Mixing Audio for Network Submission

TyFord

TyFord

Well-known member
In the USA, getting levels right for submission in post has been way behind the rest of the world. I just had a chat with my friend Bouke in Holland who has a neat and inexpensive piece of software you might want to look at for $29 Euros. It's called LoudnessChange (for Mac or PC) and is part of a suite of odd little apps from VideoToolshed.

[url]http://www.videotoolshed.com/product/68/loudnesschange[/URL]

Open LoudnessChange, select a profile (they're different in different parts of Europe and he's just added a Fox profile for the US). Click Analyze to check the file. Click Report to get a second-by-second report of where your audio is over, and with simple overall gain problems, click Render to generate a new file that meets the specs.


If your audio has individual specific problems, Loudness Change will create a time-based file to show you where the problems are and you can fix them manually.


He’s pretty open to thoughts, so if you see the need for something, be in touch.


Anybody using LoudnessChange yet?

Regards,

Ty Ford
 
I remember those. Kind of a different thing though. Live metering VS post mix submissions tester. Neither seems to deal with the one that is driving folks nuts though, the Dolby DialNormn umber that quite a few american cable companies started requiring. It's kind of like the LEQ # but has a "intelligent dialog filter" that nobody I have heard of has come up with a reliable way around. You can kind of cheat by looking at only the dialog tracks but as far as I know there is no way to get a reliable number except with their box (very pricey) or some pricey plugins.


Another one is Audio Leak
 
Wow this looks nice. I'll demo this for work. For the most part it has been DMM or NuGen.
 
David W. Jones said:
I have been mixing my TV commercials to ITU-R BS.1770-1 standards and have never had one rejected.
Click to expand...

A good point. I probably should have said "cable networks". What you need depends a LOT on where it's going. National networks are the ones that have been pushing the Dolby requirement. And that is for shows, I'm not sure it applies to commercials, though probably.
Local stations are a different ball of wax generally and vary a lot. Also radio varies a lot. I suspect that anything local wants basically a pop music mix. National networks like NPR have a bunch of specs that are very specific. The nationals tend to run your submission through a QA run and bounce it back to you if it "fails", locals have brick-wall limiters on their transmitters so they probably don't care all that much, it will just get squashed if it's out of spec.

And again ads have different requirements, in my experience, than shows.
 
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