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Loud commercials
- Thread starter nd2023
- Start date
Audio Technicians, particularly in the broadcast world, have cussed, discussed and debated this topic for years.
How do you measure "apparent loudness"? Many of us grew up in broadcasting where we monitored PEAK loudness with a VU meter.
Compressed and limited sound will come out sounding a lot louder than "raw" sound with the same peak values.
Not all listeners hear alike. Put an older person in front of a radio or TV and if they have lost their ability to hear the higher frequencies, the brassy, bassy voice over announcer with a commercial that has been tightly compressed will sound very loud in comparison to a female voice with a light of high pitched syllables. But if you have golden ears, you may judge the female voice to be very loud.
On TV I suspect the sponsors indeed purposely add some "loudness" because they feel they must be louder than everyone else.
By the time the voice-over booth has some compression, then the ad agency does their favorite processing, and then the TV network adds to the recipe, the local station further flattens things out, and finally the cable company processes the audio a bit further, the final output can do what you described, with everyone in the daisy chain pointing at everyone else: Not MY fault. Somebody else messed it up.
How do you measure "apparent loudness"? Many of us grew up in broadcasting where we monitored PEAK loudness with a VU meter.
Compressed and limited sound will come out sounding a lot louder than "raw" sound with the same peak values.
Not all listeners hear alike. Put an older person in front of a radio or TV and if they have lost their ability to hear the higher frequencies, the brassy, bassy voice over announcer with a commercial that has been tightly compressed will sound very loud in comparison to a female voice with a light of high pitched syllables. But if you have golden ears, you may judge the female voice to be very loud.
On TV I suspect the sponsors indeed purposely add some "loudness" because they feel they must be louder than everyone else.
By the time the voice-over booth has some compression, then the ad agency does their favorite processing, and then the TV network adds to the recipe, the local station further flattens things out, and finally the cable company processes the audio a bit further, the final output can do what you described, with everyone in the daisy chain pointing at everyone else: Not MY fault. Somebody else messed it up.
Nick said:
Most often - because they don't care. Or don't know how to deal with it.
The problem often lies in different levels and/or different loudness of various program elements. There are are standards in place to control the level based on loudness, such as Dolby and BS.1770 and BS.1771 recommendations, but the question is do the stations adhere to the standards correctly throughout the whole transmission? The thing that perhaps helps the most is the final dynamics processors. By its nature it will reduce dynamics, but it will also level out both long and short-term level variations. However, another question is how good is the processor a station uses, how well it controls loudness and is it set up correctly at all? Finally, nothing can help you if a very quiet moment in a movie or a TV series is followed by an (over)produced commercial...
Regards,
Goran Tomas
Didn't CBS make a Loudness Controller for TV back in the Audimax/Volumax days?
Nick said:
Not much input to the topic... We have a tv set in the bedroom. One of the most seen channels is the AXN at night. During the breaks we can't stand the loudness... we switch to another channel. It's freaking disturbing hearing the insane loudness while people are trying to sleep.
On the other hand, here in Portugal national TV stations (on cable and air) have a good behaviour regardind loudness, very consistent.
Pedro
CBS built a Loudness Meter. How accurate it was/is, I dunnmo. Consider though, most television sound is spoken word, and the picture is the play. Consequently TV audio tends to be very lightly processed. In The Day, it wasn't at all uncommon to find only a slow AGC and a safety limiter in the audio chain to air. Ad agencies and production houses quickly realized that, if they applied fairly heavy compression to the audio behind their spots, it would 'jump out' at the viewer. Like so many things in our industry, iuf a little helped, a lot was likely to be too much. The current audio your hear is the result.
I don't think the digital conversion helped the situation either. A simple compellor on the output headed to the transmitter and fiber for cable types would help a lot. The public for the most part just wants it within the guard rails and consistant. A compellor, a omnia one, or nearly anything half modern would be better than most tv stations these days IMHO. Also, I feel there is no real reference for digital stuff right now so people set their stations where they want. It would behoove the engineering tie guys that run tv engineering departments in a city to get together long enough to figure out what the level standard should be in a market. Lack of consistancy beteen channels is just a irritant for viewers. I have heard a LOT of non tech types I know ask me why they have to keep messing with the volume on tv stations. Don't these guys that are in charge of these businesses have people ask the same thing? It doesn't seem like it would take too long to get it right if someone cared.
Stations that have processors should not have this problem. Problem is, many cable networks don't have any final limiting, or it's set too slow. Also, most locally inserted cable spots don't have their levels matched with the network, and most often there is no processing there either. Even most broadcast stations now have fiber feeds from their studios directly to the cable co's. And those feeds often don't have processing.
So the short answer is that TV operators need to make sure their audio is processed before it leaves the facility, EACH way that it leaves.
So the short answer is that TV operators need to make sure their audio is processed before it leaves the facility, EACH way that it leaves.
A
Allready
Guest
because the commercials pay the bills. :
It is extremely annoying, and I have to change the channel. Problem is though that the news channels seem to be in sync and have commercials at the same time! I have been thinking that since I have an extra compellor 320 sitting around I may use this for this, and how one channel is loud and another is quite. I have also noticed that one that I watch often has horrible sound. Like a really low bit MP3. All the swishing etc. I don't know what they are doing but it sucks. If I use the compellor though it means I have to run sound thru the stereo and I get a major hum from it. I have to unplug the cable when I put in a DVD or Blu Ray. The is bad or worse now with my newer pioneer blu ray player for some reason.
Anyway, yeah it was annoying when they went to commercial and Billy Mays was actually shouting in my ears. I'm sure he was nice guy but wow was he annoying in commercials.
It is extremely annoying, and I have to change the channel. Problem is though that the news channels seem to be in sync and have commercials at the same time! I have been thinking that since I have an extra compellor 320 sitting around I may use this for this, and how one channel is loud and another is quite. I have also noticed that one that I watch often has horrible sound. Like a really low bit MP3. All the swishing etc. I don't know what they are doing but it sucks. If I use the compellor though it means I have to run sound thru the stereo and I get a major hum from it. I have to unplug the cable when I put in a DVD or Blu Ray. The is bad or worse now with my newer pioneer blu ray player for some reason.Anyway, yeah it was annoying when they went to commercial and Billy Mays was actually shouting in my ears. I'm sure he was nice guy but wow was he annoying in commercials.
Actually here in North Hollywood, I have kind of a reverse situation. If I adjust my volume for comfortable listening to the regular programming and the national commercials come on they blare at me but the local inserts are often at whisper levels. I know it is done different than back when I was working in Cable TV when we used 3/4" U-Matic play back decks at the headend. Then the national feed was processed but our local insertion was the raw audio with no compression, only the limiter built into the recorder when we made the tapes. But then I did not notice as big of a level change like now.
One thing is that I doubt that cable systems have changed is that there was no way to monitor audio levels on the outgoing signals only a peak / overload led on the modulators, one for aural and one for visual. We had monitoring equipment on a test cart with VU meters but that was only used when testing an existing or setting up a new modulator. SO the suggestion for TV broadcasters to properly process from their end is a good one, but local insertion is a problem.
One thing is that I doubt that cable systems have changed is that there was no way to monitor audio levels on the outgoing signals only a peak / overload led on the modulators, one for aural and one for visual. We had monitoring equipment on a test cart with VU meters but that was only used when testing an existing or setting up a new modulator. SO the suggestion for TV broadcasters to properly process from their end is a good one, but local insertion is a problem.
BobOnTheJob said:
Orban and CRL licensed second-generation CBS loudness controller technology in 1981 and it is built in to thousands of Orban and CRL audio processors for analog television. This is why analog television, when the audio was given some care, did not have the loud commercial problem and loudness inconsistency that currently plague DTV.
Orban currently manufactures a surround processor (the 8585) using third-generation technology based on the CBS loudness controller algorithm but with substantial modifications and improvements. The 8585 also includes CBS loudness meters, which are accurate DSP models of the original second-generation Jones & Torick meter developed at CBS Technology Center. A free stereo version of this meter for Windows XP and Vista is available at www.orban.com/meter. This also contains an ITU BS.1770 meter, a VU meter, and a PPM, allowing engineers to compare the readings of these four meters in real time.
There are other loudness controllers available from other manufacturers but none are based on the CBS technology. The main problem right now with DTV is that available loudness control technology is often not being used.
Bob Orban
littlejohn said:
The second-generation meter (from 1981) was pretty accurate. Our DSP model of this meter is the one implemented in our free application for Windows. We also use it today in the 8585. It will shortly be implemented in the 6300 and is already in the Optimod-PC 1101 beta software.
The original write-up, including the results of subjective evaluation with a panel of listeners, can be found here:
Bronwyn L. Jones and Emil L. Torick, “A New Loudness Indicator for Use in Broadcasting,” J. SMPTE September 1981, pp. 772-777.
A discussion of this technology is found in here: http://orban.com/meter/Technology.html
I have the free meter - I like it. I had read but forgotten the SMPTE paper (at Mr ORban's suggestion).
I suspect the reason a lot of digital broadcasts aen't limited is a combination of l;ack of care and lack of regulatory interest. Analog overmodulation will result in problems which may well affect other signals, thus the FCC pays (scant) attention to it. Garbaging up the digital audio harms only the station doing it, so the watchdog agency isn't concerned with it.
I suspect the reason a lot of digital broadcasts aen't limited is a combination of l;ack of care and lack of regulatory interest. Analog overmodulation will result in problems which may well affect other signals, thus the FCC pays (scant) attention to it. Garbaging up the digital audio harms only the station doing it, so the watchdog agency isn't concerned with it.
Hi all:
Having worked at the station level on TV loudness (top 10 market FWIW), there are three problems I see.
1) the station does not have a audio processor as these are very expensive. Audio at any level is passed to the consumer.
2) The average level of a commercial as compared to programming is not consistent for a couple of reasons. One is that there is little QC and correction of this level from generation to the station. I have seen commercials to be consistently louder (10db and more is common, and the car spot next to a soap opera is very hard to manage in any situation) than programming. Not only from local sources but from the network feed.
3) From a paper I have read by the network engineering group in a tall black building in Manhattan, it have derived the opinion that advertisers are requesting and receiving a higher average audio level than show programming. This paper measured many spots for their level and came to the conclusion that the programs (not the spots!) were to be dynamically compressed (i.e. "corrected") at the network level before distribution. To me, this would ensure an inconsistent level between shows and spots.
Dolby has derived a good system of 5.1 creation and distribution (ac-3), but assumed each player in the game would play by the rules. This did not happen, so the only answer is to have the level corrected at the station. Today a multiband unit (such as Orban, Linear Acoustic and TC electronic) answer's the problem pretty well, at the expense of the natural dynamic range that Dolby wanted and the medium could pass.
I'd like to see the average (LEQ-A, BS1770, etc) level adjusted (not compressed) via an offline background process that corrects each spot's total level on a server before it is aired. This way we'd retain the dynamic range and get a smooth listening experience.
Just my opinion....
73,
Dan
W1DAN
Having worked at the station level on TV loudness (top 10 market FWIW), there are three problems I see.
1) the station does not have a audio processor as these are very expensive. Audio at any level is passed to the consumer.
2) The average level of a commercial as compared to programming is not consistent for a couple of reasons. One is that there is little QC and correction of this level from generation to the station. I have seen commercials to be consistently louder (10db and more is common, and the car spot next to a soap opera is very hard to manage in any situation) than programming. Not only from local sources but from the network feed.
3) From a paper I have read by the network engineering group in a tall black building in Manhattan, it have derived the opinion that advertisers are requesting and receiving a higher average audio level than show programming. This paper measured many spots for their level and came to the conclusion that the programs (not the spots!) were to be dynamically compressed (i.e. "corrected") at the network level before distribution. To me, this would ensure an inconsistent level between shows and spots.
Dolby has derived a good system of 5.1 creation and distribution (ac-3), but assumed each player in the game would play by the rules. This did not happen, so the only answer is to have the level corrected at the station. Today a multiband unit (such as Orban, Linear Acoustic and TC electronic) answer's the problem pretty well, at the expense of the natural dynamic range that Dolby wanted and the medium could pass.
I'd like to see the average (LEQ-A, BS1770, etc) level adjusted (not compressed) via an offline background process that corrects each spot's total level on a server before it is aired. This way we'd retain the dynamic range and get a smooth listening experience.
Just my opinion....
73,
Dan
W1DAN
Or just compress & fast limit the hel** out of the audio so everything is the same level. Quiet spot in a network show? In milliseconds it brings up the background noise to just below clipping.
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