Meters - Understanding LUFS

Good video here...explaining the new loudness Scale LUFS..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31zHqzjRn4c

Thanks guys, I've been reading up on it a bit from here http://www.tcelectronic.com/loudness/loudness-explained/
I picked this up a few months ago because it was on sale http://www.tcelectronic.com/lm2-plug-in/
Real fun to watch but I guess there's no harm in actually learning to use it.

 Really thanks a bunch guys, just got finished watching both and both really deliver the goods on the subject, I needed those right now.
 

This is an interesting thread. I found it funny that -23 was their target but I'm not quite sure what they're saying.
 
I found a free R128 meter from Audiocation. ACR128. There seems to be two levels it's displaying. Either at -0 or -23. I just tried it and my mixes were a few LUs higher but again, I'm not sure what's going on. I can make it so either display shows  0 or -23 or should I go under that or try to get it at that level?

I just watched the video linked to in the OP and I watched the other link to Thomas Lunds presentation and I read the webpage at TC Electronics.
 
It seems like a lot of talk and very little info.
 
The webpage at TC Electronics mentions "K-Weighting" (hint: not K-system) and I think that should be emphasized more as it is the basis for the use of the term "loudness" in these loudness meters.
 
If these new meters did not measure "perceived loudness" than they would just be arbitrary re-designations of scale nomenclature like the so called "K-system".
 
The discussions mentioned the idea of averaged loudness and hinted that there are many proposals for how long the averaging period should be. The webpage at TCE mentioned the idea of gating out quiet periods so they did not effect the statistics, and it mentioned throwing out the top and bottom % of the measurements for a similar reason.
 
There were some hints that loudness standards may be described for different genres, but there was no suggestion of how to implement the use of genre based standards to multi genre distribution.
 
Thomas Lund's presentation seemed unorganized. He seemed to suggest that producers should anticipate where their work product will end up on the LUFS scale, and that they should try to mix to the broadcast level if they want to know what end listeners will be hearing, but then he went off and warned us that the wide variety of playback systems make predicting what something will sound like at the end of the stream seem impossible. He pointed out that in Europe the playback capability of portable devices is arbitrarily constrained and that you can not turn the volume up enough on wide dynamic range content to overcome environmental noise. He also pointed out that many of the examples of the "bad sound" that he played back couldn't be appreciated as bad by most people because they don't have good enough playback systems. (I thought that was funny... even if I also think it's true) I thought the idea of listening to the Side split of a Left/Right mix seemed interesting but the presentation failed to acknowledge that all the really matters is how the whole sounds when the mid and side are mixed together and interpreted through the psychology of the listener.
 
He mentioned that broadcasts are, or will be, audited for conformation to loudness standards, and that while there are still issues with embedding loudness info in meta data, producers will need to learn to embed accurate loudness data in their media so that broadcasters and playback devices can make adjustments to the loudness. He hinted at the idea that there is or will be an audit process that will confirm that the media had correct level descriptions embedded.   
 
 
It seemed like there were some tidbits of info here and there.
 
It seems like promoting the idea that "loudness" isn't simply an RMS measurement on a freshly labeled scale but rather an estimation of pyscho acoustic perception would have been the most interesting part to discuss.
 
Instead the presenters seemed to want to talk about compression and aesthetics as if there is some authoritative way to define taste.
 
It seems like missing the forest for the trees.
 
best regards,
mike
 

This seems like a good read as it includes varying informed opinions loudness measurement and management:
 
http://www.gearslutz.com/board/post-production-forum/691960-probelm-k-weighting-bs1770.html
 
best regards,
mike

I doubt these meters change much in the loudness war.  The changes in law, at least in the US, were aimed at stopping tv commercials from blasting us out and not to appease audio purists. it doesn't even cover radio or internet.  Until there is some incentive for pop producers to change, I think this is just a way to sell plugins and give a few guys a soapbox to stand on.  TC Electronics is trying to be one of the companies supplying broadcasters with in house solutions to limit the signal as it goes out. Good info though for those of us trying to be compliant

The impression I got from Mr. Lund's presentation is that this already is or will be the case in some parts of Europe.

The CALM Act went into effect Dec of 2012, which means even the one year grace period allowed for financial hardship has passed. Commercials here are still loud as ever. I'm not saying a standard will never be set.  I just have some doubts about the level of adaptation it will reach. XHTML has been the web standard for awhile now and tons of very popular sites fail validation. Maybe I will be more inclined to believe a standard can be enforced internationally across the web when i start seeing consistent enforcement across one local medium.

 It might seem like very little info for those that already know all this stuff, but I found it extremely informative.
 I was certainly surprised to see that the irritatingly loud TV commercial excerpt was actually much lower in volume RMS than the well mixed song with dynamics intact.
 
 I was also surprised at how bad the space monkeys got on that commercial tune when it was reduced to a 128 mp3.
 Granted they really didn't cover what not to do during the mixing phase to avoid this, but I think the real aim was for the mastering techs, who are sausage makers now, to raise the bar and send the mix back if they need to go to extremes?
 
 As far as CD audio I thought the target was -15 LUFS and -24 for Cinema? I'm going to have to watch those quite a few more times, I certainly have a lot more questions than answers about it right now. maybe when I watch it a few more times I will realize their deception. For now I sure feel like I got my moneys worth on those 2 vids.
No surprise, I don't agree with you Mike but I thank you for the links too.  
 

 So it's not a conscious effort from the advertisers, just lazy TV studio sound tech's and cheap equipment?
 They should get 20 lashes for that no? 
 
 I would imagine our local station overuses the leveler too, I've heard many cheaply made adds that the speaking dialogue was so bad you couldn't make out what was being said. They seem to play them all the time never making an attempt to fix it.

You may and I'll certainly consider, makes sense actually.  

 Interesting, thanks. I guess laws and guidelines are useless if people aren't willing to follow. I guess governing agencies probably don't have a clear understanding of the problem to even know how to enforce the policies.

Those commercials ARE louder, and for a reason.
They are designed to "Get your attention"

When the volume suddenly goes up, you LOOK at your TV,
even if you weren't.  That's the idea.  To get you to LOOK.

There's method to the madness in advertising ON EVERY LEVEL,
both perceptual and subliminal...

Good stuff, I didn't realize the law just came into effect. I will be more observant when I watch TV, I don't really do that very often but I will be sure to email my local station and the FCC if it continues on a few of the locals that has been hollering in our ears through a distortion box here for decades.
I can install my old capture card and measure the loudness of the add pollution as evidence no? Eh, not today, think I'll just play BF4