Volicon Keeps Loudness In Check

Volicon (Booth #1024)said it will focus on products aimed at helping operators comply with government-mandated monitoring for determining loudness and supporting closed captions, and other elements of the transport stream.

In the loudness monitoring applications area, Volicon's Observer TS and Observer RPM systems allow operators to measure loudness levels of all commercials accurately and simultaneously, as well as to burn measurements into the A/V asset for a clear affidavit. The release of the Closed Captioning Quality Order (FCC 14-12) earlier this year will eventually demand that cable operators be able to monitor and demonstrate the presence and integrity of closed captions, the company pointed out. 

To evaluate the integrity of incoming transport streams and make sure that they can pass smoothly through the cable system, the Volicon Observer TS system logs the native MPEG transport stream. Operators can proactively monitor and quickly troubleshoot a range of items, from the details of MPEG metadata — AC-3, Dialnorm, PSIP, DVB subtitles, TR 101 290 — all the way down to the quality of the rendered content, according to the company. Volicon will demonstrate ad monitoring and verification applications, including its Observer RPM and Scout systems, which automate the capture of post-set-top box ad insertions for proof of broadcast, quality assurance, troubleshooting, and review.