What does this all mean for advertisers? First, its important to understand what loudness means for you and your client. In this loudness measurement (as opposed to the old level management) paradigm, you have to learn how to "stand out" on TV if all content is now expected to sound equally "loud"? What can your audio engineer actually do to help? How should we measure and manage in post to avoid disappointments when we go to air?
To answer these and other technical broadcast and production related questions, local training company, Asikhule, with assistance from platinum sponsors, Multichoice, have taken the initiative and set up the upcoming Africa Loudness Summit. Loosely based on similar events run in Europe, Asia, Australia and the Americas, Asikhule have invited the author of the new R128 recommendation, Mr Florian Camerer to Johannesburg in July 2013. Florian will deliver three days of specialised information and shared global best-practice in the hope of educating African broadcasters and production facilities on how to best implement the new standards and avoid the aggressive government legislation to which many territories across the world have been subjected.
For the inside track on all things loudness, to stay ahead of the curve, attend the upcoming Africa Loudness Summit at the Coca-Cola Dome from July 17th-19th. For more information, or to register, please go to http://www.mediatech.co.za/The-Africa-Loudness-Summit.php.
The South Africa registered business Asikhule Training Partners offers customised vendor certification and bespoke technical training for full-time or freelance professionals in the broadcast, media production and entertainment industries across the continent of Africa. Asikhule also offers workshops fro production facilities and ad agencies to familiarise creatives and engineers with practical loudness techniques. For more on Asikhule, please see www.asikhule.com.
Florian Camerer joined the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF) in 1990 as a sound assistant. In 1995 he became a staff-sound-engineer ("Tonmeister") mainly in the field of production sound and post-production. High quality audio for documentaries developed into his field of special interest. In 1993 he started to get interested in surround sound. He mixed the first program of the ORF in Dolby Surround ("Arctic Northeast"), played an integral role in ORF's move towards multichannel audio transmission (starting with the New Year's Concert 2003, Europe's first live discrete surround sound transmission) and is now involved with all aspects of multichannel audio at ORF. He is lecturing on an international basis especially in dramaturgical aspects of surround sound productions, microphones for surround sound and multichannel audio for HD. In recent years he has expanded his international activities to the field of loudness issues, chairing the EBU group PLOUD since 2008. This resulted, amongst other things, in the EBU recommendation R128, a breakthrough in audio leveling. As chair of the PLOUD group and active mixing engineer, Florian is promoting the switch to loudness normalisation all over Europe and overseas. He is also an active member of the AES, the Audio Engineering Society, serving as Broadcast Session Chair on the committee for the past five European conventions.
