TC Electronic LM2 Plug-in - Manual (Page 22)

22 / LM6 Radar Loudness Meter
Post Script
Control of loudness is the only audio issue that has made It to the political agenda.
Political regulation is currently being put into effect in Europe to prevent hearing
damage and disturbances from PA systems, and to avoid annoying level jumps
during commercial breaks in television. In Australia, something similar may happen.
Many years of research into loudness of not only dialog, but also of loudness relating
to any type of audio programming, has brought TC to the forefront of companies
in the world to perform realtime loudness measurement and control. Therefore, TC
has taken active part in loudness standardization efforts in Japan, the United States,
Europe and other areas.
In broadcast, digitization is driving the number of AV channels and platforms up,
while the total number of viewers remains roughly the same. On the sound production
side, it is therefore important that delivery criteria can be easily specified and met,
even by people not primarily concerned with audio: Journalists, musicians, video
editors, marketing professionals etc.
Using only dialog based audio measurements in digital broadcast, has led to
ambiguous level management, more level jumps between programs, and extra time
spent on audio production and management in general. Non-dialog based level
jumps are currently creating havoc in digital TV, and LM6 helps correct that situation.
The LM6 Loudness Meter can be used to control level and improve sound, not only
in Dolby AC3 based transmissions, but also on other broadcast platforms, such as
analog TV, mobile TV and IPTV.
To summarize: LM6 is part of a holistic and universal approach to loudness control,
starting at the production or live engineer. When she realizes the dynamic range at
her disposal, less processing is needed at later stages of a distribution chain. The
chain ends with the capability of quality controlling everything upstream by applying
the same loudness measure for logging purposes: A closed loop.
Welcome to a new, standardized world of audio leveling. Across genres, across
formats, across the globe.