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Audio Processing...for TV

B

Brian Bowers

I realize this is mainly a radio board, but this TV topic relates to something we both have in common - audio processing. It's funny, that with all of the broadcasting technical magazines I receive and read, I may have missed this issue being discussed, or maybe it wasn't even reported yet in them. So it is to my surprise that I woke and read this in my morning paper --

Legislation to turn down the volume on those loud TV commercials that send couch potatoes diving for their remote controls looks as if it'll soon become law. The Senate unanimously passed a bill late Wednesday (9/29/10) to require television stations and cable companies to keep commercials at the same volume as the programs they interrupt. The House has passed similar legislation. Before it can become law, minor differences between the two versions have to be worked out when Congress returns to Washington after the Nov. 2 (2010) election. Correcting sound levels is more complicated than using the remote control. The television shows and ads come from a variety of sources, from local businesses to syndicators. Managing the transition between programs and ads without spoiling the artistic intent of the producers poses technical challenges and may require TV broadcasters to purchase new equipment. To address the issue, an industry organization recently produced guidelines on how to process, measure and transmit audio in a uniform way.

My questions are, who is the industry organization that recently produced the guidelines on how to process, measure and transmit audio in a uniform way? How does TV process audio differently than radio? Comments anyone?
 
Brian Bowers said:
How does TV process audio differently than radio? Comments anyone?
Click to expand...

In general TV is processed more lightly than radio. TV viewers select which station they're viewing based on the video. They'll switch from channel 4 to channel 5 if they like "Criminal Minds" better than "America's Got Talent", but they won't switch just because channel 4's audio is softer. (they will change if channel 4's audio is *inconsistent* -- but they'll complain about it...)

I don't think us TV types pay anywhere near as much attention to processing as radio types. Some TV stations have been known to *not process audio at all* since digital launched.
 
I really get the sense that for most TV stations, networks, cable outlets, audio is a definitive AFTERTHOUGHT, at best.
 
The US standard is ATSC a_85-2009

http://www.atsc.org/cms/standards/a_85-2009.pdf

and the new European standard is ITU-R R128

tech.ebu.ch/docs/techreview/trev_2010-Q3_loudness_Camerer.pdf
tech.ebu.ch/docs/r/r128.pdf

Orban's offers several products with our third generation subjective loudness controller. This is based on CBS Technology Center technology as refined by us over the last 20 years. The results measure very well using the ITU and Dolby LM100 metering.

http://www.orban.com/products/television/standard/8382/ (for analog TV)
http://www.orban.com/products/television/8685/ (5.1/7.1 surround + 3 stereo processors)
http://www.orban.com/products/television/8585/ (5.1/7.1 surround + 1 stereo processor)
http://www.orban.com/products/television/standard/6300/ (stereo for digital channels, stand-alone)
http://www.orban.com/products/radio/dab/optimod-pc1101/ (stereo for digital channels, on a PCI or PCIe card)

Bob Orban
 
Sgeirk said:
I really get the sense that for most TV stations, networks, cable outlets, audio is a definitive AFTERTHOUGHT, at best.
Click to expand...

It may have been an afterthought to those who you listed, but it certainly was slammed home to the consumer when, with the advent of digital TV, they were subjected to basically unprocessed audio program feeds, where before they had been used to the 'comfort zone friendly' homogenization imparted generally by analog processing.

Congress would never have stuck their dirty noses into TV audio if, from the outset, there had been responsible, consistent loudness management on the part of the distributors.

Kind Regards,
David Reaves
 
Then there are those paragons of engineering excellence--the cable companies. ::)

My system runs CNBC audio way down in the mud...if I really want to wake up my ears I switch from CNBC to the digital feed of the local NBC affiliate on the cable. Usually scares the cats.
 
TomT said:
Then there are those paragons of engineering excellence--the cable companies. ::)

My system runs CNBC audio way down in the mud...if I really want to wake up my ears I switch from CNBC to the digital feed of the local NBC affiliate on the cable. Usually scares the cats.
Click to expand...
If you have Comcast, you can go to the audio settings in the cable box and set the compression to "heavy." This will make the volume the same on all channels. I have never heard any compression artifacts with the compression on heavy, but it does equalize the volume between the channels.
 
TomT said:
Then there are those paragons of engineering excellence--the cable companies. ::)

My system runs CNBC audio way down in the mud...if I really want to wake up my ears I switch from CNBC to the digital feed of the local NBC affiliate on the cable. Usually scares the cats.
Click to expand...

No kidding. I hated Time Warner because of the inconsistent levels between channels, and the LOUD SPOTS during all their local ad inserts hyping overpriced "digital phone" VoIP service.
 
TomT said:
Then there are those paragons of engineering excellence--the cable companies. ::)
<snip>
Click to expand...

That's funny. Many years ago I used to get my cable TV from Paragon Cable, before it was gobbled up.
;-)

David
 
When a cable installer/engineer would have the nerve to blame my television for picture noise, I would retort, "So explain to me why a ninety-nine cent modulator inside a VCR produces a better picture?"

Isn't it interesting radio has the opposite problem. Television program audio beyond commercials is set up for dynamic range so it takes advantage of surround sound while radio program material (specifically new music) is smashed leaving little dynamic range.

Most radio operators are better at managing audio dynamics. As mentioned above the TV audio problem was never handled properly at the distribution point so now we have congress involved.
 
Heh, I thought this was going to be a discussion about processing audio for radio, but broadcasting on LPFM channel 6. ;-)

This has been interesting though. Even in this digital age, cable channels' audio varies considerably. Scripps' Food and HGTV are both really loud. Directv has been tweaking all their HD channels' audio lately because of complaints. I think they've done more harm than good on Food Network though; it sounds like they just lowered the treble and now it's very muddy. A local OTA station runs Fox on a subchannel and the audio sounds like 80 kbps mp3. And I thought digital was supposed to be better!
 
Yeah, I have been watching this for years. Hope you do not mind my opinion.....

Digital TV uses Dolby's AC-3 audio encoding system that allows metadata to set among other things the audio level coming out of your receiver. The plan was to have the content producers set their "dilanorm" level to match the content they created. The advantage of this would have been to have a wide dynamic range and a consistent viewer experience. This generally works in the movie theatres, where tighter total control can be had. In the movies, dialnorm is a good idea.

In the TV audio world, this never worked, because at the same time DTV came around, automaton and reduction in station personnel occurred. But most importantly (in my opinion) the advertising folks continued to demand that their commercial audio level be louder than the program. In the analog days, we had Orban and Modulation Sciences (among others) control the audio much like FM processing. Today, stations are slowly adding similar processing to their air chains to correct these level imbalances.

I once measured a CBS O&O's DTV audio levels for prime time. The network's average commercial level (Leq-A) was 10db above the programing. Around this time, two high engineering folks at CBS came up with a paper describing some good measurement techniques, described the "soap opera to car commercial" transition problem that exists today and then proceeded to provide their solution...process ONLY the TV shows, not the commercials!

To me, in the end Dolby's idea of wide dynamic range is laudable, but I knew it would not fly in television. Unfortunately, Congress is proving that and we will all suffer from squashed dynamics.

Dan
 
Radio & CDs have too little dynamic range...

TV and DVDs have wayyyy too much.

Seems to me it should be the opposite.

Does the new "law" define "volume" as peak or average, or does it just say "volume" as though it were as simple as a carton of milk?

It seems an old Optimod-TV with the CBS loudness controller was years ahead of this.
 
dannyscott101 said:
Does the new "law" define "volume" as peak or average, or does it just say "volume" as though it were as simple as a carton of milk?
Click to expand...

It's not a law, it's a standard. The work has been done by the P/LOUD, a working group within the EBU consisting of audio experts, specialists and industry professionals. It defines exactly how the loudness is measured (for both stereo and surround), the loudness unit, the metering scales, the loudness target level and acceptable loudness range.


Regards,
Goran Tomas
 
Goran Tomas said:
It's not a law, it's a standard. The work has been done by the P/LOUD, a working group within the EBU consisting of audio experts, specialists and industry professionals. It defines exactly how the loudness is measured (for both stereo and surround), the loudness unit, the metering scales, the loudness target level and acceptable loudness range.


Regards,
Goran Tomas
Click to expand...

Good answer... I have not been paying attention to news like this lately and just heard about this from my brother a week or so ago.

By the way, are there any dedicated TV audio processors other than the Optimod-TVs? Forgive me, but I've never yet heard of an "Omnia-TV"... Is there such a thing from anyone else already, or is it in the works? I've seen everything from Aphex Compellors to old Texars (uncoupled!) jammed in a TV audio chain, and sometimes NOTHING AT ALL! In fact, I've never actually seen an Optimod-TV in use (for its intended purpose, that is)
 
dannyscott101 said:
By the way, are there any dedicated TV audio processors other than the Optimod-TVs? Forgive me, but I've never yet heard of an "Omnia-TV"... Is there such a thing from anyone else already, or is it in the works?
Click to expand...

There was an Omnia TV when original Omnia FM came out, but in the meanwhile Telos group acquired Linear Acoustics, which is a specialized manufacturer of audio processing for TV: www.linearacoustics.com. Apart from Orban, they are the other major player in the TV processing arena.

There are some others like Junger audio, but Junger does mostly wideband processing which is why I'm personally not so fond of them.


Regards,
Goran Tomas
 
Goran Tomas said:
dannyscott101 said:
By the way, are there any dedicated TV audio processors other than the Optimod-TVs? Forgive me, but I've never yet heard of an "Omnia-TV"... Is there such a thing from anyone else already, or is it in the works?
Click to expand...

There was an Omnia TV when original Omnia FM came out, but in the meanwhile Telos group acquired Linear Acoustics, which is a specialized manufacturer of audio processing for TV: www.linearacoustics.com. Apart from Orban, they are the other major player in the TV processing arena.

There are some others like Junger audio, but Junger does mostly wideband processing which is why I'm personally not so fond of them.


Regards,
Goran Tomas
Click to expand...

I hear their processing all the time here in Germany. Most of the time it's nicely leveled, and then it punches a little momentary hole when a peak comes along. As we say, "Close but no cigar." ;-)

Kind Regards,
David
 
Hi:

There is also TC Electronic (http://www.tcelectronic.com/Broadcast.asp) and Junger audio (http://www.junger-audio.com/products/product/television-audio-processor/).

Some folks are making loudness control cards that fit in video card frames ( http://www.evertz.com/products/IntelliGain).

Then there is Dolby Volume (http://www.dolby.com/professional/technology/broadcast/dolby-volume.html). A "Fix it after the fact" system that can be incorporated in set-top-boxes and TV receivers. Proves from the horse's mouth that the idea of program manufacturers policing their own levels does not work!

Most installations I have seen (and taken part in) are the Linear Acoustic Aero Air (http://www.linearacoustic.com/aeroair.htm).

Dan
 
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