TV3, New Zealand’s largest commercial television station, has installed 10 Jünger Audio LEVEL MAGIC processors in its final programme chain to help balance audio levels across its ‘Freeview’ terrestrial and satellite transmission platforms.
The broadcaster, which reaches nearly 100% of New Zealand’s terrestrial viewers along with many digital viewers via the Sky Network Television platform, is renowned for the quality of its flagship news programmes and its domestically produced current affairs and entertainment programmes.
Audience enjoyment was a key factor in TV3’s decision to invest in LEVEL MAGIC. The broadcaster wanted to ensure that, when switching from one channel to another, viewers would not by irritated by obvious and dramatic difference in audio loudness.
Engineering manager Roger Randle says: “We wanted an audio processor product that would normalize our programme content volume across the channels without adding the effects of dynamics processing. Now that most broadcasters in New Zealand run multi-channel operations, viewers have become acutely aware of the audio differences between each network and their channels. However, the situation is improving because most New Zealand broadcasters have addressed the issue by using audio level processing. This has made the viewer’s channel surfing aural experience much more enjoyable.”
Jünger Audio’s New Zealand distributor, Gencom Technology, deserves much of the credit for helping improve the audio experience for New Zealand television audiences because it has steered many of the country’s broadcasters towards LEVEL MAGIC. This has resulted in uniformity across all channels.
Randle adds: “Gencom has been a great partner for the supply and support of the equipment. They have made sure we are all keep up to date with the latest features, so that we get the best out of our investment.”
Jünger Audio’s LEVEL MAGIC is a sophisticated adaptive level control algorithm that is designed to adjust the level from any source at any time, with no pumping, breathing or distortion. It is based on a simultaneous combination of an AGC, a Transient Processor for fast changes and a “look ahead” Peak Limiter for continuous unattended control of any programme material, regardless of its original source.
Capable of using any kind of I/O (Analog and Digital) sources, as well as SDI, HD/SDI, Dolby 5.1 and all its related metadata, LEVEL MAGIC is available in a variety of configurations to suit different applications.
The modular nature of the LEVEL MAGIC was one of the key reasons why TV3 decided to invest in Jünger Audio’s solution.
“Because it is modular, we can mix and match formats such as AES or SDI, SD or HD, 2-channel stereo or 5.1 discreet, as we need to. And when we want to add Dolby and/or metadata to the system we can do that, too,” Randle says.
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