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This is a guest post by David Shimamoto from Vocal-EDIT.com. David lives in Kyoto and is the author of the book “Talkback – stories of the digital studio”, the first book in Japanese to thoroughly tackle the subject of the loudness war and streaming normalization. The book has sold almost 3000 copies since it was released in 2017 and is regularly used as a reference work for both music schools and companies.
David got in touch recently to let me know about an important new development – the implementation of loudness normalization by Niconico, one of Japan’s largest streaming sites. Rather than write my own post, I asked him to describe how the system works and why he thinks it’s important, based on his experience. So here it is !
In January 2020, Japanese online video streaming service Niconico announced that they will begin loudness normalizing all their audio tracks beginning on Jan 29th.
The specifications of the change are:
- Loudness will be measured by EBU R128/ITU-R BS.1770-3 standards
- The reference level is -15 LUFS (Integrated)
- Only content exceeding the reference level will be normalized. Audio tracks below this are unaffected
- The change will be a level adjustment only, with no dynamics processing
- Users can disable loudness normalization via the settings
- Sponsored adverts will be “slightly quieter” than user submitted videos. (There is no further description on this matter.)
- The target loudness level may change in the future
- The update will begin with embedded players in web browsers, and follow in the iOS and Android apps later
As with YouTube, Niconico hosts a variety of content from music to talk-show style programs. Bearing in mind that TIDAL (who primarily deal with music) chose a reference level of -14 LUFS for the loudest songs, and that AES recommendations are to stream no louder than -16 LUFS, the midpoint of these two options seems to be a reasonable point of compromise.
While the update is scheduled for the near future, Niconico has actually been loudness normalizing their content at -24 LUFS when viewed on their app for the Nintendo Switch gaming console since late February 2019. This shows that level scanning of the content has been in place for some time, and it was just a matter of time for the same system to be implemented for the more popular viewing methods as well.
So what is Niconico anyway?
Niconico, also known as Niconico Video, is one of the two major user-generated-content based online video streaming services in Japan. (The other being, of course, YouTube)
Since launching in 2006, Niconico has provided one unique feature not found on YouTube. This is that comments entered by viewers are associated to a specific timestamp in the video, appearing as scrolling text overlaid on the video during playback by other viewers. On scenes where comments are concentrated, this may at times result in the underlying video becoming practically invisible, in which case the viewer can disable the overlaid comments. This feature has successfully emulated the sense of a shared viewing experience among remote viewers watching on-demand content at different hours, contributing to Niconico’s success.
Readers following Japanese pop culture maybe aware of the Vocaloid craze that arose nearly 10 years ago. This trend began with users submitting their compositions ‘sung’ by a voice synthesis engine developed by Yamaha. This eventually grew into a huge group of users who have begun writing original music for the sole purpose of having it sung by this virtual diva, and perhaps an even larger user-base of members exchanging fan art. Niconico was at the core of this movement, and still remains one of the primary platforms for young track-makers to showcase their work. In addition to all of the this, until recently Niconico was a semi-closed community requiring viewers to sign up, and had evolved in ways different from its competitors.
To hint the size of the user base, an official offline meeting held at a convention center in the Tokyo area every April has been expanding each year since beginning in 2012. In 2019, over 168,000 participants have visited.
Some thoughts on Niconico’s approach
It’s now 5 years since YouTube began normalizing their content, so I believe it’s fair to say that Niconico are rather late in adding this feature. However, unlike their ‘black box’ competitor, Niconico are very open with their specifications, and above all, seem to be devoting plenty of energy to educate their users on the mechanism and merits of loudness normalization. One example can be seen in their FAQ:
https://ch.nicovideo.jp/nicotalk/blomaga/ar1848078
In response to the anticipated question “Won’t loudness normalization affect the quality of the uploaded audio track?”, they state clearly that this is no more than a gain offset added for the benefit of viewers, and audio quality is not compromised. The following sections also state that macro dynamics and clipped audio in the original source are preserved and will be delivered to viewers as the creator has intended.
Those who are able to access English resources (including Production Advice) may wonder why a streaming service provider finally catching up in the year 2020 is taking the trouble to convince uploaders that their works are secure, and why this is such a big deal. The answer to this question needs a little more detail and is a sad little story in itself, but with hopefully a happy ending in sight:
Why Niconico matters: A little about the loudness war in the Far Far East
I will begin the last section of this post by stating that the following views may or may not be nothing more than my own subjective view!
With a shortage of practical literature on audio engineering – both online and offline – and with the low number of English speakers, unfortunately the technical understanding of an average audio engineer in Japan is rather behind when compared to western regions. This is especially apparent when discussing the potential problems of hyper-compression, and the philosophy behind loudness normalization. This isn’t really surprising, considering the fact that to date there is practically no major publication that describes these issues in the way that Bob Katz or Ian Shepherd do. When I last checked in May 2019, most CD singles on the domestic chart were around -6 to -5 LUFS and above. The highest I have seen was an uplifting pop tune by a popular folk duo which scored -2.7 LUFS !
YouTube’s adoption of loudness normalization back in 2015 was perhaps one of the first turning points, and got some of the more informed musicians, producers and engineers thinking about what was truly going on. However, a considerable number of them believed that YouTube was improperly using it’s authority to dictate what music ‘should’ sound like, literally punishing artists for being too loud.
It’s quite apparent that similar claims will be made about Niconico, especially once loudness normalization is in play at the end of this month. Personally, I am very impressed with Niconico for anticipating these (unjustified) complaints, and further making the effort to educate users in advance.
Although it may sound like a long shot, here is one positive side note. A Twitter poll I held myself shows that amongst 700+ video uploaders who voted, nearly 65% welcome the upcoming changes. Only 13% are opposed, while 22% were either unsure or didn’t care.
This was actually a pleasant surprise for me, having followed the web and Twitter-sphere conversation on this issue for so long. Until just recently (or even today on bad days) it has been much easier to come across both professionals, amateurs and consumers justifying the brick-walling of music for misguided reasons, which were almost always incompatible with the recommendations of sites like Production Advice. The Twitter poll hints that perhaps the silent majority of creators were not happy having to cope with the un-artistic loudness ‘competition’ after all.
Personally I believe that Niconico’s sole intention while adopting loudness normalization is for the convenience of viewers, exactly as they claim – just as with TV broadcasts. Whatever the truth is, all video streaming platforms popular in Japan will now have loudness normalization ON by default. Having such a huge and active community becoming faced with this reality will hopefully lead to amateur creators and fans finally realizing what they’ve been missing out on for so many years !
Japanese streaming site Niconico adds loudness normalization is a post from Ian Shepherd's: Production Advice Subscribe to the newsletter for great content from the archives, special offers and a free interview - for more information, click here