LEEDS, UK - Nugen Audio (www.nugenaudio.com) just launched its new speech intelligibility plug-in, DialogCheck. A mono, stereo and multichannel dialog clarity meter, DialogCheck provides an objective measure of speech audio intelligibility. The plug-in is well suited for a range of applications, including film and television post, and game audio production.
“Poor speech clarity is commonly cited as a major source of television audience complaints, making dialog intelligibility increasingly important for audio professionals,” explains Dr. Paul Tapper, CEO of Nugen Audio. “As engineers are likely to listen in an acoustically-specialized environment, compared to where the final mix might be played, it can be difficult for them to judge whether further changes are needed to improve clarity. DialogCheck provides an objective measure of speech in a portion of the audio file or through an entire project.”
The ability for a listener to understand a piece of dialog can be affected by a number of factors, including language, dialect, enunciation, reverb, effects, loudness and background noise, as well as the listener's hearing ability, listening environment and placement of speakers. DialogCheck enables users to easily evaluate their audio to identify sections of speech that might be difficult for listeners to understand. The software features more than a dozen interface tools aimed at supporting engineers in their dialog editing process, including an integrated, realtime bar meter and history graph. Additionally, the distribution view and numerical statistical values provide an overview of the speech intelligibility of the entire program. This information can then be used to guide engineers to correct issues before testing again. Furthermore, the tracking function syncs the views with the audio playback in the DAW, while 'macro view' highlights the current audio section within the wider historical view.
DialogCheck uses the Listening Effort Meter (LE-Meter) developed by Fraunhofer IDMT, which allows sound engineers to visualize listening effort during mixing and conduct post-mixing checks to optimize audio quality. Designed to objectively assess the listening effort of dialog in broadcast material, LE-Meter uses automatic speech recognition and psychoacoustic modeling with metrics to evaluate the intelligibility of dialog.