Au - Audio Monitoring

Space

How to read the TC Electronics audio monitoring loudness meter

Loudness Radar Meter Features

  1. Radar View - Short Term Loudness History, 4 min per revolution, 6dB between circles

  2. Loudness Target

  3. Outer Ring - Momentary Loudness (M)

  4. Soft part - Short Term Loudness (S)

  5. Loud part - Short Term Loudness (S)

  6. Loudness Range (LRA) (entire program)

  7. True–peak warning

  8. Loudness Unit (LU, LUFS or LKFS)

  9. Time since Reset

  10. Program Loudness (I) (entire program)

Before January the 1st 2013 the TV and film industry standard for the audio level is called OP48. This was the restriction requiring that the reference level is -20BFS. This was too hard to monitor and had everyone competing for the loudest TV add. They were all abiding by the OP48 restriction however they were using heavy compression and heavy limiting to push up the LKFS (Loudness, K-weighted, Full Scale), now commonly known as LUFS (Loudness, Units relative to Full Scale), creating a war called the loudness war.

The new restriction OP59 was brought in to diminish this issue. It uses the LUFS scale instead of BFS. This means that the new audio loudness standard is -24LUFS. Another part of restriction OP59 is the True Peak limit of -2dBFS.

Once this new restriction started a new meter was created. Unlike the VU meter, which was used for OP48, measuring the signal level, The new meter, ITU-R BS.1770-3, (1770-3 for short) measures the loudness LUFS. This is how people cannot now be a part of the loudness wars.


Extracted from: https://megandaleyedwards.wordpress.com/2016/10/20/australian-loudness-standards/

Additional information about the global standards: https://www.tcelectronic.com/brand/tcelectronic/loudness-broadcast-standards

More info: https://www.tcelectronic.com/Categories/Tcelectronic/Computer-Audio/Plug-Ins-%26-Add-On-Licenses/LM2N/p/HE088