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Loudness Standards in Broadcasting. Case Study of EBU R-128 Implementation at SWR

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Loudness Standards in Broadcasting. Case Study of EBU R-128 Implementation at SWR Loudness standards in broadcasting. Case study of EBU R-128 implementation at SWR Carbonell Tena, Damià Curs 2015-2016 Director: Enric Giné Guix GRAU EN ENGINYERIA DE SISTEMES AUDIOVISUALS Treball de Fi de Grau Loudness standards in broadcasting. Case study of EBU R-128 implementation at SWR Damià Carbonell Tena TREBALL FI DE GRAU ENGINYERIA DE SISTEMES AUDIOVISUALS ESCOLA SUPERIOR POLITÈCNICA UPF 2016 DIRECTOR DEL TREBALL ENRIC GINÉ GUIX Dedication Für die Familie Schaupp. Mit euch fühle ich mich wie zuhause und ich weiß dass ich eine zweite Familie in Deutschland für immer haben werde. Ohne euch würde diese Arbeit nicht möglich gewesen sein. Vielen Dank! iv Thanks I would like to thank the SWR for being so comprehensive with me and for letting me have this wonderful experience with them. Also for all the help, experience and time given to me. Thanks to all the engineers and technicians in the house, Jürgen Schwarz, Armin Büchele, Reiner Liebrecht, Katrin Koners, Oliver Seiler, Frauke von Mueller- Rick, Patrick Kirsammer, Christian Eickhoff, Detlef Büttner, Andreas Lemke, Klaus Nowacki and Jochen Reß that helped and advised me and a special thanks to Manfred Schwegler who was always ready to help me and to Dieter Gehrlicher for his comprehension. Also to my teacher and adviser Enric Giné for his patience and dedication and to the team of the Secretaria ESUP that answered all the questions asked during the process. Of course to my Catalan and German families for the moral (and economical) support and to Ema Madeira for all the corrections, revisions and love given during my stay far from home. v Abstract During the 90s and the first decade of the 2000s the loudness levels of popular music increased drastically as no real loudness standard was used for mixing and mastering. The same happened in the broadcasting industry where constant loudness level changes between programs or channels annoyed the consumers. Different organizations around the world decided to stop this phenomena by creating standards like ATSC A/85 (USA, Canada) or EBU R128 (Europe). A public German broadcaster, the SWR (Südwestrundfunk), in which I had the opportunity to do my praxis semester, has already implemented the EBU R128, and it is currently fully functional. I studied and explained the European standardizations in order to increase the awareness about the topic and to provide useful information for their fully understanding. In this work I explain how the implementation was done at SWR, along with the insights from the engineers who work there, providing a review with useful information for other broadcasters. Resum Durant la època dels 90 i la primera dècada dels 2000, el nivell de loudness de la musica pop va augmentar dràsticament ja que en aquella època no es feia servir cap estàndard de loudness a l’hora de mesclar o masteritzar. El mateix va passar a la industria de les telecomunicacions, on els canvis constants de nivell de loudness entre canals o programes molestaven als consumidors. Diverses organitzacions d’arreu del món van decidir acabar amb aquest fenomen creant estàndards com la ATSC A/85 (EEUU, Canada) o la EBU R128 (Europa). Un canal públic alemany, la SWR (Südwestrundfunk), on vaig tenir la oportunitat de fer el meu semestre de pràctiques, ja ha implementat la EBU R128 i actualment està en complet funcionament. He estudiat i explicat les estandarditzacions europees per augmentar la coneixença d’aquest tema i per a proveir informació útil per la seva plena comprensió. En aquest treball explico com es va realitzar la implementació a la SWR, conjuntament amb el parer dels enginyers que hi treballen, proveïen així informació rellevant per a altres televisions. vi Prologue With the digital revolution we achieved a new era for the audiovisual world and acquired a technology that opened new opportunities. These new technologies improved the dynamic range capabilities and reduced ground noise and the physical constrains inherent to analog recording. It seems, however, that we were not able to fully understand the advantages of this new technologies. The overwhelming increase in dynamic range capabilities were despised by producing louder and increasingly over-compressed material in order to sound louder than the rest, in an attempt to stand out (or perhaps, to sell) more than our competition. Even though compression is needed and in some situations -especially when audio is meant to be reproduced in noisy environments such as cars or public areas- it has been quite often over-used with commercial intentions. This situation, which began at the 60s, speeded up at the end of the 1980s and reached its peak at the beginning of the 2000s, is usually called “Loudness War”1, and it has reached a point where the product that producers are selling is almost harmful for the consumers. (Vickers, 2010) Lately there has been a lot of debate about the future of the audiovisual industry. So it is that the International Associations in Telecommunications and Broadcasting has taken measures so that modern technology can be exploited while protecting the consumer, who has been complaining about the situation for years. Among other organizations, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) has worked on the ITU BS. 1770-2 standard and the European Broadcast Union (EBU) has worked on the EBU R128 recommendations. The aim of both is to set some ground rules for mixing in order to normalize loudness levels and to avoid big changes in the loudness between TV programs or channels, but these rules could be applied to the music industry as well. The aim of this thesis is to study the implementation of these recommendations on a TV broadcaster, and what changes have to be done in the workflow so these recommendations can be fulfilled. The specific broadcaster to serve as a case study will be the Südwestrundfunk2(SWR), a public German regional TV studio in Stuttgart. This situation has been a problem in the music and in the broadcasting industry, but, as said, in this thesis we will only be focusing on the broadcasting industry. Nevertheless, it is going to be impossible not to mention the music industry constantly as they have evolved together, and one cannot exist without the other. (E.g. Music produced for Compact Disc often is also used in TV-Productions) 1 It is called Loudness war (also known as Loudness race) as there has been a tough competition to get the mixings louder than the competitors and this, according to some experts (Shepherd., 2011), has been harmful to the public audience, therefore it is compared to a war as both are competitive and harmful. 2 http://www.swr.de/ viii ix Content Abstract ............................................................................................................................ vi Prologue ......................................................................................................................... viii Content ............................................................................................................................. x Figures ............................................................................................................................. xi Tables ............................................................................................................................. xii 1. HISTORY OF LOUDNESS...................................................................................... 1 1.1. Getting technical ................................................................................................ 2 1.1.1. Peak vs. loudness normalization ................................................................. 4 1.1.2. Compression distortion ............................................................................... 5 1.2. Loudness in broadcasting ................................................................................. 10 1.3. Metering ........................................................................................................... 10 1.3.1. Peak Program Meter ................................................................................. 11 1.3.2. The VU meter ........................................................................................... 11 1.3.3. New meters ............................................................................................... 12 2. RECOMMENDATIONS ........................................................................................ 15 2.1. ITU BS. 1770 ................................................................................................... 15 2.2. EBU R128 ........................................................................................................ 20 2.2.1. Program Loudness .................................................................................... 20 2.2.2. Loudness Range ........................................................................................ 20 2.2.3. True Peak level ......................................................................................... 22 2.2.4. Implementation in the production chain ................................................... 22 2.2.5. Loudness Parameters for short-form Content ........................................... 28 2.3. Other standards ................................................................................................ 29 3. STUDIOS SWR ...................................................................................................... 30 3.1. Structure ..........................................................................................................
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