Audio Level Monitoring

With Tektronix Video Quality Monitors

Tektronix audio level monitoring solution provides multichannel video service providers with the ability to monitor all of their programs and all of their channels in real time for any audio volume discrepancies. It reflects what the TV viewer actually hears while watching TV and monitors the audio levels in a weighted dB scale. The audio volume variations are displayed in a graph against the mean value and Dialnorm.

Monitoring and reporting on audio volume level issues helps providers address the common problem that exists with varying volume levels on different channels (evident when the viewer changes channels) or during commercial inserts. Alerts can be configured to trigger when the audio levels go above or below a specified dB value or dialnorm during a given time period.

Sentry supports the ITU-R BS.1770 audio specification for monitoring program loudness. Developed by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the BS.1770 specification is shortly expected to be adopted by the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) in the U.S. The audio level monitoring solution combined with the support of the ITU-R BS.1770 specification has Tektronix well positioned to address the CALM Act on Loud TV Ads passed by Congress in December 2009.