Deutsche Welle calls on RTW TouchMonitor range
When Deutsche Welle, Germany’s international broadcaster and a member of the ARD broadcast network, sought to make its programming compliant with the EBU-R128 loudness mandate, it turned to RTW and the company’s TouchMonitor line of audio meters, to make the transition. With their ability to offer intuitive, precise monitoring, along with their ease of installation, RTW’s TM3, TM7 and TM9 TouchMonitor meters were the perfect fit for the job.
Deutsche Welle first took delivery of the RTW TouchMonitor units last September, employing a combination of 65 TM3, TM7 and TM9 meters with various configurations and feature sets in several recording studios, editing suites and workplaces in its Bonn and Berlin facilities. AVS Medientechnik, based in Berlin, oversaw the procurement and implementation of the units.
According to Hannes Brandt, technical assistant at Deutsche Welle’s Berlin site, the broadcaster chose RTW on the recommendation of an ARD working group that had tested loudness meters from several manufacturers. He also noted his company had previous experience with the RTW metering systems. “Our production workplaces were already using digital and/or analog peak meters by RTW, as well as metering instruments from their PortaMonitor series, and the positive experience we had with those products, along with RTW customer support, also contributed to the decision to go with RTW.”
Engineers working on various broadcast shows Deutsche Welle’s Berlin and Bonn sites currently employ the RTW TM3 units in a combined setup with the existing RTW PortaMonitor, which is used for monitoring level, loudness, frequency response and phase of analog and digital signals systems, as well as the RTW TM7 units at the company’s dubbing suites (mainly the TM7-VID version, which is installed in the company’s Tektronix mainframes). The TM9 units are being used with an installed radar option, for a more detailed look into the composition of the metering data.
“We currently use a reference setting of either –17 LUFS or the traditional 0 dB QPPM,” Brandt said. “This allows our users to familiarise themselves with level adjustment based on loudness. However, we currently still support QPPM-based level adjustment. For that purpose, we configured two different layouts on the installed units. As soon as all workplaces are equipped with TM units and all users have undergone appropriate training, we will switch our in-house reference to –23 LUFS by changing the layout presets.
According to Brandt, another major benefit is the unlimited configurability of instrument layouts on the user interface. “This way, we can adjust our meter scales to the requirements at hand,” he notes. “In addition, the constant software refinement and the additional software options ensure maximum protection for our investment.”