Emotion Systems - Loudness Series
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Intro
Loudness requirements differ across broadcasters and platforms. If a file misses its target, it will fail QC and require costly rework. Engine measures, corrects and reports against broadcast and platform specifications while preserving creative intent. Our Loudness Module reflects more than 15 years of refinement with customers, and continues to evolve with their needs. This series looks at the real-world loudness problems, from measurement and specifications to complex delivery, automation, and reporting.
Loudness Compliance from Simple to Complex
Loudness compliance can be simple: measure a programme, correct it to a profile, and produce a report. Complexity begins when one source must satisfy several destinations or contains multiple channel groups. Targets, tolerances, gating and True Peak limits may all differ. Engine applies the correct profile to each deliverable or channel group in one automated workflow, producing compliant outputs and reports while preserving creative intent.
What Does Engine Allow You to Measure?
Most loudness specifications require Programme Loudness and True Peak. Some add LRA, Short-Term or Momentary Loudness, while PPM and VU remain important in legacy workflows. Engine brings these measurements together in one configurable profile. The profile includes exactly what the specification requires.
How Broadcast and Platform Requirements Differ
Broadcasters generally follow consensus-led standards such as EBU R128 or ATSC A/85, developed around established production practices and living room listening. Platforms often define service specific requirements for content heard on televisions, phones, laptops, headphones and home cinema systems. Many still use foundations such as ITU-R BS.1770, but select their own targets, tolerances and gating methods. Engine supports both approaches within the same system.
Preparing a Theatrical Mix for Broadcast and Platforms
A theatrical movie mix is created for a calibrated cinema, with wide dynamics and substantial headroom. The same mix may not translate well to television, mobile or platform playback, or meet Programme Loudness, True Peak and LRA requirements. Simply changing the overall gain does not control Loudness Range or individual peaks. Heavy compression may achieve compliance, but can flatten the mix and diminish its cinematic impact. Engine's LRA process carefully manages the audio within the specified Loudness Range while retaining the dynamics, contrast and character of the original mix. Combined with Programme Loudness and True Peak correction, it creates a compliant deliverable and a substantially better audio experience for the viewer.
A Demanding Specification
One customer specification required four outputs from one source: a dialogue-gated 5.1 re-render, an integrated stereo mix, stereo dubs with a tighter True Peak ceiling, and dialogue, music and effects stems that had to recombine correctly. Each output had its own target, tolerance and failure conditions. It looked like one delivery, but required four distinct loudness processes. Engine was designed for exactly this kind of combined workflow.
How Engine Fulfilled the Specification
Engine handled the specification in one automated pass:
- A separate, reusable correction profile for each output
- Dialogue-gated or integrated measurement as required
- An individual True Peak ceiling for each output, using selective correction
- Automatic detection and exclusion of line-up tone by channel group
- PDF and XML compliance reports, including graphs, for every output
The workflow can run faster than real time where the media permits, driven by watch folders or the REST API. A complex delivery becomes a repeatable process that can be applied across a whole catalogue.
Compliance Without Losing Creative Intent
Automated loudness correction should not become an automated remix. Engine changes only what the selected profile requires. It can process channel groups independently, leave defined groups untouched, and report every measurement and correction. The aim is simple: meet the specification while preserving the creative balance of dialogue, music and effects.
Modern Standards and Legacy Support
Standards change faster than archives and operational practices. Modern deliveries may use LUFS, True Peak and LRA, while established workflows still rely on PPM or VU. Engine supports modern loudness processing and legacy metering in the same workflow, across mono, stereo, surround and immersive formats, including encoded Dolby audio. It processes the catalogue as it exists, not as a simplified test case.
Automation and Reporting
A loudness algorithm alone is not a production system. Engine adds unattended processing, file and queue management, repeatable workflows, PDF and XML reporting, and integration through watch folders or the REST API. The same processing runs on desktop, on premises or in the cloud. That turns loudness correction into an operational workflow that can scale from one file to a full catalogue.
Part of the Customer's Team
Our technology has been shaped by more than 15 years of working with customers. They bring deep knowledge of their content and operation. We bring audio and engineering expertise. Together, we debate the requirement, build a robust solution and incorporate useful capabilities into Engine. We are not simply a supplier, we become part of the team solving the problem.
Try it for yourself!
A free trial of Engine or Engine Desktop is available, and the team are happy to help with any queries.
