Submission Guidelines
- Andrew Grathwohl (Unlicensed)
- Jennifer McKenzie (Unlicensed)
- Sunny Atwal (Unlicensed)
Please send questions regarding these guidelines and other media considerations to media@littlstar.com.
Sending Files to Littlstar
At Littlstar, we endeavor to deliver immersive experiences to our viewers at the highest possible quality. In order to meet this goal consistently, we ask that our content providers familiarize themselves with our file submission workflow.
General Information and Guidelines
- Please deliver all necessary media assets at least three days prior to publication.
- Ensure your media delivery is complete by meeting all File Checklist items.
- If you are unable to meet any of the requirements listed below, please email media@littlstar.com as soon as possible so that we can address your issue.
File Checklist
Before uploading any assets to Littlstar, please ensure that the following required files will be included in your delivery:
- A mezzanine video, such as a ProRes QuickTime file or a Cineform MP4 file. See General Video Recommendations below for video codec and container technical requirements.
- One or more audio stems. (These may be muxed into your video, if you prefer.) See General Audio Recommendations below for audio technical requirements.
- A stereo PCM audio stem is required. Other audio formats are optional, but encouraged!
- A high resolution banner image. See General Banner Requirements below for style and design requirements.
- One or more files containing the content metadata, production/acting credits, and copyright/attribution information.
- We accept spreadsheets, CSVs, XML manifests (such as the Media Entertainment Core), and plain old text files.
We ask that you submit all of the above assets in a single delivery, in order to ensure a smooth and frictionless ingestion process.
Media Encoding Guidelines
For a breakdown of device-specific features and requirements, see the Device-Specific Features & Requirements article.
General Video Requirements
Container Files: .mp4, .mov, .avi, .mkv, .mxf
Display Aspect Ratio: 2:1 (monoscopic) 1:1 (stereoscopic)
Frame Rates: Constant frame rate is required. Capturing and exporting at 59.97/60 FPS is optimal for VR video.
Accepted Color Spaces: YUV 8-bit and 10-bit
Preferred Y'UV Subsampling: 4:4:4, 4:2:2, 4:2:0
Mezzanine File (Preferred)
Accepted Codecs: ProRes (422 HQ), DNxHD (MXF), QuickTime Animation, CineForm
Proxy File
Accepted Codecs: H.264 (Please do not deliver H.265/HEVC)
Bit Rate: 20 Mbps or greater
Frame Width: At least 3840 pixels (monoscopic) / At least 2560 pixels (stereoscopic)
Frame Height: At least 1920 pixels (monoscopic) / At least 2560 pixels (stereoscopic)
Frame Rate Type: Constant frame rate required
H.264 Profile: Main or High
H.264 Level: 5.0 or greater
General Audio Recommendations
Accepted Formats: PCM, AAC (LC or HEv1 profiles), (E)-AC3, FLAC
Channel Configurations: Stereo, Binaural, AmbiX
Sampling Frequency: 48Khz, 96kHz
Compressed Audio Bit Rate: 256 kbps or greater
Please ensure that there are no True Peaks in the audio stream. Check out iZotope's blog post for more information.
Ambisonic Audio
Some Littlstar players support full-sphere first order ambisonic audio mixes ordered with the ACN component ordering scheme. This is generally referred to as AmbiX. If delivering AmbiX is not possible, please let us know what format this audio is in so that we can perform the appropriate transformations to your file, in order to make it compliant.
In order to utilize this feature, please render your spatial mix according to the following specifications listed in the below table:
| Horizontal Order | Height Order | Sound Field Type | Malham Notation | Number of channels | Channel Ordering | Normalization |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | Full-sphere | f | 4 | ACN3 (WXYZ) | SN3D |
Ambisonic mixes must be delivered as separate PCM WAV files, with the following traits:
- 16 bit depth (little-endian)
- 48kHz sampling rate
- Google's spatial-media metadata injected into the MP4.
For more information on preparing AmbiX mixes for VR media using FFmpeg, see https://francois.pitie.net/2016/05/05/360-audio-youtube-upload/
Note About Ambisonic
Please note: ambisonic audio is not available on all devices and platforms. See our article on Device-Specific Features & Requirements for more information.
General Image Asset Requirements
Banners
Banners are an important component of the Littlstar interface, and expression of your content’s identity. A banner is a great way to properly brand and promote your video on our platform. Banners are suggested if you would like your video to be featured and required if you would like your video to be sponsored. Littlstar banners must be a minimum of 1920x1080px in a 16:9 aspect ratio, and must be submitted as a .jpg or .png under 1MB to be approved. Please include the Title of your video within the 1000px x 600px rectangle in the center of the banner (as demonstrated by the banner guideline here). All text should remain within this central rectangle to satisfy banner standards. No 360 degree icon is necessary, as all videos on the platform are 360 degrees. Please upload your banner through Signiant. One of our team members will notify you when the banner has been approved and applied. Please download our banner guideline and formatted PSD template to help you create the best banner for your video.
The same banner cannot be used more than once, as it causes confusion for the user.
Please note: We are working on an automated system that will allow you to apply and replace a banner whenever you wish.
Profile Avatars
Profile Avatars are required for any account on Littlstar. The avatar should represent your companies image or logo and be at 200px x 200px in a 1:1 aspect ratio, and must be submitted as .png under 100KB to be approved.