TAG’s audio monitoring capabilities provide automated, real-time oversight of program audio streams to ensure consistent quality and compliance. The system continuously checks for a wide range of audio issues, such as missing audio, prolonged silence, phase errors, excessive peaks, loudness deviations, bitrate anomalies, codec mismatches, and channel configuration errors. These checks are based on configurable thresholds and industry standards, allowing operators to tailor monitoring to their specific requirements and receive timely alerts when issues are detected.
By monitoring both overall and channel-specific audio characteristics, TAG helps broadcasters quickly identify and resolve problems that could impact the viewer experience. The platform’s detailed event reporting covers scenarios like mono audio on stereo streams, mismatched audio languages, and dialogue normalization discrepancies for Dolby content. This comprehensive approach ensures that audio quality is maintained across all channels and formats, supporting operational efficiency and regulatory compliance throughout the broadcast workflow.
Technical Overview
TAG’s Audio monitoring includes comprehensive error detection and analysis across all audio formats and configurations. Each audio stream is continuously analyzed in real time, and the system automatically triggers events based on threshold deviations or anomalies.
TAG’s platform monitors audio presence, silence, levels, phase, codec type, and channel configuration with frame-level accuracy. It detects issues such as:
- Audio absence or silence: Triggered when no audio PID is present, when decoding fails, or when prolonged silence is detected below the configured threshold (0–70 dB).
- Phase and channel errors: Identifies phase mismatches between stereo or 5.1 channels, detects mono audio where stereo content is expected, and highlights discrepancies between actual and configured channel layouts.
- Loudness and true-peak control: Continuously validates loudness and peak levels according to ITU-R BS.1770-2 and EBU R128 standards. TAG measures short-term loudness (3-second LUFS averages) and long-term trends, alerting operators when thresholds are exceeded or when prolonged low audio is detected.
- Codec and bitrate validation: Verifies that audio encoding (MPEG, AAC, HE-AAC, Dolby, etc.) and bit rates remain within defined operational ranges.
- Language and metadata consistency: Detects mismatches in audio language descriptors or Dialnorm values for Dolby content, ensuring compliance with delivery specifications.
Additional analytics include detailed Audio Level Events, identifying when channels enter silence, clipping, or high-state conditions across stereo or surround configurations. Each event report provides the PID, state, and duration for rapid troubleshooting.
Together, these automated checks ensure accurate, compliant, and high-quality audio delivery across live, OTT, and broadcast workflows – fully integrated within TAG’s unified monitoring environment.
