Post production & broadcast delivery · Remote, US & Canada
You send the file your edit system exports. I send back a master built to the distributor’s specification — and a written QC report that proves it, item by item, so you hand the distributor evidence instead of hope. Need the programme cut and finished as well? That is the same desk.
First audit is free — one master, report in two business days. No call required.
The problem
Public television has requirements your editing software does not write on its own. Every one of them is a reason a file comes back — usually four to six weeks before the feed date, when there is no room left in the schedule.
How I work
Every master goes through ClearedQC: automated file-based QC built around a test plan for your distributor’s specification — today the NETA 2025 requirements, with the PBS and FCC rules they point to — followed by my own review on the picture and by ear. Every item a meter can measure is measured to the published standard named in the report — ITU-R BS.1770 for loudness, EBU R103 for gamut, CEA-608 for captions, ITU-R BT.1702 for photosensitivity — with the measured value next to the required one. Loudness and true-peak measurement is verified against the EBU loudness test set: all 31 applicable cases of EBU Tech 3341 and 3342 within tolerance. The report it prints is what ships with the file.
When your export is already in the delivery format, the picture is stream-copied rather than re-encoded, so nothing is lost between your export and the master; from ProRes it is encoded once. And once a series is set up, every further episode runs through the whole suite in about an hour of unattended machine time, not days of studio time.
Services
Quoted in USD. No retainer, no minimum season — start with one episode and see the report.
I run the master you already have through ClearedQC and tell you exactly where it stands.
From your export to a file the distributor can put on the feed, with the paperwork that backs it.
The whole programme, from rushes to the distributor’s upload — cut, finished, verified and filed.
Add-ons, only if you ask for them: :30 promo to the distributor’s spec
($150) · OTT / YouTube master from the same timeline ($100) · re-delivery after an editorial change
($150) · rush under 72 hours (+50%).
Programmes longer than 30 minutes are quoted by duration.
What gets verified
This is the actual shape of the report that goes out with the file. Your distributor may ask for different values — the tooling takes the specification it is given.
| Specification item | Verified |
|---|---|
| MXF OP1a · XDCAM HD422 · MPEG-2 Long GOP 50 Mbps · 1920×1080 29.97 upper field first · 4:2:2 | Pass |
| Aspect ratio 16:9, full-height active picture · long-GOP structure | Pass |
| Video levels — every frame scanned, nothing above 100 IRE or below 0 IRE | Pass |
| RGB gamut against 0–700 mV, sampled every 10 seconds · black at 0 V, no setup | Pass |
| Image artefacts — decode errors, blocking, frozen and duplicated frames, field order | Pass |
| Photosensitivity — luminance and red-flash screening (Ofcom GN2 / ITU-R BT.1702) | Pass |
| BT.709 matrix / primaries / transfer signalling, limited range | Pass |
| Drop-frame timecode from 01:00:00;00 · black frame at head and tail · no slate, bars or tone | Pass |
| Audio channel layout as the distributor specifies · PCM 24-bit / 48 kHz | Pass |
| Loudness −24 LKFS integrated (ITU-R BS.1770) · peak programme level and true peak in range | Pass |
| Dialog level, clipping and stereo phase measured · lip sync, distortion and stereo synthesis checked by ear | Pass |
| Closed captions CEA-608/708 · sidecar .scc decoded and validated byte by byte | Pass |
| Caption timing and placement — clear of name keys, on-screen text and faces; pre-checked by machine, confirmed on the picture | Pass |
| Running time measured · funding credits, distributor tag and rating-icon placement checked on the picture | Pass |
See what a failing master looks like — a demonstration of the paid audit (PDF) →
The photosensitivity line is a screening against the published Ofcom and ITU-R thresholds — flashes per second, area of frame, saturated red — with the flagged points checked on the picture. It is not a Harding FPA certification, and I say so in the report. If your broadcaster requires the certificate, you still buy it; what you get here is knowing the answer before they do.
Some of these belong to one distributor and not to another. On the NETA delivery below the audio was a stereo pair under NETA’s 2025 requirements, the programme had to come in under 28:00, carry a :03 NETA tag and a TV-G icon at NETA’s request, and ship with NETA’s Producers Media Technical Evaluation Form. Deliver to APT, to a member station or to a streamer and those change — an eight-channel layout with a mono fold-down, a different tag, a different form. The tooling takes the specification it is given.
Case study
The series is made by an independent producer. The master goes to NETA, which distributes it to US public television; the episode airs on PBS. I have worked with the producer for six years across their video projects, and for this season I came in for the final edit and the technical delivery — and it had to be right the first time.
The export came out of the edit right on picture and wrong on delivery: non-drop timecode, colour signalling that had to be written explicitly, and video levels running outside 0–100 IRE. So the pipeline was split — picture exported once and stream-copied, with wrapper, timecode and signalling written to spec, and the levels legalised in the edit using NETA’s own published procedure. All 46,147 frames were then scanned to prove it: not one frame with more than 0.3% of its pixels outside range. The English captions were written in-house, decoded byte by byte against the master and delivered with a signed caption validation statement, alongside a technical report of 43 items — nothing outstanding.
Who you are working with
Cleared for Air is a two-person studio in São Paulo, Brazil, run by Sergio Mikalkenas and working remotely for producers in the United States and Canada. No account manager, no hand-offs, and the same eyes on every episode of your season.
Six years with the same client, across their video projects — and, this season, the final edit and the technical delivery of their nature series for young audiences, which airs on PBS: master build, loudness compliance, caption conformance, rating-icon placement and the QC report that ships with it.
Earlier work includes quality control and 3D cleanup for immersive video in California, and post production for clients in Canada.
He designed ClearedQC and runs it himself, so the person who wrote each check is the one who reads your report — and can tell you exactly what was measured, and how.
Brian is a systems developer, and the technical side of the studio is his: the software it runs on, the storage, the backups, and who can reach your files while the job is open.
He is also credited as an editor on the same series and takes editing work when a season runs tight, so a delivery date never depends on one person’s calendar — and a second editor is someone already inside the same process.
Every report is measured and signed by me. Whoever touches your material works under the same confidentiality and security practice — and I will sign your NDA before any file changes hands.
Resources
Free, and nothing to sign up for. The specifications are linked at the source instead of copied here, so you always open the current version. Every link was checked in September 2026 — if one of them goes stale, tell me and I will fix it.
Get started
Tell me what you are delivering and to whom. If you already have a master, send it and you will have the report in two business days — no call, no commitment. If you do not have one yet, say so and I will tell you what I need from your timeline.
Terms. Quoted and paid in USD via Wise. The invoice and the payment details come
from the studio’s registered company in Brazil, in Brian Mikalkenas’s name. W-8BEN or W-8BEN-E
provided, whichever your finance team needs — routine for a non-US contractor, no withholding.
New clients: 50% on approval, 50% on delivery of the first episode.
What the report is. Every item measured or checked on the picture, with the measured value next to
the required one — where the file stands, and what each fix takes. That makes acceptance on the
first attempt more likely; it is not a guarantee, because every distributor runs its own QC, with its own
tools and thresholds. Any value in the report can be traced to the standard it was measured against.
Captions. I can validate and integrate the file your vendor supplies, or author the English
captions in-house and deliver them with a signed caption validation statement — quoted separately.
Confidentiality. If you have an NDA, I will sign it before any file changes hands. Your material
is used only for your job — never shown, shared or used in my own marketing without your written
permission (the sample report on this site is anonymised for that reason) — and returned or deleted
when the job is done, as you prefer.
How your material is handled →
Not included: creative colour grading, legal review of compliance certification.
Direct: clearedforair@gmail.com