Track Loudness
Surveys have shown that television advertisements can be as much as 20dB louder than the surrounding programme material, leading to numerous complaints about broadcast quality. In response to this, the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act, or CALM, went into effect in 2012 requiring that the audio loudness be at a consistent level across programming and advertisements. Another requirement of the Act is to be able to log audio levels to prove compliance. Failure to meet the appropriate standards (the ATSC A/85 standard in the USA and the EBU R128 standard in Europe) and to be able to prove compliance may result in fines.
To comply with international loudness standards, CEDAR Cambridge offers two facilities - Track Loudness View and Track Loudness - that allow you to determine whether your audio conforms to a given standard and, if it doesn't, correct it quickly and with a minimum of fuss. You can then confirm that your audio complies with the chosen standard and, to ensure compliance, the Report Generator will report the track loudness statistics.
The Track Loudness module can be used together with the Batch Processor and the XML Extension to ensure that whole libraries can be made to conform to local regulations in a tiny fraction of the time necessary using other methods.
To ensure the widest range of compliance and to allow for future changes to the regulations, additional loudness standards can be defined by the end-user.