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Originally Posted by nathand  You know minister I had this long (I thought smart) confrontational response ready to send and I just erased it. |
Drat!
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Originally Posted by nathand Although I never made it clear I am interested in calibrating a 5.1 mix room for broadcast television. If you have any additional insight regarding this particular set-up I would appreciate hearing about it. |
Best thing to do is read through the entire Room Cal thread on the DUC, download all the docs, roll up your sleeves and get to work figuring it out.
DUC: UPDATED Room Calibration for Film and TV Post
It all seems daunting at first, but the pieces will slowly come together and then it will make sense.
There aren't too many ways to do it that deviate from these basic prinicples:
As I said in the Mastering Section thread, put a 1 kHz sine generator at -20 dBFS on a MONO track going out a MONO output on your audio interface (IOW, not a mono track going out A1-2, but A1...because of Pan Laws). get a multimeter of sufficient resolution to read 1.228V and turn those output trims on your Interface until 1k @-20dBFS=1.228V. This will also equal 0 VU and +4dBU.
Get a good copy of pink noise -- if you use Pro Tools DO NOT use the Signal Genrator Pink, it will give you bad readings. Get a good SPL meter. Run the Pink out the monitors one at a time. (I am going to assume you laid out your monitors correctly.) Take your SPL, set it to C weighted SLOW, hold it at about chest height and angle it up towards the monitor. adjust the Volume controls -- other than the output trims -- in your studio until the SPL reads 79 (you said TV and I am also assuming that you are in a smaller room, not a Dub Stage sized Room. the Larger rooms are 85 for film, 79 for TV) If you mix a film, I would suggest trying 82 and see how that translates. Mark your spot on your volume control (or Room EQ, or Amp depending) and move on to the next speaker.
For TV, the monitors are equal, for film, the surrounds are 3dB down (their sum adds up to one film channel).
Best to use an RTA for the sub, but, you can use an SPL.
Sub is 3 dB in-band (20Hz to 120Hz) above the center channel for DVD, DVD-A and HD-TV.
Sub is +10 dB in-band (20 Hz to 120 Hz) for FEATURE FILMS above the baseline center channel. (89-91 on your SPL for a dBC 85 LCR cal.)
Have a Syncheck Box?
SYNCHECK.COM not only can you cal your video-->audio sync, but the II version has an SPL meter and the FTP site has Pink files.