What's a good LUFS level specifically for TV placements?

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noiseboyuk wrote:It sounds to me like there's a basic confusion here. If delivering music for TV use, it's music, no different to music for anywhere else. The whole -23db thing is the final program mix - dialogue, effects and yes music. Just as you wouldn't ask an actor to speak at -23db LUFS (though I'd like to see someone try), you don't deliver any other elements at this level either.
Yeah,I tried -23 way back when and as a practical level it was out of the question for me.

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I've seen this topic out of the corner of my eye... just to give a certain perspective:
You want your material to be placed for TV, you have to adhere to certain rules. There is no way around it.


My main question would be, if you do the TV mix or just provide music.

If it's the former, anything other than -23 LUFS / -24 LUFS (depending on which country the material is being streamed), is out of spec and will result in drastic violation fees. You should not do that.

If it's the latter (aka: you only provide the music), then maybe go with -16LUFS, which is currently considered the best balance of things. It will result in a good PLR value (although that is not that important) and retains the transients of your production. If you go with -10LUFS, your material will be pulled down on playback (Loudness Normalized) and will sound more quiet compared to the competition. It might even drown in a busy mix (depending on how well you mastered your content).

You have to keep that in mind.


I recently had to provide two types of mixes:
ITU-R BS.1770-x spec for Asian TV (they use -24LUFS ILk) and for the Internet (client wanted "loud"/competitive, we chose to go -10LUFS ILk since Youtube pulls down to currently -13LUFS ILk on avg for big channels anyway).

For CD, I try to convince the client of the benefits of a more transient-healthy mix and not go higher than -14LUFS ILk. But the future (for music) is between -16LUFS (Mastered for iTunes) to -14LUFS (Spotify) - which can still be easily transferred/translated to pretty much anything that's out there (Vinyl, Tape, CD, Web Stream, Radio, TV, etc) - especially if Broadcast Stations pull down the material anyway prior to hitting any compressor/mix console/distribution matrices (less work for the compressor, overall better sound - don't go the Death Magnetic initial CD release route - which really emphasized the way too loud mastering on air play).


And old but still valid one:
https://youtu.be/3Gmex_4hreQ
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