Been asked at work to mix to a loudness reading aswell/rather than ppm. I think the UK are switching over to this it seems.
Have any of you used these before? which do you recommend? is PPMULATORXL any good? Any tips? it seems like can't over compress our ads now to make them stand out more.
I've been using the Nugen VIS-Lm for a while, and it seems fairly solid, and bang on in terms of QC. Settings for EBU, ATSC and ITU 1770.
I have run comparison tests of all the key players in the market. For me the best, and most expensive, is the TC Electronic LM5D. I love the Radar display and the 3 measurement criteria are all displayed.
If that is outside you price range then the Nugen Audio VIS-LM gets my vote, again displays all the data, excellent scrolling history display. However if screen real estate is in short supply then the PPMulator XL is the answer. Very compact display, and you can have multiple instances of it s you could have a BBC PPM and the R128 loudness meter on the screen at once.
Hope that helps,
Mike Thornton - Pro Tools for Media
The Dolby Media Meter is pricey, but also includes Leq(m) metering if you're going to come across any theatrical trailer work. It's a bit of a resource hog, but probably the standard, especially if you're sending stuff to networks that are still QCing with LM100 hardware.
Always important to trust your ears above all, is the one caveat with all these latest devices...
I've been using the Dolby Media Meter II for quite a while, and think it's good! Frankly I use it mostly as a limiter (it has an extremely transparent limiter!) and for safety as I work mostly by ear anyway, but I'd say it does the job very well where you need to be picky too! I originally bought it to deal with an extremely tight schedule with a project where I had to turn off all active listening for extended periods of time as to not risk ear fatigue and still be able to keep the mix at a steady level, but it really works wonders when optimizing mixes for TV/Commercials and setting Dolby-levels :-) I can't say it's nigher better nor worse than what you mentioned before as I've never tried the other stuff, but there are several things I like about it; like a graphical display of different measures over time, the ability to measure "absolute level" (how it will translate into voltage through DAC and anti-alias, not as a digital pattern), stability, and again, the great limiter :-)
The only things I wish could be better is that there seems to be no documentation whatsoever (I'm still not sure what differs between the different types of measures), it can't really measure single words very well (it seems to be made pretty much all for overall material loudness), and for some reason it comes on a burned disc (yes, it is a genuine retail version with the real iLok-key box and all). With a pricetag of over 5000:- SEK (~ $760 according to my iPhone) for a single plugin doing nothing more than telling level (and limiting!) I guess it might not sell enough to justify a real glass-master disc, but it still feels a little cheap of 'em...
love ppmulatorxl. the r128 mode is great. recommend you run some of your favourite material through it, just to get a feel for the values. having said this, it's incredibly easy to pick up, and pretty intuitive (ref, quiet moments, loud moments)
All of these options others have listed here are great. Just wanted to add that iZotope's Insight plugin is also excellent for monitoring True Peak loudness in accordance with EU broadcast standards. It's expensive, but it's also a pretty kickass metering plugin in general, it's frequency analysis is fantastic as well.
