[MLA] AES71 comments

[Kevin Gross]

I don't know if any of you have been following or working in the AES's
AGOTTVS initiative. This group is working on loudness for over the top
(OTT) and online video distribution (OVD). They have produced a standards
document that will come out for public comment soon as AES71. The
recommendations are reasonable - produce, transmit and use metadata where
possible, use BS.1770 with -23 or -24 LUFS target.

There is, however, a large portable aspect to these topics and the line
between OVD and music loudness is not very crisp (YouTube is everyone's
favorite music streaming service). In these cases the -23 LUFS is at odds
with the -16 LUFS recommendation in the AES TD1004 recommendation. -16 LUFS
does appear in the AES71 draft in what appears to be a "not to exceed under
any circumstances" specification.

Aside from the potential problems connecting these recommendations, I see
problems with a -23 LUFS target for portable applications. We've discussed
limitations of portable devices and environments here and I know we don't
all agree but we have seen evidence that this is not loud enough for
certain hardware and situations and regulations.

AGOTTVS did do some experiments on this and the findings were that were
that -23 didn't work for everyone in all scenarios and that more testing
was needed. I don't know how they got from this to a -23 recommendation,
but they did.

As an officer in AES standards, I have reviewed the draft and submitted
some comments to clean up some definitions and other inconsistencies and
underspecification. I'm not sure how to broach the subject of an
unrealistic target level recommendation. I was hoping someone here could
talk me through or talk me down from this.

Kevin Gross - AVA Networks
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