A Continuous Loudness Controller (CLC) developed and patented by the Institut für Rundfunktechnik (IRT) – the central research and development institute of public broadcasters in Germany, Austria and Switzerland – has been implemented by Dspecialists in its Harvey audio digital signal processing (DSP) product.
IRT’s CLC is designed to allow the continuous adjustment of audio material to a predefined target value and a definable loudness range value, with the fewest possible artefacts in real time. IRT says the development prevents unpleasant jumps in loudness within the programme, as well as improving speech intelligibility.
“We are delighted about the cooperation with Dspecialists,” said Sebastian Goossens, division manager for AV technologies at IRT. “With the international standards ITU-R BS.1770 and EBU R 128, the loudness control has started its triumphal success in broadcasting in recent years. IRT has been intensively engaged in the development of solutions for user-friendly and reliable loudness adjustment and has developed the CLC for automated real-time adjustment of loudness and loudness range in accordance with the EBU R 128 specification.”
“We are convinced of the high quality of IRT’s CLC algorithm and see great potential in marketing the CLC software in a standalone device,” said Dr Jochen Cronemeyer, managing director at Dspecialists. “To this end, we have ported the CLC algorithm to our proven hardware platform Harvey as part of our cooperation with IRT. In a first step, Harvey will enable the processing of stereo signals, and later it will be extended to the 5.1 format.”
Dspecialists’ Harvey is a freely programmable audio DSP, developed in recent years for fixed installations. The company says it is also suitable for use in studios due to its high audio quality and extensive software library for audio signal processing. For audio transmission, analogue as well as AES and Dante interfaces are available. In addition, Harvey offers the customer numerous control interfaces. Besides TCP/IP, RS485 and RS232, GPIOs can also be freely programmed. Dspecialists says this enables the optimum setup for every conceivable scenario, as well as communication with other devices in the studio.
