, a projector anywhere in the world maps the same DCP into its own P3 gamut and gets a consistent result — no assumptions about the display baked in. You grade on a P3-D65 (or DCI-white) projector, then the deliverable is converted to X′Y′Z′ for the package. Meeting “XYZ” on a spec sheet, you now know it’s the cinema encoding, not a mistake.
Legal ranges — the QC floor. Every broadcast and most streaming specs demand the signal stay within legal ranges (a.k.a. broadcast-safe / video levels): for 10-bit, code values roughly 64 (black) to 940 (white), with headroom above and footroom below reserved. Push a highlight past the ceiling or crush black under the floor and automated QC flags it. This is the technical sibling of the “video vs full levels” you learned back in 1.7 — at delivery it becomes a pass/fail gate. Resolve’s built-in scopes with broadcast-safe limits, and a “Broadcast Safe” clamp in project settings, are how you keep it legal.
QC — the gauntlet. QC (quality control) is the pass that decides whether your master ships. Part of it is technical/automated: legal ranges, correct resolution/frame rate/codec, audio config, HDR metadata (MaxCLL/MaxFALL, or a valid Dolby Vision XML from 3.7), color primaries and transfer characteristic (MediaInfo confirms PQ, per the Dolby QC lesson). Part is content: dead pixels, boom mics in frame, dropped frames, sync — the exact defects IMF’s insert mechanism exists to fix cheaply. And part is compliance — most importantly Harding.
Harding — the safety check you can’t skip. A Harding test (Harding FPA, a Photosensitive Epilepsy / PSE check) scans for flashing and certain spatial patterns that can trigger seizures. Many broadcasters and territories (the UK’s Ofcom notably) require a passing Harding report before air. As a colorist you can cause a fail — a strobing club scene, a hard flash cut, an aggressive lightning effect — so it pays to flag risky content early and, if needed, soften a flash rather than have the whole master bounced. It’s a legal and ethical gate, not an optional nicety.
The point. Delivery is a spec, and QC is the enforcement. Read the destination’s document (Netflix publishes theirs openly), match the master to it line by line — format, encoding, levels, metadata, compliance — and you deliver something that passes the first time. That reliability is a huge part of what “can run color for a production” actually means.
- Read a real spec. Open the Netflix Partner Help delivery specs and list the exact requirements for one deliverable — container, codec, color space, levels, metadata. This is the document your master must satisfy.
- Legal-range QC your Level 2 master: turn on broadcast-safe scope limits, scrub the timeline, and find anything clipping the ceiling or crushing the floor that shouldn’t. Clamp or re-trim.
- Export an IMF from Resolve (Deliver page → IMF preset, App2E if available) and inspect the package: note the separate video/audio track files, the CPL, the PKL.
- Think Harding: identify any shot in your footage with a hard flash or strobe and note how you’d soften it if a PSE report failed.
- If you have a DCP preset, export a short DCP and note the X′Y′Z′ conversion in the render settings.
Terms introduced
Section titled “Terms introduced”Check yourself
What makes IMF a "componentized" master format?
What color encoding does a DCP use, and why?
What is a Harding (PSE) test?
A deliverable "fails legal QC." The most likely meaning is…
You can move on when you can… explain IMF’s componentized structure and why it makes versions cheap, say what a DCP is and why it uses X′Y′Z′, keep a master in legal ranges, read a streamer spec and QC against it, and explain what a Harding test protects against.
Go deeper
Section titled “Go deeper”Dolby — Dolby Vision QC (from 3.7): the QC half applies directly here — Metafier metadata validation, MediaInfo checks (PQ transfer characteristic, color primaries), and the HDR-vs-SDR visual pass. QC an IMF the same disciplined way.
- Netflix Partner Help — Delivery Specifications & IMF (partnerhelp.netflixstudios.com): the single best free, real-world delivery spec — IMF requirements, color, levels, metadata, QC expectations. Author your masters against it.
- SMPTE IMF overview / Netflix IMF resources: the componentized-format standard behind the video.
- Harding FPA (Cambridge Research Systems) and your target broadcaster’s PSE guidance: what actually triggers a flash-test fail and how to stay under the limits.
The paid path: hands-on IMF/DCP authoring and facility-grade QC pipelines are taught in Mixing Light and colour.training’s finishing modules, and full DCP mastering has its own specialist tooling (easyDCP and friends). This page makes you spec-literate and gets you a legal, well-formed master; those take you to volume finishing.
Next up: 3.9 · Dailies & VFX interchange — the CDL and show-LUT loop that feeds editorial, and round-tripping plates with VFX.