How to Submit Motion Imagery

Imagery that should be considered for submission is imagery that depicts subjects of known or probable interest to the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, or more than one DoD Component. Video imagery sent to the Defense Imagery Management Operations should be primecut b-roll without special transitions, special effects, voiceovers, or textual overlays. Our customers edit the imagery into their final products, so clips should be long enough to allow transitions to be added during the editing process. Examples of imagery for submission includes:

  1. Current operations
  2. Contingencies of all types
  3. Major exercises, especially joint and combined exercises
  4. Deployment/redeployment of troops, equipment and weapons systems
  5. Weapons systems in use (especially new systems)
  6. Significant events happening at your location that would be of interest to others
  7. Major accidents
  8. Major construction projects, from start to finish
  9. Good images of daily life in the military, particularly for deployed forces

Preparing Imagery for submission.

Due to the size of digital video files, it is nearly impossible to transmit extremely high resolution, archival quality video over the Internet. For that reason, you should send the video twice: first in a lower resolution transmittable file (using settings listed below for standard and high definition) via the Internet as rapidly as possible and second via mail in the camera original format via tape, DVD, Blu-Ray or hard drive. Mail second copy to:

Defense Imagery Management Operations Center
23755 Z St.
Bldg. 2730
Riverside, CA. 92518

(951) 413-2522 (Commercial)
348-1522 (DSN)

Creating/sending transmittable video.

If video is shot in standard definition, use the standard definition settings listed below. If video is shot in high definition, use the high definition settings listed below. Transmit video using QuickTime H.264 compression. Include a 5 second slate at the beginning of each video.

  Standard Definition settings High Definition settings
Resolution 720 x 480 1280 x 720
Pixel Aspect Ratio D1/DV NTSC (0.9) Square Pixels
Field Order Lower Field First (Interlaced) Progressive
Frame Rate 29.97 29.97
Bit Rate 2-Pass Variable Bit Rate; 3,000 kbps (for low bandwidth capability) or 10,000 kbps (for high bandwidth capability) 2-Pass Variable Bit Rate; 3,000 kbps (for low bandwidth capability) or 10,000 kbps (for high bandwidth capability)
Audio Stereo 48 kHz Stereo 48 kHz

Save the settings and export the file. The file name should be in the standard VIRIN format with the .mov file extension.

Sending Video.

Video should be transmitted using File Transfer Protocol (FTP) or Fast File Transfer (FFT). See the How to FTP page for FTP instructions and the How to FFT page for FFT instructions. For those users who cannot FTP or FFT, you can e-mail your video to video@defenseimagery.mil.

Creating camera original video.

If camera original video is shot on tape, send the original tape labeled with the VIRIN. If camera original video is digital (non-tape format) place the uncompressed files into a directory (folder) labeled with the same VIRIN as the transmittable video file. Depending on the file size, use the appropriate media (DVD, Blu-Ray, hard drive, etc.) and deliver or mail to:

Defense Imagery Management Operations Center
23755 Z St.
Bldg. 2730
Riverside, CA. 92518

(951) 413-2522 (Commercial)
348-1522 (DSN)

All camera original video needs to have a DD Form 2537, Visual Information Caption Sheet, attached via hard or digital copy.

Splitting a video file for FTP or e-mail.

The latest versions of WinZip (version 9 or higher) allow a user to split up a single Zip file into multiple parts. Using the steps below, a user can take a large video file of any format and split it into multiple, smaller files. WinZip is available for purchase at www.winzip.com. There are no plans at the current time for the Defense Visual Information Directorate to mass license this product.

  1. Create a video file using the instructions above.
  2. Open WinZip. (This technique will only work with WinZip version 9 or later.)
  3. Create a new Zip archive containing the video file you wish to transmit.
  4. From the Actions menu, choose Split.
  5. Specify the name to be used for the split files. We recommend using the VIRIN of the video followed by _split (VIRIN_split).
  6. Specify the size to be used for the individual parts. You can choose from common sizes using the Part size drop-down list or you can specify your own size. To specify your own size, choose "Other size" in the drop-down list and type the desired size in the "Other size" field. Indicate the size you are using in bytes, kilobytes (KB) or megabytes (MB) by clicking the appropriate radio button. We recommend using a file size of 3MB or less due to typical e-mail limitations and to minimize corruption when sending via FTP. If using e-mail to transmit video files, we recommend notifying your network administrators to ensure you stay under the maximum file attachment size and to ensure you have enough e-mail storage space to send the file.
  7. Click OK to create the split Zip file.
    NOTE: Each of the segments of the split Zip file will have a different extension. WinZip creates files with names like Data.Z01, Data.Z02, and so on, except for the very last segment of the new Zip file. The last segment will always have the .zip extension.
  8. To send via FTP, logon to the ftp server and transmit each file. If you need the FTP address, username, or password information, contact us at video@defenseimagery.mil.
  9. To send via e-mail, attach each split file into its own e-mail and send to video@defenseimagery.mil. In the text of the first e-mail, let us know exactly how many e-mails make up the full clip. Example: "This is e-mail 1 of 8."
  10. Send the runsheet as its own file. Do not include the runsheet in the zip file.

Additional Notes

  1. To open the split Zip file, double click the file with the .zip extension. Don’t try to open any of the files with the numbered extensions. WinZip won’t recognize them as Zip files.
  2. Once the split Zip file has been opened, you can work with it much as you would a regular Zip file, except you can’t add any new files or remove existing files. Some operations, such as creating self-extracting Zip files and editing comments, are also disabled for split Zip files.
  3. The sizes listed as "1.2MB", "1.44MB", and “2.88MB” are approximate. The segments of the split Zip file are sized appropriately to fit on media of the specified size. You cannot, however, use decimal points when specifying sizes in the "Other size" field.
  4. The split Zip file format is an extension of the Zip 2.0 specification. Therefore, some Zip utility programs may not be able to open split Zip files.