Volume Control

Regional broadcasters are constantly challenged in terms of being able to maintain consistent audio levels.

The explosion in the number of free-to-air satellite television channels operating in the Middle East and North Africa region in recent years has created serious technical challenges for the regional broadcast industry, in respect to ensuring consistent audio levels both within and between rival channel services.

The typical rise and fall in audio volume and perceived quality between channels and particularly during interstitials is a common bugbear afflicting all regional television viewers and one which is exacerbated by the sheer number of channels – 600 and counting – that are currently available.

While broadcasters are invariably blamed for audio level-related issues, it is not always entirely their fault.

Clearly identifying where the offending level has originated in the production and broadcast chain is key to solving the overall challenge, says Rob France, Senior Manager, Product Marketing, Broadcast Audio Solutions, Dolby Laboratories. “Ensuring loudness consistency can be challenging particularly across so many channels,” he says.

“However, the first part of solving this issue is to fully understand the problem. It is necessary to measure the output of the channels to understand the loudness differences and to analyse whether the differences lie between channels, or whether they are also between different programmes on the same channel. If there are loudness issues within an individual channel, these should be fixed first before looking to address problems between channels. This can often lead to investigations further up the signal chain, to where the content was produced.”

Story continues below

Advertisement

FEATURED COMMENT Please click here to comment on this article

Dolby’s France believes one of the simplest solutions to the conundrum is for satellite broadcasters to insist that content suppliers abide by target levels during the production process or deliver digital programming complete with metadata noting strict delivery specifications. Stephan Martel, Product and Project Manager, Infrastructures Group for digital audio specialist Miranda Technologies also supports this approach.

“Because TV service providers are sometimes transcoding and inserting commercials, ensuring consistent audio levels may not completely resolve the issues. Who knows what can happen to the signal?” he says. “For that reason the onus cannot be placed just on broadcasters or content producers, it has to be a common responsibility for all.”

France explains that there is a common misconception in the industry that free-to-air satellite TV broadcasters face more complex challenges than their pay TV rivals in ensuring consistent audio levels. He however believes that both broadcasters face a common set of issues, as well as their own unique challenges.

“The challenges are quite similar in that both sets of broadcasters need to understand where their content is coming from and what processing, or possible future control mechanisms are likely to be required to fix the problem,” he says. “The solutions, however, may differ. An IPTV operator can perform file-based processing on most of their assets in order to equalise loudness levels. However, if they deliver their service through a hybrid STB it is unlikely that they will have any control over the linear channels. To address this issue, they will have to look towards a consumer side levelling solution such as the well known Dolby Volume.