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State Of The Nation: Securing The Future

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This magazine is a notable champion for education in our industry, and deserves much praise for its efforts. To my mind, there is all too little concern for our future. I have previously taken up your time in these pages on the subject of creating the next generation of talent, but I am largely unrepentant that I am going to do it again. Pretty muc...

Submitted by Dick Hobbs - new

Published 03 November 2019

An Obituary to Timecode

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A stoic and persistent character that stubbornly refused to change with the times, Timecode has finally passed on, but no-one has noticed. A long-lasting industry veteran, Timecode was brought into this world at an uncertain date in the late 1960s due to the needs of analogue tape workflows and the demand for synchronisation between audio and video...

Submitted by Bruce Devlin - new

Published 09 November 2018

Listening to the needs of audio engineers

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Monitoring SDI video content within an installation is and has always been straight forwards. If you have a monitor, and you can see the image correctly, all is well. This is not necessarily the case for metadata and especially not for audio. Assuming a SMPTE 352 payload packet is present on the SDI signal, this metadata determines how the video co...

Submitted by Alan Wheable

Published 07 June 2018

The Transistion in Audio Monitoring

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As signal chains have become increasingly complex, the challenges involved in managing and monitoring these paths have multiplied exponentially. Over the past few decades, we\'ve migrated from handling a single channel of content using composite video and analog audio pairs, to elaborate multi-channel facilities routing HD video with embedded audio...

Submitted by Shane Toven

Published 15 March 2017

Trends in IP based broadcast

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The momentum behind moving media operations to IP-based environments is unstoppable and to stay ahead of the competition these days, companies need to be migrating operations away from rigid, single-purpose components and towards software-based common computing resources. The good news is a well-architected IP-based production facility is now able...

Submitted by Glodina Lostanlen

Published 13 January 2017

Loudness Measurement and Control Strategies For The UK Br...

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by Manik Gupta Issue 113 - May 2016 A common issue that today\'s broadcast ,cable, and satellite operators face is inconsistent loudness. Over the years, the loudness levels of some commercials have been deliberately increased to catch audiences\' attention. Ultimately, inconsistent loudness between regular programming and advertisements has discou...

Submitted by Manik Gupta

Published 13 May 2016

4k is a reality for live production

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Some aspects of the broadcast industry move exceedingly quickly; new cameras are launched seemingly daily, shows are commissioned and shows are axed but the overall pace of the industry remains pretty steady. Would it shock you to hear that NHK in Japan first built its own 4K prototype camera in 2003? (At this point, it's worth clarifying that we'r...

Submitted by Liam Laminman

Published 01 April 2016

Exceptional loudness control does not have to break the b...

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by Oliver Masciarotte, Director of Customer Experience, Minnetonka Audio SoftwareThe industry is buzzing about loudness control. It is perhaps the most important audio issue facing broadcasters today because governments have mandated change. EBU R128 and other such legislation around the world attempts to provide some level of consistency in percei...

Submitted by Oliver Masciarotte

Published 01 June 2013

Loudness Monitoring: Complacent Wont Get You Compliant

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Stricter regulations across the globe, the worldwide need for standardized audio level loudness processing, the need for logging and graphing mixed with long-term records maintenance for compliance verification, and the convergence of SDI/IP and ASI technologies all make for a challenging time in the broadcast industry. Identical and obligatory com...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 December 2012

Issues in surround audio and new technologies to address...

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Issues in surround audio and new technologies to address them. Surround audio and the encoding technologies, such as Dolbys AC-3 used to transmit it, have introduced new issues in maintaining audio quality. At a time when skilled audio personnel are getting scarce and budgets are shrinking new technologies hold the key to delivering top quality aud...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 December 2012

Here is the news

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Here is the newsIn mid-May the EBU and SMPTE brought together many of the great and the good of the television industry – and me – to a forum on emerging media technologies. Held in Geneva, in a hotel expensive even by Swiss standards, it was supposed to set the agenda for the future, to share solutions so the future will be bright. As is always th...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 July 2012

Goes One Step Beyond In The Competitive Loudness Metering...

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Over the last few years audio loudness has been a hot topic for the broadcast industry and one of the key issues faced by engineers in control of audio output. Significant differences in volume have led to many complaints from viewers who don’t like having to reach for the remote every time they change channel or are faced with a deafening commerci...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 June 2012

Say again? What is loudness?

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Loudness is making a lot of noise these days, but what does it really mean? There is certainly no shortage of gurus who are happy to posit answers, but are they addressing the right questions?For instance, much has been made of the EBU’s recent Loudness Metering specification (EBU Tech 3341). But it has to be said that the EBU only makes recommenda...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 June 2012

Meeting the Demands Of The Market

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Much has been said about audio loudness and there can be few people in broadcast who are unaware of the new legislation being introduced by various countries to control this problem. The UK and Italy have already set limits on loudness levels and in 2010 the US introduced the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act (CALM), making it illega...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 July 2011

The New ITU-R BS1770-2 Loudness Standard

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HistoryThe ITU-R standard BS1770-1, released in 2006, describes a fundamental loudness measurement algorithm. The basic technique was validated through listening tests on varied program material, performed in labs around the world. In late 2010 the ITU committee which maintains BS1770 accepted (after much negotiation) changes submitted by the EBU....

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 July 2011