Optimod 8685 Surround ~ Overview
Orban Television Audio Processing — Sound That Keeps Audiences Listening
The 8685 is Orban's second-generation surround/2.0 processor. In addition to the effective automatic loudness control of its predecessor, the 8685 offers new input/output capabilities that include support for SDI and HD-SDI and for Dolby E. Dual redundant power supplies help ensure maximum uptime. In addition to surround processing, the 8685 can simultaneously provide up to three channels of 2.0 processing, allowing it to provide all the audio processing necessary for a typical ATSC broadcast with multiple subchannels. Like the 8585, the 8685 is dialnorm-aware. Loudness control is excellent when measured by the ITU BS.1770-2 and EBU R-128 standards or by the 8685's built-in CBS Loudness Meters, allowing stations to comply effortlessly with the requirements of the CALM act.
Experience has shown that the mass television audience wants two things from television audio: dialog should be comfortably intelligible and commercials should not be irritatingly loud compared to program material. Home theater owners may want the opportunity to watch feature films while hearing a wide dynamic range signal. However, even these viewers usually consume television in a much more passive way when viewing garden-variety programs. To be an acceptable part of the domestic environment, television sound cannot overwhelm household members not interested in viewing (not to mention neighbors, particularly in multi-family dwellings). For a variety of reasons, the dynamic range of sound essential to the intelligibility of the program should not exceed 15 dB in a domestic listening environment. Underscoring and ambient sound effects will, of course, be lower than this.
The issue of loud commercials is particularly important. In the U.S., it is against Federal Communications Commission rules to broadcast irritatingly loud commercials. As a result of viewer complaints, the FCC has twice investigated the problem.
Orban understands such issues well. Since 1980, we have provided analog television broadcasters with industry-standard dynamics processors: Optimod-TV 8180, 8182, 8282, and 8382. In 1998, we introduced Optimod-DAB 6200 — two-channel processing specifically tailored for digital channels using lossy compression like Dolbys AC-3, which is used for ATSC transmissions. Our 6300, introduced in 2006, is a second-generation two-channel processor for digital channels, including DTV, DAB, and netcasting.
In typical analog television practice, all audio is applied to a single transmission audio processor that automatically controls the average modulation and the peak-to-average ratio while smoothing out transitions between program elements. Simple compression and peak limiting cannot do this effectively. Starting with the 8182, all Optimod-TV processors have incorporated the CBS Loudness Controller™.
Developed after 15 years of psychoacoustic research at CBS Laboratories, the CBS LC accurately estimates the amount of perceived loudness in a given piece of program material. If the loudness exceeds a preset threshold, the controller automatically reduces it to that threshold. The CBS algorithm has proven its effectiveness by processing millions of hours of on-air programming and greatly reducing viewer complaints.
In ITU parlance, the CBS LC relies on a "short-term" loudness measurement that takes into account the human ear's loudness integration time — approximately 200 milliseconds. The CBS algorithms attack time is fast enough to prevent audible and irritating loudness overshoots — blasts of sound that have viewers scrambling for their remote controls. Loudness control is always smooth and unobtrusive. Unlike "long-term" loudness measurement and control technologies, the CBS LC recognizes that a piece of program material whose average loudness seems acceptable according to a long-term loudness measurement may nevertheless have short sections whose loudness should be reduced because it is extremely annoying. While main purpose of this processing is to control the loudness of commercials, other exuberantly mixed elements can also benefit.
(A good example is applause with whistling.)
Optimod-Surround 8685:
Effective Automatic Loudness Control
for Up to 7.1 Channels
For many years our television customers have been asking for Optimod-quality surround sound processing along with the ability to process the local insertion of news, weather and sports independently. Our customers know that there is no substitute for the smooth, natural-sounding control that only Optimod provides, particularly with speech material.
Orban's response is the 8685. This next generation Optimod provides the function and control necessary for up to eight channels simultaneously. It can help you achieve the highest audience satisfaction in digital audio broadcasting, digital television, and netcasting.
The 8685 features Optimod-quality two-band and five-band audio processing for surround sound broadcasting and netcasting. Thanks to versatile compression ratio controls and a mastering-quality look-ahead peak limiter, the 8685 is also ideal for mastering audio in broadcast productions as well as productions intended for media such as DVD and Blu-ray.
The 8685 starts with the technology of Orban's popular Optimod 6300 and takes it to the next level with surround processing that reflects the latest psychoacoustic research into loudness perception. The 8685's CBS Loudness Controller works in both two-band and five-band modes. Third generation improvements reduce annoyance better than simple loudness control alone, doing so without audible gain pumping.
In July 2011, the ATSC revised its Recommended Practice entitled Techniques for Establishing and Maintaining Audio Loudness for Digital Television (A/85:2011), which recommends use of the ITU-R BS.1770-2 long-term loudness meter algorithm to measure loudness. We have verified that the CBS Loudness Controller as implemented in the 8685 (as well as in Orban's two-channel 6300 and 1101 processors) effectively controls long-term loudness as measured by the BS.1770-2 and thus allows U.S. broadcasters to comply with the CALM Act. (BS.1770-2 is based on BS.1770 but adds gating to prevent it from reading too low during material having pauses or silence.) The 8685 now offers a built-in ITU-R BS.1770-2 loudness meter so that users can verify the effectiveness of its loudness control.
The 8685 is two processors in one, offering surround processing for either 7.1 channels or 5.1 channels plus an independent 2.0 channel processor (equivalent to Optimod 6300 processing) that can operate stand-alone with its own CBS Loudness Controller. Additionally, the 2.0 processor's output can be mixed into the left and right front channels of the surround processing so that the surround processing's Loudness Controller and look-ahead limiters control the loudness and peak level of the mix. Built-in CBS Loudness Meters indicate the subjective loudness of the surround and 2.0 channel processing.
The multichannel and 2.0 processors can operate with separate audio processing parameters like release times. For example, the 2.0 processing could be set up for relatively heavy processing to make a newsroom feed more consistent, while the main processing could be set up more conservatively to correct network material and commercials unobtrusively.
Because the 2.0 processing has its own loudness controller and peak limiters, another important application is processing subchannels in digital television. The 2.0 processing can operate in dual-mono mode, so it can process one subchannel in stereo or two subchannels in mono.
The 8685 is built on Orban's flagship hardware platform. This features a GUI displayed on a quarter-VGA active matrix color LCD, making it easy to do all setup and adjustment from the 8685's front panel. To minimize latency and to achieve highest reliability, the 8685 uses a dual hardware architecture. Freescale 24-bit DSP chips do all audio processing while a separate microcontroller supports the GUI and control functions. Even if this controller malfunctions, the 8685 will continue to process audio normally. Minimum latency of the fully processed signal is 21 milliseconds, which can be padded to exactly one frame of delay for any video standard. The low latency headphone feed (containing all processing except for peak limiting) has a latency of approximately 6 milliseconds.