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General VU level for broadcast?
Greetings, herd. Can anyone suggest a “best practice” VU meter level I should be using for footage destined for a cable TV channel? I’ve been looking for articles on the subject, but one indicated aiming for -6VU and another mentioned -20VU. Quite a difference, to say the least. I’d like to apply a simple compressor/limiter or maybe normalization to my clips, but I need to figure out what my ceiling is first before I can set threshold and all that. Thanks,
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4 Replies
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You are within your “best practice” range. For “specific” ask the cable outlet.
Steve Eisen
Eisen Video Productions
Board of Directors
Chicago Final Cut Pro Users Group -
[Paul Campbell] “-6VU and another mentioned -20VU”
Every digital tape I’ve ever seen uses -20db tone. The person who said -20 meant that’s what you set tone to. The person who said -6 probably meant that is the highest level that the actual content should peak at. Two different things.
Sean
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Target broadcasters all have their own very specific audio specs. You need those. And just throwing a limiter & compressor at the mix rarely gets you there. Personally, I shoot for -8 to -6 at the top (peaks), -14 to -12 for average program content. When sections of the show are music only, -18 to -16 is what I go for, unless you’re trying to make a dramatic point with loud music. In other words, when dialog or FX are not present, don’t push music up to -10 or -6 just because there’s nothing else there.
Reid C
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Guys, sorry for the late response here. I appreciate your input. I’ve tried contacting the cable channel, but haven’t heard back yet. Fwiw, this is a “Top 20 video countdown” show, which of course includes the host’s audio plus snippets of music videos.
Until I hear from the channel, I’ll shoot for -6 peaks and -12 averages and go from there.
Ciao.
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