WASHINGTON—ATSC has completed a major revision of its A/85 Recommended Practice: Techniques for Establishing and Maintaining Audio Loudness for Digital Television, marking the first comprehensive update to the industry reference since 2013.
ATSC said the revision, which expands the guidance beyond traditional television to address today's hybrid broadcast and streaming environment, is designed to help media organizations comply with loudness requirements and maintain a high quality viewing experience as they continue to transition toward IP-based and hybrid broadcast-broadband delivery models.
"As audiences increasingly consume content across both over-the-air and streaming platforms, maintaining a consistent listening experience has become more important than ever," said Madeleine Noland, president of ATSC. "This update to A/85 gives the industry practical, contemporary guidance that reflects today's production and distribution workflows while preserving the high-quality viewer experience broadcasters have worked to deliver for many years."
The newly revised ATSC Recommended Practice modernizes the document with numerous technical clarifications and introduces two important new annexes:
- Guidance for establishing and maintaining consistent loudness for streaming media services using both metadata-based and non-metadata-based audio codecs.
- A new Loudness and True Peak Quick Reference designed to simplify implementation for engineers and content providers.
More specifically, the revised A/85 Recommended Practice provides recommendations for audio measurement, monitoring, production, metadata management, dynamic-range control and loudness management throughout the content creation and delivery chain. By incorporating lessons learned from more than a decade of implementation, as well as addressing emerging streaming workflows, the document helps ensure consistent audio presentation regardless of how viewers access content, the ATSC reported.
The revised A/85 Recommended Practice can be downloaded here: https://www.atsc.org/atsc-documents/type/1-0-recommended-practices/
