EBU programme-loudness — derived validation data#
What this folder contains#
ebu_programme_block_loudness.npz holds block-loudness series measured from
the authentic-programme cases of the EBU loudness test set (v04). They are used
by the test suite to validate the gating and loudness-range stages of
phonometry.broadcast.program_loudness against the EBU Tech 3341/3342 targets
without any network access.
| Array | Blocks | Source case | Content |
|---|---|---|---|
nlr_momentary |
400 ms / 100 ms hop | Tech 3341 case 7 (NLR narration) | Momentary loudness series, LUFS (the BS.1770-5 integrated-loudness gate input) |
nlr_short_term |
3 s / 100 ms hop | Tech 3342 case 5 (NLR) | Short-term loudness series, LUFS (the loudness-range input) |
wlr_momentary |
400 ms / 100 ms hop | Tech 3341 case 8 (WLR movie/drama) | Momentary loudness series, LUFS |
wlr_short_term |
3 s / 100 ms hop | Tech 3342 case 6 (WLR) | Short-term loudness series, LUFS |
The series were measured with phonometry.broadcast.program_loudness from
seq-3341-7_seq-3342-5-24bit.wav (NLR) and
seq-3341-2011-8_seq-3342-6-24bit-v02.wav (WLR), then stored rounded to
0.0001 LU (three orders of magnitude below the official tolerances). They pin
the integrated loudness to -23.0 LUFS and the loudness range to 5 LU (NLR)
and 15 LU (WLR), the EBU-published targets for those cases.
Why only the derived series, not the audio#
These are measurement data, not audio: a per-block loudness envelope at a 100 ms hop cannot reconstruct the programme signal. The authentic-programme WAVs themselves are not committed. The EBU loudness test set is distributed free for technical testing, but its cases 7/8 and 5/6 use real programme material (narration and a movie/drama segment) that carries its own third-party rights, so redistributing the audio in this repository is out of scope. The committed series carry none of that content and are safe to version.
Source and authorship#
- Derived from the EBU loudness test set (v04), © EBU (European Broadcasting Union), distributed for technical testing at https://tech.ebu.ch/publications/ebu-loudness-test-set.
- The target values reproduced by these series are defined in EBU Tech 3341 (loudness metering) and EBU Tech 3342 (loudness range), which in turn build on ITU-R BS.1770.
- The
.npzitself is an original transcription of numeric measurements, not an EBU file.
Purpose and scope of use#
The series are consumed by tests/broadcast/test_ebu_material_series.py to
demonstrate that this library's independent gating and loudness-range
implementation reproduces the EBU authentic-programme targets, everywhere
including CI cells without network access. They are not part of the
phonometry package and are not installed with it.
The full signal chain (the K-weighting front end included) is exercised against
the original audio in tests/broadcast/test_ebu_material_oracle.py, which runs
only where the EBU set is present locally (point EBU_LOUDNESS_TEST_SET at it,
or drop it under plan/dsp-sources/ebu-loudness-test-set/); that test skips
otherwise. The synthesizable EBU cases are covered with generated signals in
tests/broadcast/test_program_loudness.py.
Removal policy#
If you represent the EBU and consider that publishing these derived series
exceeds the intended use of the test set, please open an issue or contact the
maintainer (see CITATION.cff) and they will be removed promptly, together
with the tests/broadcast/test_ebu_material_series.py tests that read them.