Glossary¶
Plain-language definitions of terms used across this site and in the industry.
- Age classification / age rating
- A label (issued per country by a national system) indicating the minimum age or advisory age for viewing a piece of content. See the age-ratings overview.
- Brand protection
- Screening content so that a publisher's venue and an advertiser's brand only appear in appropriate contexts. See brand protection.
- Content control
- Knowing exactly what a piece of media contains — visually, aurally, textually — before it reaches an audience. See what is content control?
- DCP (Digital Cinema Package)
- The standardised file package used to deliver features, trailers and ads to digital cinema servers.
- Loudness
- The perceived volume of audio, measured against broadcast/cinema norms (e.g. EBU R 128). Ads that exceed the norm trigger complaints and rejections.
- OOH (Out-of-home)
- Advertising on screens and surfaces outside the home — digital billboards, transit screens, street furniture. OOH screens play to unfiltered public audiences, which makes age-appropriateness especially strict.
- QC (Quality control)
- The technical verification that a media file will play correctly: codec, resolution, frame rate, loudness, duration, and freedom from defects such as black frames. See quality control.
- Rating tier
- One value within a rating system's scale — e.g. FSK 12, BBFC 15, Kijkwijzer 9. Tiers are not comparable across countries: the criteria behind them differ.
- Short-form content
- Content of roughly 5 seconds to 5 minutes: cinema, TV, OOH and radio ads, short-form social media content (YouTube, Instagram, TikTok), and film trailers. The volume/deadline profile of short-form is what makes automated content control necessary.
- Timecode
- A precise position in a media file (hours:minutes:seconds:frames). DCProof findings are timecoded so a reviewer can jump straight to the relevant moment.
- Trailer
- A short promotional edit of a film. Trailers are classified separately from features: a trailer must be suitable for the audience of the film it plays with, not the film it promotes.