Corporate Video Delivery Specs: A Cheat Sheet for Clients Who Commission Video

The delivery specification is the least glamorous line in any video brief, and it causes more late-stage trouble than everything else in the document combined. Concept, script and casting get argued over in kick-off calls. The specs — what file, what shape, what sound level — get copied from an old brief or left out entirely, and the gap surfaces three days before launch: the film is 16:9 and the campaign turned out to need vertical, the agency wants a ProRes master and all anyone has is a compressed MP4, or the sound that was approved on studio monitors is quiet and muddy in a LinkedIn feed.

None of this is difficult to prevent. It takes about ten lines in the brief, written before the shoot rather than after the edit. This article explains what those lines mean, why each one matters and what to ask for — and it ends with a specification block you can paste straight into your next brief.

The Master and the Deliverable Are Different Files

The single most useful thing a client can understand about delivery is that a finished video is not one file. It is a master plus any number of deliverables made from it.

The master is a high-quality edit-grade file — in my workflow, Apple ProRes 422 HQ — that preserves the full quality of the grade and mix. It is large, it is not meant for uploading anywhere and it exists so that every future version can be made without loss: a re-edit next year, a cutdown for a campaign, a version with new end titles when the brand refreshes. The deliverables are the compressed files actually published — typically H.264 in an MP4 container, which uploads cleanly to every major platform.

The reason this distinction matters commercially is simple: platforms re-encode everything you upload. A file compressed once by the editor and again by YouTube or LinkedIn degrades twice. A deliverable encoded fresh from the master degrades once. And a client who only ever receives the MP4 owns a compromised copy of their own film — if the production relationship ends or the drive fails, there is nothing full-quality to go back to. Always ask for the master alongside the deliverables. I supply it by default; not everyone does.

Resolution and Frame Rate

For corporate work the practical choices are few. HD at 1920 × 1080 remains the standard delivery resolution for the web, and 4K at 3840 × 2160 is worth requesting when the film will play on large screens — event walls, showroom displays, connected TV — or when you want cropping room for future cutdowns. I shoot in 6K regardless, which means a 1080p delivery still carries reframing headroom, but delivering in 4K keeps that flexibility in your hands rather than mine.

Frame rate is a regional and stylistic decision that must be made once, before the shoot, and never mixed. In Europe the norm is 25 frames per second, which sits cleanly with 50Hz lighting and broadcast infrastructure. For US-facing campaigns 29.97 is conventional, and 23.976 gives a slightly more cinematic cadence for brand films. Which one is chosen matters less than choosing it at the start: footage shot at one rate and delivered at another can stutter subtly on motion, and interviews shot across two countries at two different rates create an editing problem no client should have to pay to solve.

Colour: What "Rec 709" Means and Why You Should Ask for It

Somewhere in every professional delivery spec sits the phrase Rec 709. It is worth knowing what it means, because it is the difference between a film that looks right everywhere and one that looks washed out or oversaturated depending on the screen.

Cinema cameras record in log or RAW formats designed to capture maximum dynamic range — flat, grey, low-contrast images that are raw material for grading, not finished pictures. Rec 709 is the standard colour space and gamma that finished videos are graded into, and it is what browsers, phones, laptops and conference screens all expect. When a delivery is specified as Rec 709, it means the grade has been completed and rendered for the screens your audience actually uses. On my own productions the pipeline runs from camera RAW through a colour-managed grade in DaVinci Resolve to a Rec 709 output, and the spec line to put in your brief is simply: final deliverables graded and rendered in Rec 709.

Two related requests are worth making. If your film will ever play on a broadcast channel, say so in advance, because broadcast delivery carries stricter legal limits on colour and levels. And if anyone on your side reviews colour-critical work, ask them to do it on a decent screen at moderate ambient light — a film approved on a dim laptop in a bright office has not really been approved.

Aspect Ratios: Decide the Shapes Before the Shoot

The most common delivery surprise of the last few years is vertical video. A film is commissioned, shot and edited in 16:9, and then marketing asks for the 9:16 version for Reels and Shorts. Cropping a widescreen composition down to a vertical sliver discards two thirds of the frame, and if the shot was composed without that crop in mind, what survives is rarely usable — interviewees lose their headroom, two-person shots lose a person.

The fix costs nothing if it happens before the shoot: list every shape the content needs to exist in, and I frame for all of them on the day, with crop zones marked on the monitor. The shapes that matter in current corporate use are 16:9 at 1920 × 1080 for YouTube, websites and presentations; 9:16 at 1080 × 1920 for Reels, TikTok, Shorts and Stories; 4:5 at 1080 × 1350, which earns more screen space than square in LinkedIn and Instagram feeds; and 1:1 at 1080 × 1080 as a safe fallback for feed placements. Not every project needs all four. Every project should decide which it needs before the camera is positioned.

Sound: Loudness Is a Number, Not an Opinion

Whether a mix is loud enough is not a matter of taste — it is measured, in LUFS, and different destinations expect different values. Online platforms normalise audio at around −14 LUFS, so a corporate film mixed to that level plays back consistently on YouTube without being turned down by the platform. European broadcast works to the EBU R128 standard at −23 LUFS, a meaningfully different target. A mix made for one and published on the other will be either quiet and flat or pumped and harsh. The spec line to include: stereo mix, loudness to −14 LUFS integrated for online delivery, with a broadcast mix to EBU R128 if a broadcast placement exists.

One further request pays for itself the first time you localise a film: ask for split audio — the voice, music and effects delivered as separate stems, or at minimum a music-and-effects version without the voice. It turns a future translated version into an afternoon's work instead of a remix.

Captions: Sidecar Files and Burned-In Versions

Most feed video plays muted by default, LinkedIn included, which makes captions a reach decision rather than an accessibility nicety — a film that does not work silently does not work in a feed. Captions come in two forms and a good delivery includes both. A sidecar file, usually SRT format, is a small text file uploaded alongside the video; the platform renders the captions, viewers can switch them off and search engines can read them. A burned-in version has the captions rendered permanently into the picture, which guarantees they appear everywhere but cannot be turned off or translated. My default is SRT files with every deliverable and burned-in versions for the social cutdowns, with translated SRTs added when a film runs in multiple markets.

What to Actually Put in the Brief

Here is the block, ready to adapt. Master: ProRes 422 HQ, full resolution, delivered with the final files. Deliverables: H.264 MP4, graded Rec 709. Resolutions and shapes: 16:9 at 3840 × 2160 and 1920 × 1080, plus 9:16 at 1080 × 1920 and 4:5 at 1080 × 1350 for social cutdowns as required. Frame rate: 25fps for European delivery, agreed before the shoot. Audio: stereo mix at −14 LUFS integrated, split stems supplied. Captions: SRT sidecar with all deliverables, burned-in captions on social versions. File naming: project, version and shape in every filename, with one final version clearly marked.

That last line sounds trivial and is not. A delivery folder containing final_v3_NEW_use-this.mp4 alongside four near-identical siblings is how the wrong file ends up in a campaign. I deliver with a plain naming convention and a short text note stating which files are current, and I would encourage you to demand the same from anyone you commission.

Why I Publish My Specs

There is a reason a production company might prefer clients not to read an article like this: vagueness in the brief becomes change orders in the invoice. The vertical versions that were never scoped, the master that was never handed over, the remix for broadcast — each is billable precisely because it was not specified. I would rather work the other way round. A client who writes ten precise lines into the brief gets every format they need in one delivery, owns their master outright and never pays twice for the same film. That is a better project for both of us.

If you are scoping a corporate video and want a second pair of eyes on the delivery spec — or the whole brief — send it over. I read every enquiry myself and I will tell you honestly what it needs.