DCS congratulates the ASC Motion Imaging Technology Council on the launch of the first reference implementation of the ASC Framing Decision List (FDL), the open source standard for creating and maintaining framing decisions throughout the life of a film or television production. Framing conformity has also been a challenge in motion pictures, but with the rise of digital cinema there has been an explosion of various sensor sizes and schemes for how the image would be mapped onto the frame. Adding to the confusion is the rise of display formats over the years from wide screen cinema to standard def, HD, and UHD TV standards, as well as 2K and 4K theatrical exhibition standards and the reformatting necessary between them leading to pan/scan, cropping, letter-boxing, etc. Now even vertical formats must also be considered.

Cinematographers used to shoot conformity charts as part of camera prep prior to production in order to graphically communicate their creative intent. However, with evermore complicated workflows and so many participants contributing VFX to modern productions, these physical references were sometime lost in the shuffle. The ASC-FDL is based on metadata which is designed to travel with each frame throughout the life of the content to preserve consistent framing representation across different departments and workflows. The idea is to reduce errors by ensuring that downstream applications receive the necessary information to interpret framing choices automatically.

Netflix has recently adopted this standard to make every frame look exactly the way it was intended. Netflix validation of such open-source standards lowers the barrier to adoption across the entertainment ecosystem. Find out more at the Netflix Partner Help Center and see their Framing & Working Resolution Calculator by visiting: https://partnerhelp.netflixstudios.com/hc/en-us/articles/4465014482323-Framing-Working-Resolution-Calculator-User-Guide