FEATURES: RECORDING
Going OTT in India
The assembled hosts, presenters and attendees of Ansata’s seminar on loudness and mixing for OTT
As India’s first Atmos Home Entertainment (HE) studio gets Dolby approval, the country has hosted a seminal meeting between Avid, Dolby and the creative manager of sound technology at Netflix. Caroline Moss reports back FARHAD K DADYBURJOR IS KNOWN FOR HIS FIRSTS. Back in 1995 he drafted in acoustician Andy Munro to design a studio at the Famous complex for him, precipitating a wave of high-quality recording facilities on the subcontinent. So it’s no surprise that the first studio to be approved for Dolby Atmos HE in India is Famous Galactica A, which DadyBurjor helms. Again, the Mumbai studio was treated by Munro Acoustics, updating it from its existing 5.1 incarnation to comply with the new format. Together with DadyBurjor’s input, the company specified and built a custom Dynaudio 7.1.4 monitoring system, which has been installed alongside a new 32-fader Avid S6-M40 console, a Dolby HT RMU renderer and a ProTools system upgraded with HDX | 2 and dual MTRX interfaces. But DadyBurjor is at pains to point out that to create the highquality audio tracks he’s hoping to work on at his new studio, many of which will find an outlet in the new OTT channels that are proliferating in India, more education is needed, from the ground up. At this stage, he says, it’s vital the industry understands the importance of correct working practices. ‘Quality starts at the beginning of the signal chain, at the creation and acquisition on location,’ he says. ‘There shouldn’t be the expectation that things can get fixed in the mix stage by pointlessly throwing money around to sort something that could have been done properly in the first place. If you start with the lowest bidder for the location sound, then add in the lowest bidder for ADR, then for Foley and sound design, at some point comes the realisation that you’ve grossly miscalculated how much quality you can get for such low rates.’ So it was timely, then, that in October 2019, Indian distributor Ansata held a one-day seminar in Mumbai to help create better awareness of issues surrounding loudness of content, as well as the use of Dolby Atmos for OTT content. The event was attended by around 200 audio professionals involved in audio postproduction, from acquisition at location to final mix, as well as students and educators. ‘The intent of the workshop was to inform and educate the sound community in India regarding loudness and mixing for OTT,’ explains Ansata’s CEO, Leslie Lean. ‘There are strict requirements for loudness specs that are being enforced. Understanding that, and how to achieve it, will help audio
70 PRO AVL ASIA Januar y–Februar y 2020
Farhad DadyBurjor at his Famous Galactica studios which is now equipped for Dolby Atmos HE professionals provide much better output and quality without straining to just hit the measurement numbers.’ This was the first time ever that Avid, Dolby and Netflix had got together, with the companies represented by Dolby India’s senior content services engineer, Bhaskar Pal, Avid pro audio application specialist, Sreejesh Nair, and Netflix manager, sound technology, Scott Kramer. ‘This was a unique event for many reasons, not just the fact that three major players came together on a common
platform,’ comments Nair. ‘Another unique reason was that we explained the entire process, from creation to execution, presenting a complete breakdown of the measurement specs, how to read the meters, how those meters actually measure and how to use that knowledge in mixing. This was a true eye-opener for many because once the technicalities were understood from a very simple layman’s perspective, they understood the tricks and methods they could use for a mix. It also enabled them
