Adopting innovative technologies and techniques is always fundamental to the control of capital and operational costs - the key to broadcast facilities or technology providers gaining competitive advantage.
Sports commentary has continually suffered from high operational costs, whether at the sports venue itself or "off-glass", due to the need for high levels of operational and technical support.
However, the Junger Audio's D*AP4 VAP EDITION presents a real opportunity for sports programming technology providers to make a dent in these costs.
For simple single-commentary events, the VAP (Voice Audio Processor) EDITION can provide all the necessary connections, audio processing and mixing, to deliver or embed commentary to a sports program transmission.
The highly adaptive processing and mixing of the VAP EDITION virtually guarantees the highest level of voice and program quality; responding to changes in tone, levels or even the commentator to deliver consistently high quality and intelligible commentary.
The wide range of multi-channel input/output modules for this platform also makes the VAP EDITION cost-effectively scalable, to deliver multiple simultaneous commentaries for a single event or multiple commentaries for many events.
The Junger Audio range comprises two hardware platforms. The D*AP4 offers 4 channels of processing with a single IO expansion slot while the D*AP8 offers 8 channels of processing with two IO slots.
The VAP EDITION, based on the D*AP4 platform, comprises two voice-processing channels and two program channels:
The VAP EDITION's voice channels provide:
Dynamics control - compressor, upwards compressor, expander/gate and soft-limiter
Spectral Signature - automated dynamic filters to maintain voice-tone consistency
EQ - static 4-band parametric equaliser
De-esser - sibilance control and removal
Leveller - voice loudness controller - matches voice levels to target programme loudness
Phase Rotator -corrects the asymmetry common with voice signals preventing unnecessary dynamics processing
The Program channels are free of processing except for a voiceover module that mixes the voice channels to the program with control over pan position, mix level and program ducking to give the required prominence to the commentary on the voice channels.
Plus, the optional Programme loudness control using Junger Audio's Level Magic II process.
However, there are three key components in the VAP EDITION processing kit that sets it apart for this application:
Dynamics - the Junger upwards compressor The compressor section includes, in addition to the traditional downwards compressor, an upwards compressor that raises the level of lower level signals that fall below the Reference Level (see right). A more subtle process that avoids the often obvious artefacts of traditional downwards compression.
Spectral Signature - multi-band dynamic filtering The VAP EDITION Spectral Signature captures a target "tonal template" from a reference piece of audio. Spectral Signature compares the incoming audio and template and dynamically matches the tonal balance of the source to the template. The beauty of Spectral Signature is if the incoming audio, as a whole or in part, already matches the tonal template, no processing is applied.
Spectral Signature delivers voices with consistent timbre, high levels of intelligibility and consistency and will also compensate for fluctuating proximity effect and head-turns when using tie-clip microphones.
Level Magic II - Programme Loudness control The final (optional) component is Junger Audio's renowned Level Magic II loudness management.
Level Magic II - three processes that control peak levels, loudness range and overall loudness; seamlessly guaranteeing the final program output has consistent loudness and conforms to the loudness specification required.
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