Good news!! - quieter telly ads
Posted: Sun Aug 03, 2014 7:40 am
I don't know if this has been posted before, but I searched and couldn't find anything in the search.
There is a new "Loudness Unit" for music/sound. It's similar to volume normalization, but it has now been set as a standard by the EBU and ITU. Any recording now will be played at a certain volume (-23 LUFS (loudness units full scale)). It should mean the end of all the volume jumps when shuffling from one track to another on your generic music player. It'll also mean that the ads are the same volume as the telly.
The LU value can be read similar to dB RMS, but it's based on a normalization technique. So if your whole track is compressed to hell, it gets a higher LUFS value than something with a bigger dynamic range (both have the same peak dB value). I think the TV companies may already be using it (it's been mandated since October last year). I don't watch much telly, but am going to check next time I am in front of the electric vallium.
Very interesting vid about it:
At first I was thinking "it's just normalization", nothing new, but when you realise it's impact now that it has been standardized and mandated, it's going to change music for the better. It will mean the end to all this loudness wars sheninagans (I'll put away my broom
) and that dynamic range will return (guaranteed).
I predict that rather than compressed to hell telly ads (& music), we will start seeing ads/music with lots of quiet passages in, which will allow the loud sections to be louder whilst still maintaining the -23 LUFS level. 28 seconds of silence, followed by "BUY OUR SHIT" at max volume!
Still, overall it's a definite +
There is a new "Loudness Unit" for music/sound. It's similar to volume normalization, but it has now been set as a standard by the EBU and ITU. Any recording now will be played at a certain volume (-23 LUFS (loudness units full scale)). It should mean the end of all the volume jumps when shuffling from one track to another on your generic music player. It'll also mean that the ads are the same volume as the telly.
The LU value can be read similar to dB RMS, but it's based on a normalization technique. So if your whole track is compressed to hell, it gets a higher LUFS value than something with a bigger dynamic range (both have the same peak dB value). I think the TV companies may already be using it (it's been mandated since October last year). I don't watch much telly, but am going to check next time I am in front of the electric vallium.
Very interesting vid about it:
At first I was thinking "it's just normalization", nothing new, but when you realise it's impact now that it has been standardized and mandated, it's going to change music for the better. It will mean the end to all this loudness wars sheninagans (I'll put away my broom
) and that dynamic range will return (guaranteed). I predict that rather than compressed to hell telly ads (& music), we will start seeing ads/music with lots of quiet passages in, which will allow the loud sections to be louder whilst still maintaining the -23 LUFS level. 28 seconds of silence, followed by "BUY OUR SHIT" at max volume!
Still, overall it's a definite +
Will it become LUs for the signal chain and then dBs once the sound passes through the speakers and out? Hmmm...