Vu Audio Leveling, Version 2
A few years ago, we designed the Vu Audio Levels page (Vu Version 1 or VuV1) as an accessible tool for system users to visualize audio levels. Sometimes it worked well, and some found it inaccurate. From this, came the idea of adding the pre/post bumpers to the Parrot echo service. This allowed users to compare their playback audio to that of Duff, WA7BFN, who graciously recorded the announcements for us. That also had challenges. Some radios have Receive Audio Leveling, negating the audible differences if levels were off, and it also didn’t quantify the change needed, or allow easy comparing of various levels.
Today, we are announcing Vu Audio Leveling Version 2 (VuV2). Here’s a few of the features:
· “Loudness” based upon a standard
· One “Loudness” result, rather than “Average” and “Peak” values
·
VuV1 measured the audio levels by calculating the RMS, with some smoothing over peaks, and some filtering of silence. VuV2 uses, LUFS – Wikipedia, which is an ITU standard used by many broadcast services, including TV, Radio, and podcast services. “Integrated VUFS” has good statistical correlation to the VuV1 Average level, and will become our new Vu calculation. We are hopeful it will more accurately measure audio than the method used with VuV1.
With Vu V1, it was never really clear if someone should set their levels based upon the average or peak levels, or maybe some combination of the two. Vu V2 simplifies that choice. It has been running in the background, and our current average Integrated LUFS is -29. The initial ranges are as follows:
Very low Below -35
Low -35 to -31
Normal -31 to -27
High -27 to -23
Very high Above -23
The visual meter is also redesigned to be a linear bullseye, based upon the above ranges, with red-yellow-green-yellow-red areas. Our target values are different from those of the various broadcast services, just as they have variances themselves. If we all adjust towards -29, our system will sound better, and many of us are already there, as -29 is our average value.
Give it a try! Make a Parrot call then browse to https://pnwdigital.net/services/levels.php and see your audio level.
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