[MLA] Our Change.org petition

Tue Dec 15 21:16:45 CET 2015

Hi Kevin,

Here are some facts for the Loudness War article so the measurement part reflects what actually happened since 2000. I can add references and more details if you think it's worthwhile. There might be other places on Wikipedia where some of this would also fit.

cheers,
Thomas

***

The foundation we’re relying on today for measuring digital audio is the ITU-R BS.1770 “loudness” and true-peak level standard. Work began in 2001 after 0 dBFS+ level distortion in converters and lossy codecs had become evident; and the original Leq(RLB) loudness metric was proposed by Gilbert Soloudre from CRC in 2003.

Based on data from subjective listening tests, Leq(RLB) was compared against numerous other algorithms where it did remarkably well. After modification of the frequency weighting, the measurement was made multi-channel (mono to 5.1). CBC, Dolby and TC did the heavy lifting with numerous broadcasters contributing invaluable listening tests.

To make the loudness metric cross-genre friendly, a relative measurement gate was added. This work was carried out 2008 in EBU P/LOUD with Florian Camerer the dynamic chairman, and the improvements were brought back into BS.1770-2. ITU subsequently updated the true-peak metric (BS.1770-3) and added provision for more audio channels, for instance 22.2 (BS.1770-4). Today, BS.1770-4 is used globally to define Loudness Level, True-peak Level and Peak to Loudness Ratio (PLR).

***END

> On 07/12/2015, at 18.34, Kevin Gross <kevin.gross at comcast.net> wrote:
> 
> MLA was founded as a technical expert group. Our work so far has been in education and engineering on loudness topics and normalization systems. The petition is a piece of non-technical advocacy and I don't know if I'm fully comfortable with that. It is possible my concern could be addressed through editing to remove some of the stridency. I would be happy to propose some changes if you're interested. But I respect comments from Thomas and Bob Ludwig and would like to see those addressed too.
> 
> Incidentally, I am one of the editors of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war> article. If there is a specific objection to something in that article, I would be happy to try and revise it.
> 
> On Mon, Dec 7, 2015 at 9:19 AM, Thomas Lund <thomas at lund.one <mailto:thomas at lund.one>> wrote:
> Hi Bob L and all,
> 
> I second that. It was also not easy to defend the time spent and the potential customer annoyance caused by engaging in this topic for >15 years at TC, so kindly understand the tact and requirements needed for steaming ahead as a group.
> 
> best regards,
> Thomas
> 
> 
>> On 07/12/2015, at 16.52, Robert Ludwig <gatewaybob at mac.com <mailto:gatewaybob at mac.com>> wrote:
>> 
>> HI Bob K.
>> 
>> First, clearly I support this initiative, that is never in doubt.  
>> 
>> I re-read your original email where you wrote: "My proposal is that the MLA become the named organization behind the promulgation of this petition.”
>> 
>> Being that some of our members are in the trenches fighting the Loudness battle in world-class situations, and being that our names are NOT being signed on the petition, perhaps the MLA should NOT be the “named organization” but “turnmeup.org <http://turnmeup.org/>”, your own Digido.com <http://digido.com/> site or other.  It won’t change the impact of the petition, in fact perhaps there is more engineer community awareness of those sites than ours.
>> 
>> What does the group think?
>> Thanks,
>> Bob L.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> On Dec 7, 2015, at 9:42 AM, Bob Katz <bobkatz at digido.com <mailto:bobkatz at digido.com>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Guys, Thanks for your thoughts.
>>> 
>>> We'll look at some of your thoughts and see at least if we can improve the links.
>>> 
>>> As far as the title goes. We are activists, passionate about our position. This is a petition written by activists, designed to be put on Change.org <http://change.org/> to get action. It's designed to attract people to sign it. "Say No To A Streaming Loudness War" attracts attention, gets the message across well and is in tune with the idea of what a petition is supposed to do. 
>>> 
>>> Do you want this to languish in "We're not activists, we're just apathetic engineers, so sign our petition if you care, but anyway, have a nice day."
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Be an activist. Support an activist title for this petition!
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Bob K.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> -- 
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>>> Recording, Mastering, Manufacturing  | One says-this is old and therefore good.
>>> Author: Mastering Audio              | The other says-this is new and therefore
>>> Digital Domain Website <http://www.digido.com/>               | better."
>>> 
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>>> of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.
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