Izotope Insight

[RecRoom]

Been testing it out for a few hours and seems right on the money compared to my Dolby Media Meter V1. I like being able to have the multitude of different metering options within the same window, particularly the history graph and large meter displays. It does however seem to add about 4 to 5 percentage points to my native processing usage.

Any other thoughts?

[BobbyDazzler]

I'm demoing Insight and VisLM beside each other right now.
Insight has a great feature set, and it looks very nice indeed...I see what you say about the processor usage Jeff, It shows 4-5% at max buffer, but if I drop to a 64 buffer it adds nearly 30%, and if I have the plugin window visible it throws 9171 errors!
Would anyone need a LUFS meter at a low buffer? Probably not, but it would be cool to use the other features of insight while you track though.
VisLM uses about 1% CPU regardless of buffer, but gives you far less information. Graphically it lacks the sexiness of insight, but the info is there. Personally I would have like to have seen the Peak and Loudness meters beside each other on one window.

[lexaudio]

Well, the only thing that is missing is there is no way to measure the dialog Norm.

Its seems basically that you can set if for LUFS or change it to K weighting be the measurement is for the total program loudness.

I know the spec may change and it will end up with program loudness, but the pay channels don't have to follow the CALM Act. Some don't even ask for LKFS anything. Just +18 peak max.

They still want dialog norms and even if not, its nice to know where you dialog is sitting if you are use to the standard.

The metering is pretty stellar though. Great for looking for those rogue peaks in loud sections.
Got a kick back because of a small water splash in a sink. Character was washing dishes, but DMM stated the true peak was -2.

So I tested DMM 2 and Insight.

Set to K-Meter 20, Insight listed -22, which is program loudness.
DMM 2.1.7, the newer version does BS 1770-2. read -22 Infinite All, -24 Dialog Infinite and True Peak -2

Under BS 1770 - 2 through Insight, on K-Metering it registered -20.5

So there is a 1.5 dB difference in the loudness scale which I've read can be around 1 to 2 dB. Not sure how that is going to effect future mixes.

The ability to adjust the metering, and weighting is great, but the lack of a dialog norm over time/short time is disappointing.

I also would have liked to see a peak history that could show you where your peaks were at since it does measure time since Insight keeps a timeline.

I doesn't crash PT like DDM2 does, or did. But having a true peak readout panel and dialog infinite would have made the plugin a step more.
I can do without the spectrum or spectrogram though I'm sure they might come in handy from time to time.

Seems to work for what it does if you don't need anything else.

[evanbenjamin]

Speaking of DMM, does anyone get -9159 errors with that plug open? It happens when I open a session, and eventually settles down, weirdly enough.

[Frank Kruse]

Does it work as a stand-alone app? Would be something to put on a dedicated macmini. But is it a plugin only or does it have a stand-alone version like RX or other measuring tools?
I must say from looking at the feature set it looks very nice. Especially the sonogram-view that I miss so much from Inspector XL. I find regular spectrum-analysers pretty useless to find HMI buzz etc.

Thanks,

Frank.

[lexaudio]

No there is no standalone app.

You can run it in realtime through an insert or run it as an AS which will run through the program faster than realtime.

The sonogram view is cool. You can view it in a multitude of ways.

[Frank Kruse]

Originally Posted by lexaudio

No there is no standalone app.

You can run it in realtime through an insert or run it as an AS which will run through the program faster than realtime.

hm. don't want to waste an additional PT only to run that on a separate mac. Maybe a VST or AU host would work.

[tamasdragon]

It's quite cpu intensive compared to Nugen or others.

[emilano]

yeah, wtf is up with all these meters that don't have dialog only readings? Isn't it part of the AT85 spec? And I hear its licensed free from Dolby so why would companies leave the option out of their meters? There's a whole country here that needs it to make their CALM shows legal right?

[Audio_Vision]

Actually, Dialogue Intelligence is not part of A/85, and yes, it is Dolby proprietary. A/85 does specify the use of an "anchor element" while mixing for long form, such as dialogue for drama and docs or vocals for a music show, but 1770-2/3 measures all channels at different weightings (sans the LFE), which is how it should be in my opinion, never did care much for dialogue intelligence.