Loudness and delivery
 

hey everyone,

Wanting some tips on audio handover to video departments.

This is my situation:

I delivered TVC here in New Zealand last week. My audio went to the video department who then sent it off to AdStream to get it QC'd. When I sent my audio over I double checked it and made sure it was within the OP.59 specifics of -24LKFS -2TP +-1db LKFS threshold.

I received an email this morning from AdStream citing my audio was -22.7LKFS. So I emailed the video department and got them to send through the deliverable they sent to AdStream to be QC'd - and sure enough it was -22.79LKFS. Somewhere in between handing my audio over to the video department, and video department sending it off to AdStream it got louder.

How do I avoid this, and what is best practise for making sure no one touches your audio after you hand it over? Also, could this problem stem from a video export option, or codec?

Looking for tips and advice.

Re: Loudness and delivery
 

The super-classic Media Composer screw-up is when a video editor does your stereo layback with the pan pots set straight up. Instant +3db double mono mix. I have a strong suspicion that that is what just happened to you.

Re: Loudness and delivery
 

Not just MC! Premiere too, and of course Premiere has a wider base of editors inexperienced with broadcast deliverables.

To the OP, there's not really anything more you can do except engage and educate. Someone has to make the final deliverable and it won't be the audio guy. Sometimes you might need to tell someone they screwed up without actually telling them they screwed up :D

(Of course always double and triple check your final output before looking elsewhere!)

Re: Loudness and delivery
 

Unfortunately it can be a crapshoot whatever happens downstream from you.

I've had projects where the editors used volume automation in their NLE and upon receiving the printmasters they laid them back into their session without removing their previous volume graphing and totally borked the final output.

I've had people mess up pans (sadly more than once I've had a 5.1 output panned into the L and R with 4 other blank channels), or simply not know what a channel order is on surround files.

On one of my most recent projects I got a QC report back that had peaks way over what they were supposed to be. Production put me in touch with the QC department and they said the error was on my side. When I sent over screen caps from my readings the next email I got was an apology from QC saying that they had 'miscalibrated equipment' on their side and their new readings matched my own now. And this was a professional QC company.

So it can be a bit of chaos out there. Not to mention people trying to home-brew their DCPs or do all their final delivery in-house. It's one of the reasons a good professional layback house or post finishing company can be a godsend.

The best you can do is double and triple check your own work before you send it out to make sure the problem isn't on your end. And then try to have the best and clearest communication possible, and hope for the best.

Film production is complex, people do make mistakes. It sucks and is frustrating though, sorry to hear you had issues.

Re: Loudness and delivery
 

This has to be one of the most stupid things I've ever seen in a video editor. But the video editor should know about it. As an audio editor I know about it. I'd be on the phone and they'd be hearing from me.

Re: Loudness and delivery
 

You are right! they SHOULD know. However assuming they will always leave you open to the modern interpretation of the word "ass u me".

Do you include notes with your deliverables detailing the file type you are delivering? If so then the Video editor is negligent as MC has been able to handle stereo tracks as stereo clips for a number of years now. Also long before this stereo option MC included a Clip Modify option allowing MC imported Pro Tools stereo bounces (dual mono) to be Modified to a stereo clip for use in the timeline.

Andrew.