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Scott Dorsey
 
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Default Broadcast vs. DVD peak levels

Reid Rejsa wrote:

For the live broadcast mixing I do, the engineers at the station have
limited the control room audio to around +6VU (based on 0VU=-20 dbfs) so
peaks are allowed up to -14 dbfs. One engineer I know who does a lot of
broadcast TV spot mixing limits his audio to -9 dbfs to avoid triggering
broadcast limiters. My question to those of you who do a lot of DVD
video mixing is: how high do you all let your peak levels go when mixing
an audio for video project that's going to DVD? Do you use the full
dynamic range up to 0 dbfs, or limit it to some lower value?


Use whatever the house standard is. Normally in a broadcast environment
where there is a mix of analogue and digital stuff, it's normal to set
levels so the average-reading VU meters read zero when the peak-reading
digital meters read -20dBFS. So if you're mixing on the peak meters
you want to keep levels down below -14 or so. If you're mixing on the
VU meters, you want to keep them below +3.

If the house is calibrated differently, use whatever the systems are
set up for. If you record too hot on the digital side, the analogue
gear won't be happy with the hot output because it's not calibrated to
deal with it properly.

As far as what actually goes onto a released DVD, it's got peaks at 0 dB.
That's one of the things you deal with in authoring. But that's for
something that will be reaching the general public, not something for
internal use. For internal use, use whatever the house standard is.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."