ORBAN POSTS V2.0 OF ITS FREE LOUDNESS METER SOFTWARE FOR WINDOWS
March 13, 2012 San Leandro, California — Orban today posted V2.0 of its free loudness meter application.
V1 worked only on Windows® PCs running XP, Vista, and 7; new in V2 is support for Intel-based Mac computers running OS10.6 or higher. Also new is comprehensive support for the ITU-R Rec. BS.1770-2 and EBU R 128 metering standards. R 128 calls for three meters: an ungated “momentary” meter having a time integration window of 400 ms, an ungated “short-term” meter having a time integration window of 3 seconds, and an “integrated” meter, having a user-selectable time integration window and gating as specified in BS.1770-2. Additionally, V2 measures Loudness Range per EBU – TECH 3342, which is incorporated into R 128 by reference.
Loudness meter scales have been revised to conform to EBU – TECH 3341 and loudness can be displayed in absolute terms or relative to a user-adjustable reference level, which is typically –23 LBFS or –24 LKFS.
Manual start/start mode is now available and maximum integration time has been extended to three hours, allowing users to measure the BS.1770-2 Integrated loudness and Loudness Range of long-form programming like feature films.
Many CDs are now mastered with gross amounts of digital-domain clipping, which can cause overshoots after D/A conversion. When clipped by analog circuitry in consumer playout devices, these overshoots will add still more distortion compared to the distortion added by the digital clipping alone. A new Reconstructed Peak meter runs at 384 kHz sample rate and indicates the peak level of the audio after D/A conversion with an accuracy of better than 0.2 dB, which is better than that required in Annex 2 of ITU-R Rec. BS.1770-2. The Reconstructed Peak meter allows mastering engineers to anticipate analog-domain clipping and to prevent it by slightly lowering maximum peak levels in the digital domain.
The meter now allows users to write comma-delimited ASCII log files that can be imported into any common spreadsheet or graphing application for graphical display. Typical applications include graphing loudness vs. time and creating histograms. Logging can also be used to verify that television stations in the U.S. are complying with the CALM Act.
The VU meter has been revised so that it can indicate levels above 0 VU. 0 VU can now be aligned to common line-up levels like –20 dBFS (SMPTE) or –18 dBFS (EBU).
The PPM is now oversampled at 384 kHz, so it more accurately indicates the effect of short-duration peaks.
The application now supports WASAPI Loopback operation in Windows Vista and 7. This allows the meter to monitor any sound device that uses the Windows WAVE audio system without depending on the specific features of a given sound device’s driver.
The Orban software is free to end users and is sponsored by Orban’s Optimod-TV loudness controllers, including the 1101, 6300, 6585, and 8685. It can be downloaded from www.orban.com/meter. Although the current meter supports only mono and stereo programs, future enhancements will include 5.1-channel surround metering and loudness analysis of files in several formats.
March 13, 2012 San Leandro, California — Orban today posted V2.0 of its free loudness meter application.
V1 worked only on Windows® PCs running XP, Vista, and 7; new in V2 is support for Intel-based Mac computers running OS10.6 or higher. Also new is comprehensive support for the ITU-R Rec. BS.1770-2 and EBU R 128 metering standards. R 128 calls for three meters: an ungated “momentary” meter having a time integration window of 400 ms, an ungated “short-term” meter having a time integration window of 3 seconds, and an “integrated” meter, having a user-selectable time integration window and gating as specified in BS.1770-2. Additionally, V2 measures Loudness Range per EBU – TECH 3342, which is incorporated into R 128 by reference.
Loudness meter scales have been revised to conform to EBU – TECH 3341 and loudness can be displayed in absolute terms or relative to a user-adjustable reference level, which is typically –23 LBFS or –24 LKFS.
Manual start/start mode is now available and maximum integration time has been extended to three hours, allowing users to measure the BS.1770-2 Integrated loudness and Loudness Range of long-form programming like feature films.
Many CDs are now mastered with gross amounts of digital-domain clipping, which can cause overshoots after D/A conversion. When clipped by analog circuitry in consumer playout devices, these overshoots will add still more distortion compared to the distortion added by the digital clipping alone. A new Reconstructed Peak meter runs at 384 kHz sample rate and indicates the peak level of the audio after D/A conversion with an accuracy of better than 0.2 dB, which is better than that required in Annex 2 of ITU-R Rec. BS.1770-2. The Reconstructed Peak meter allows mastering engineers to anticipate analog-domain clipping and to prevent it by slightly lowering maximum peak levels in the digital domain.
The meter now allows users to write comma-delimited ASCII log files that can be imported into any common spreadsheet or graphing application for graphical display. Typical applications include graphing loudness vs. time and creating histograms. Logging can also be used to verify that television stations in the U.S. are complying with the CALM Act.
The VU meter has been revised so that it can indicate levels above 0 VU. 0 VU can now be aligned to common line-up levels like –20 dBFS (SMPTE) or –18 dBFS (EBU).
The PPM is now oversampled at 384 kHz, so it more accurately indicates the effect of short-duration peaks.
The application now supports WASAPI Loopback operation in Windows Vista and 7. This allows the meter to monitor any sound device that uses the Windows WAVE audio system without depending on the specific features of a given sound device’s driver.
The Orban software is free to end users and is sponsored by Orban’s Optimod-TV loudness controllers, including the 1101, 6300, 6585, and 8685. It can be downloaded from www.orban.com/meter. Although the current meter supports only mono and stereo programs, future enhancements will include 5.1-channel surround metering and loudness analysis of files in several formats.
