Harris Corporation is using IBC as a platform to make loudness management recommendations for broadcasters throughout Europe. The firm demonstrated its complete loudness management solution to international audiences for the first time at the show, specifically addressing the significance of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) loudness control standards in Europe.
“The DTV loudness issue affects broadcasters worldwide, as viewers often change channels when commercials come across significantly louder than the programs,” said Harris Morris, president, Harris Broadcast Communications. “In the U.S., this has led to the passage of the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act to prevent needlessly loud commercials.
"Similar measures in Europe are designed to promote international harmonization around the ITU-R BS.1770 and EBU R 128. Harris’ loudness solutions are built to meet these and other standards and recommendations globally.”
The complete Harris loudness management solution features tools for file-based analysis, real-time correction, and signal measurement and logging. A dedicated loudness management station at the Harris booth highlighted a three-stage loudness demo, with visitors able to hear and experience how to dynamically choose when and how much correction to apply.
At the front end, the Harris QuiC solution provides file-based analysis and correction tools for ingest applications, and showed its APM6803+ multichannel audio processing station to international audiences for the first time. The APM6803+ features DTS Neural Loudness Control and uses critical band analysis for perceptual loudness measurements. This preserves the spectral balance and delivers a natural, open quality not found in traditional multiband compression technology. The Harris Videotek LLM-1770 device provides real-time measurement and logging for transmission and compliance applications at the third and final stage.
Harris also integrates Videotek loudness logging into the “as-run log” of Harris ADC automation software. Additionally, Harris showed new enhancements to the Videotek MSA Series for multi-source analysis, including loudness monitoring and alarms for MPEG streams.
The APM6803+ is a comprehensive solution for managing loudness and surround sound audio streams, featuring DTS Neural Surround UpMix, DownMix and MultiMerge solutions to achieve stable surround sound image placement. Flexible user-defined workflows and intelligent metadata handling ensure that the right processing is applied at the right time, allowing broadcasters to meet regulations while preserving the artistic integrity of the content.
The APM6803+ is an audio processing system on a card and can be configured to support a wide variety of multichannel applications. It can incorporate dual Dolby encoders and encoders, a full-featured SD/HD/3G-SDI audio/video frame synchronizer, and discrete AES inputs and outputs, with a virtual stream interface that eliminates complicated routing and configuration menus.