Loudness

What this is about

Two files can peak identically and still feel wildly different in volume — loudness measurement exists to capture that difference. Broadcast normalisation, established in Europe through EBU R128, ended the era of commercials blasting louder than the film around them: programmes are measured as a whole and aligned to a common target. Streaming and social platforms run their own normalisation, each with its own target, so the practical rule is to check the current spec of the platform you deliver to and mix against it rather than against habit.

A term only helps when everyone on set means the same thing by it — so what follows is how it is used, not a dictionary definition.

What runs differently here

In planning terms, that means:

• Loudness is measured over the whole programme, not at the loudest moment
• EBU R128 with −23 LUFS is the established European broadcast norm
• Platforms normalise anyway — mixing far above target just gets turned down

With TillyGen

Delivery specs captured in TillyGen's plan carry the loudness target per platform, so the mix aims at the right number from the start.

Change one constraint and the consequences travel through the whole plan: affected shots are flagged, the call sheet is regenerated, and nobody keeps working from yesterday's version.