TV Audio?

[tcase]

Hi,

I record the audio for a music show on a very small TV station. I have been giving the station the my mixes as if they were a cd, keeping everything just below 0db. It sounds bad when I watch the show show over cable. No one at the station has a clue about audio.

I would love some help form someone who knows. The DVD's of the show sound great, it's whatever happens from the station to Time Warner to my TV thats the problem.

Thanks

Tom

[Whitecat]

Originally Posted by tcase

Hi,

I record the audio for a music show on a very small TV station. I have been giving the station the my mixes as if they were a cd, keeping everything just below 0db. It sounds bad when I watch the show show over cable. No one at the station has a clue about audio.

I would love some help form someone who knows. The DVD's of the show sound great, it's whatever happens from the station to Time Warner to my TV thats the problem.

Thanks

Tom

TV mixes all over the world peak between -9 and -11, depending on the country/broadcaster. Your levels are waaaay too hot, and by the time it goes through all the broadcast chain post-processing it's getting destroyed.

[chris319]

You should arrange to hear your mixes in the station's master control room and see if they sound bad there. If they do, you need to work with the station to decide what level your material should peak at to work in their system.

If the audio is clean leaving the station you need to take it up with the cable company.

[Remoteness]

I always ask for a return feed.
I monitor through it to make sure everything is everything.
IMHO, hearing what it sounds like down stream is key to producing the best (music) mix possible.

[chris319]

Can you get an off-air feed, bypassing the cable system?

[Jim vanBergen]

ZERO?? In digital, you need to use -20 dBFS as your zero, with peaks NO louder that -10!

Time Warner's master control is set up with those parameters. Your mixes sounding good on DVD or CD is a good start but you have to maintain signal path and gain staging. If you don't have a good digital meter on your mixing console, you can buy a digital meter, or use an analog Durrough and recalibrate it; or simply use analog and don't go above +8 dB VU ever!

What format is your show being delivered to the cable station? Find out the chain of delivery and take the reigns to meet with Time Warner, and ask their chief engineer what you can do to improve your delivery medium is top quality.

Hope this helps!

JvB

Originally Posted by tcase

Hi,

I record the audio for a music show on a very small TV station. I have been giving the station the my mixes as if they were a cd, keeping everything just below 0db. It sounds bad when I watch the show show over cable. No one at the station has a clue about audio.

I would love some help form someone who knows. The DVD's of the show sound great, it's whatever happens from the station to Time Warner to my TV thats the problem.

Thanks

Tom

[chris319]

Time Warner's master control is set up with those parameters.

How do you know that? You don't even know what city he's in, or how the TV station's signal gets to the head-end (off-air, fiber or microwave).

What format is your show being delivered to the cable station?

I'd bet money that his show isn't being delivered specifically to the cable company, but that the cable company is taking a feed from the TV station of all of the station's programming. If the rest of the station's audio is clean and his show is the only one with bad audio, that tells us something. If all of the station's audio is bad, that tells us something else, i.e. a bad link/pickup between TV station and cable company.

[Jim vanBergen]

Originally Posted by chris319

How do you know that? You don't even know what city he's in, or how the TV station's signal gets to the head-end (off-air, fiber or microwave).

You're right Chris, I'm assuming he's in NYC, and that nothing has changed from the inbound master control at TWC in the last two years since my last visit.

Just because I've dealt with this problem personally before doesn't mean I know everything, I'm just sharing my POV. The OP got a solid answer I e with: try to get a good return feed of all live broadcast mixes because we've all been screwed with this in the past, for major networks and for minor cable shows, with bad uplinks or bad downlinks, lousy transmission engineers or a problem at a fiber hub, transition or transfer point before master control- somewhere, you are given the short end of the stick. With some cable companies, you find an intern or low-paid, young worker who's job is to dump content into their systems without a lot of quality control, and who might not even know how to maintain a pristine or accurate audio signal from point to point. On some low end sports and cable shows, I have sadly experienced analog inbound points with cheap comp/limiters that are set 20:1 at +8dB VU that can't handle -10dB FS without serious signal distortion. I hope this is not your experience.

I don't know everything, and apologize if sharing my experience with cable companies, and specifically Time Warner Cable, is inaccurate to the original post.

[talbe1019]

What used to happen in the analog world was TV audio of local stations did not even get touched, channels were just processed and put on the channel they need to be put on...nothing was done to the audio. There are still some stations that were not required to change to digiital since they did not meet the requirements. Does this station still transmit in analog?
It is a bit more complicated than it used to be...there are digital transports between fiber hubs, fiber coming directly for local stations to head ends, off air digital receivers etc...and sometimes the pictures have nasty artifacts depending on how it is modulated on the channel package. I wish I could do audio stuff all the time, but I have to make a house payment...I work in the technical dept. for Time Warner.

[Petrus]

The stations I have worked with want mixes where levels hover around -20 to -12 dBFS and peaks can be -6 dBFS at most. Actually they want a list of all time codes where level hits -6 dBFS.

Your CD-level mix is way too hot.

[chris319]

Your CD-level mix is way too hot.

If that is indeed the case then the bad audio will be apparent at the TV station, ahead of the cable system and his TV set.

[Corran]

I thought I'd bump this post to ask a question rather than start a new thread.

I've just been offered a small gig to record a singer/songwriter duo performing a jingle they wrote for a local car dealership. TV ad sound is something I've wanted to get into for a while.

Anyway, from this thread am I to assume that I should be sending along a CD master with the peaks only hitting -10 in the DAW? The local stations are plagued with terrible audio so I want this to be a stand-out recording that maybe catches the ear of other local companies.

So basically, any mixing/mastering tips for the best sound when this jingle hits the TV?

[marty lester]

Originally Posted by Corran

I thought I'd bump this post to ask a question rather than start a new thread.

I've just been offered a small gig to record a singer/songwriter duo performing a jingle they wrote for a local car dealership. TV ad sound is something I've wanted to get into for a while.

Anyway, from this thread am I to assume that I should be sending along a CD master with the peaks only hitting -10 in the DAW? The local stations are plagued with terrible audio so I want this to be a stand-out recording that maybe catches the ear of other local companies.

So basically, any mixing/mastering tips for the best sound when this jingle hits the TV?

it's a tough question because i've heard mixes i've done on several different channels at different times of day and they all can sound different. dammit.

but yeah, in the US, i've always mixed to -10dBFS peak. you might choose to send them a DATA CD of the final mix 'cause typically TV spots want to be at 48K rather than 44.1K. just fyi, and ymmv.

as far as mixing "technique" for radio or tv goes, i'd still mix like i was mixing for CD...and my method comes from the school of mix to and around 0VU as your reference point. use a brick-wall limiter if you must to keep under -10dBFS, but keep your average levels at a reasonable level or else something down the road might cause
your otherwise "loud" mix to sound smashed to hell and "distant".

just one guy's opinion. good luck,
m.

[Corran]

Thanks! I had not thought about the sample/bit rate. I will probably deliver a Data CD with various sample and bit rates to ensure compatibility. My local TV stations are seriously a joke so I haven't the slightest clue about what they might be using.

[Remoteness]

There's another thing to consider...

You must also watch your persistence range with regard to broadcast spec of the particular network you're working with.

Let us say your peaks conform to the (network, agency, etc.) studio’s spec, the persistence range could be anywhere below that level. If you want your mixes to sound as loud as possible, you must make sure your persistence level is as hot as you can make it without the peaks going over that said (network) spec.

This is not an easy task, but it is an important step in getting that mix to pop.

[Corran]

Excellent point. Plenty of compression/limiting will be a sure thing.

[marty lester]

Originally Posted by Remoteness

There's another thing to consider...

You must also watch your persistence range with regard to broadcast spec of the particular network you're working with.

Let us say your peaks conform to the (network, agency, etc.) studio’s spec, the persistence range could be anywhere below that level. If you want your mixes to sound as loud as possible, you must make sure your persistence level is as hot as you can make it without the peaks going over that said (network) spec.

This is not an easy task, but it is an important step in getting that mix to pop.

interesting comments, Steve. so in your experience doing live broadcast
mixes (to TV for this example), you need to smash the mix and/or individual
elements more than you might for a "regular" music mix? i know this
kind of thing gets discussed to death, but i am always interested
in other people's real world experiences.

i have heard stuff in my studio that sounds slamming, but on-air
it sounds dynamically flat or dull. don't mean to steal your trade
secrets as it were...just curious.

thanks,
m.

[Jim vanBergen]

do you guys use the Dolby LM100? I use my Durroughs and have them marked for various network standards, but am very curious...

JvB

[chris319]

Here at our big-time TV station we let the audio peak at -20 dBFS.

Do send them some line-up tone at the beginning of your file at -20 dBFS and explicitly state that the set-up tone is at -20 dBFS. Whatever you do, don't send them an mp3 or other compressed file. I would send them a wav file. You can work out the sample rate with the agency or client.

[Remoteness]

The simple concept is as follows...

You want to have as much control of the final sound as possible,.
The more you do with it up front with regards to compression, limiting and riding levels the better it will sound when their signal processors get a handle on it.

If it's going to get squashed, I want it to be my squashed sound, not theirs...

Well, that's the theory at least - what ends up happening can be a gamble, but a calculated one for sure.

I record my broadcasts and analyze them against the original mixes.
I do this so I can improve on the process the next time around.

Furthermore, I record pretty much everyone's music B'cast, so I can keep a tab on what's going on with our fellow Remotesters. It's easy to talk about what your work may or may not sound like, but as they say, the proof is always in the pudding.

In the old days, I had a rack of VCRs recording all my scheduled shows.
Today, I have my DVR doing the same trick with a couple of VCRs running when necessary.

Originally Posted by marty lester

interesting comments, Steve. so in your experience doing live broadcast
mixes (to TV for this example), you need to smash the mix and/or individual
elements more than you might for a "regular" music mix? i know this
kind of thing gets discussed to death, but i am always interested
in other people's real world experiences.

i have heard stuff in my studio that sounds slamming, but on-air
it sounds dynamically flat or dull. don't mean to steal your trade
secrets as it were...just curious.

thanks,
m.

[marty lester]

Originally Posted by Remoteness

The simple concept is as follows...

I record my broadcasts and analyze them against the original mixes.
I do this so I can improve on the process the next time around.

Furthermore, I record pretty much everyone's music B'cast, so I can keep a tab on what's going on with our fellow Remotesters. It's easy to talk about what your work may or may not sound like, but as they say, the proof is always in the pudding.

In the old days, I had a rack of VCRs recording all my scheduled shows.
Today, I have my DVR doing the same trick with a couple of VCRs running when necessary.

very nice info Steve. thanks for your input.

m.