April 5, 2014

NAB 2014: RTW shows plug-ins for audio monitoring

LAS VEGAS — RTW (www.rtw.com), a vendor of visual audio meters and monitoring devices for professional broadcast, production, post production and quality control, has introduced the Masterclass plug-in range at NAB. The new software provides the company’s metering tools as standard-format plug-ins for Windows and Mac OS platforms. The RTW Loudness Tools, scheduled for availability in May, will be the first of the company’s monitoring products available as part of the new range. This will allow a larger number of RTW customers to access its popular metering tools.

Each RTW Loudness Tools Masterclass plug-in visually depicts audio with all relevant level and loudness values as specified by international standards. It conforms to the EBU R128 loudness standard, as well as SPL, ITU-R BS.1770-3/1771-1, ATSC A/85, ARIB, and custom (to set OP-59, AGCOM), making it well suited for audio and video engineers, radio producers and musicians who are required by broadcasters to conform to the standard. It is also a handy tool for quality control, offering the precision and ease of use required to ensure compliance with custom specifications. Operation of the plug-in is intuitive so that even users without a great deal of experience in monitoring loudness can use it effectively.

The RTW Loudness Tools support all standard sampling rates up to 96kHz and offer plug-in operation in mono, stereo and surround formats (eight channels maximum). The plug-in includes RTW’s Peak Program Meter, TruePeak, and Spot Correlator instruments, and also offers all common loudness formats plus MagicLRA and an SPL view.

The user interface of the plug-in is based on the RTW TouchMonitor TM7 and TM9 units, and offers the same degree of functionality and clarity as the hardware models. The instruments provide graphical/numerical, as well as bargraph views, and can be freely rearranged and scaled. Various function parameters, such as integration time, operational range and tolerance, along with a number of viewing options for metering data and scales, offer extra flexibility.