IBC Printed Guide - September 2014 - 58


www.inbroadcast.com PRODUCT GUIDE | Sept 12 - 16, 2014

Loudness Automation - Time Saver Extraordinaire

To hit some loudness targets requires a complete re-run of the entire clip...
By:
Uffe Kjems Hansen
Product Marketing Director

N

58

ow there is a solution, thanks
to DK-Technologies latest
software release (free to all existing
users) for DK T7 and DK1, 2, and 5
audio meters.
The problem stems from the
fact that integrated loudness
expresses the overall loudness,
averaging over the entire audio
section in question.
This essentially means that
the whole audio clip has to be
recalculated for even the slightest
change, rendering a very slow and
time consuming workflow.
With its latest software update,
DK-Technologies has created a
new approach to this problem
that saves time and allows a
significantly faster and more
efficient workflow.
By feeding the Loudness meter
timecode, the meter is capable
of remembering the loudness
events in up to four hours of audio
(DK T7). This means that a full
recalculation can be carried out

at any point in time, essentially
allowing for edits to be carried out
while avoiding complete re-run.
In example 1, using the EBU
R128 target of -23LUFS and an
audio clip of 4.35 minutes we
play it from beginning to end to
measure the Integrated Loudness
of clip.
Unfortunately the result is
-24.5 LUFS, 1.5 LU shy of our
-23LUFS target. At 1.40 minutes
in we can bump the level and
increase the overall loudness.
On a conventional system, we
would have to run through the
entire 4.35 minutes of audio again
(Example 2), even though we only
altered about 15 seconds. A waste
of time!
This is true no matter the length
of the audio clip. For an hour-long
TV documentary, we would have
to wait for an hour before knowing
the new Integrated Loudness
answer. If the target is still off, we
would need to go again!

In DK-Technologies solution, the
meter e.g. DK T7, is fed timecode
during the initial Integrated
Loudness measurement (Example
1). Because of this, the meter
knows the context of loudness
events and when starting to edit,
all it needs to recalculate the
resulting loudness is the edited
section.
Once the editing is done, we

playback the edited 15 seconds
(Example 3) and the DK T7 instantly
tells us the resulting loudness
for the entire 4.35 minutes of
audio. And you can edit over
and over again, even in different
spots and you will always have
an instant reading of the overall
loudness result thanks to the
new DK-Technologies Loudness
Automation.

Edit & get an instant result on Integrated Loudness with DK-Technologies software update.

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