German manufacturer RTW has released of a software upgrade for its SurroundMonitor 10800X devices to enable users to perform loudness metering. The RTW version 6.0 software, which will be standard on all new 10800X units, enhances the device with features including an ITU BS.1770-compliant loudness meter and a quasi-DIN (quasi-analog) bar graph for digital PPM measurements. In addition, the 10800X incorporates the company’s Surround Sound Analyzer for intuitive representation of surround signals.
Designed to offer users of 10800X series and 10860X-VID SurroundMonitor models a way to begin implementation of ITU-compliant loudness metering, the 6.0 software offers new functions including an RLB (K) weighting filter as specified by the current ITU recommendation. The filter is available not only for single-channel bar graph meters but also for dialnorm metering and for the Surround Sound Analyzer.
Using an ITU scale in dBLU with positive and negative ranges, the bar graph meter allows the reference level to be set for 0dBLU (-25 to -10 dBFS), and the integration times for single-channel view, summed momentary value, and Surround Sound Analyzer (125ms to 1.5s). A summed integrated (short-term) measurement with integration times between one and 12 seconds can also be displayed. To exclude low-level modulation portions from the calculation, a gate with variable threshold (-30 to 0 dBLU) can be enabled separately.
Version 6.0 software also comes with the same extra scale for PPM measurement of digital input signals that is now available on other RTW products. The extra scale is quasi-DIN (i.e. a quasi-analog scale according to ARD specifications) with a metering range of -60 dB to +9 dB where the 0 dB point is fixed to a digital input level of -9 dBFS.