Slate (broadcasting)
In broadcasting, a slate is a title card listing important metadata of a television program, included before the first frame of the program. The broadcasting equivalent of a film leader, the slate is usually accompanied with color bars and tone, a countdown, and a 2-pop. In videotape workflows, slates help ensure that the tape received is the right one to broadcast (or to project, in the case of digital cinema) or to ingest into a digital playout system. It also provides helpful context for consideration in the re-editing of the material into a larger package. A convention from the videotape era of television broadcasting, the need for slates in a tapeless workflow has largely been usurped by the Material Exchange Format. However, the slate is still a regular and often-required fixture of television stations and other media companies as of 2023.
Example of a slate
In broadcasting, a slate is a title card listing important metadata of a television program, included before the first frame of the program. The broadcasting equivalent of a film leader, the slate is usually accompanied with color bars and tone, a countdown, and a 2-pop. In videotape workflows, slates help ensure that the tape received is the right one to broadcast (or to project, in the case of digital cinema) or to ingest into a digital playout system. It also provides helpful context for consideration in the re-editing of the material into a larger package. A convention from the videotape era of television broadcasting, the need for slates in a tapeless workflow has largely been usurped by the Material Exchange Format. However, the slate is still a regular and often-required fixture of television stations and other media companies as of 2023.
Common information to include in a slate includes, but is not limited to:
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Title of the program
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Name of the production company and contact info
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Total run time (TRT)
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Production code number
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Date of edited master
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Type of master (e.g. broadcast master, duplication master, projection master)
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Timecode of start of first frame (typically 01:00:00.00, with the slate and associated leader material occurring before this)
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Frame rate
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Audio channel configuration
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Presence of textless elements (typically labelled as textless at/@ tail)
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Clapperboard
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