TVU Producer Advanced Audio Mixer User Guide

Advanced Audio Mixer Overview

The Audio Mixer is a dedicated interface embedded into the TVU Producer user interface. The Audio Mixer feature is built for audio operators to mix audio for the TVU Producer program separately from the video and graphics operations.

The Audio Mixer interface opens in a separate tab, allowing the individual operator to adjust the volume. The basic functions include adjusting the volume or fader level for each input source and mixing selected audio sources.

The Advanced Audio Mixer Panel allows TVU Producer users to manage all input levels and master output complemented with remote commentary in real time.
Advanced capabilities serve multiple collaborators or users working to produce a single live show. The operator primarily focuses on using all the advanced capabilities provided in the audio mixer.

Audio Mixer features

Audio Mixer enables the operator to perform the following advanced operations:

• Monitor each video and audio feed for production
• Adjust all audio input levels as well as the master output
• Adjust pans (audio gain) for each channel
• Mute each channel
• Assign channels for each group for simple management of multiple sources

User Guide contents

This TVU Producer Audio Mixer Quick Start User Guide provides a general overview of the basic and advanced features and interface behaviors.

This user guide provides instructions to perform the following tasks:

• Sign up or register for a TVU Producer account
• Logging into TVU Producer
• How to use the Audio Mixer

Step 1 – Sign up or register for a TVU Producer account

Notes:

• The Free trial includes 20 hours of usage, including streaming. No credit card is required, and access is valid for 30 days.
• To purchase TVU Producer, go to “Purchasing TVU Producer” for more information.

To sign up or register for the TVU Producer free trial, complete the following steps:

1. Open a web browser window and enter: https://www.tvunetworks.com/products/tvu-producer/
2. Click the green Sign up/Login in the page’s top right corner.

The Producer Sign in pop-up window displays.

3. Enter your Name, email, and Password. Click the Agreement check box and click Get Started now.
4. Check your email and enter the six-digit code, then click Verify.
5. The TVU Producer Workbench opens. Continue to “Creating a program.”

Step 2 – Start your Producer session

To Sign in to your TVU Producer account, complete the following steps:

1. Open a browser tab and enter: https://www.tvunetworks.com/products/tvu-producer/
2. Click the green Sign up/Login in the page’s top right corner.

The Producer Sign-in pop-up window displays.

3. Enter the following information:

User ID: e-mail address
Password: Your Password

4. Click Sign In. The Producer Workbench user interface displays.

Creating a program

To create a program, complete the following steps:

1. The Workbench tab displays by default. Click + Create a Program.

2. In the Create a program pop-up window, Enter a Program name for your production and click Next.

3. The Settings window opens.
4. Choose the video format you would like to use from the Format drop-down menu.

Note: If you choose a specific Video Format for the Live Show, all your input feeds need to match with this program format for your live switching to be accurate. Please ensure all your input video formats are one and the same. You can separately choose your Output format when you want to go live.

5. Click the Audio Channel drop-down menu and select 2, 4, 6, or 8 output channels for your Producer project to enable the multi-channel audio feature.

6. Select the desired feature checkbox(es) for your live production, select a Region, and click Save:

• RPS: Whenever the RPS feature is enabled, the first 6x slots of your production will be reserved as RPS sources only.
• Partyline: Enabling this option automatically forces all TVU Anywhere to join a party. Producer PGM will be in Video Return by default, and UI previews will use RTIL stream coming directly from the device.
• Vertical: Enable this feature to allow Producer to output your source in vertical (portrait) mode.
• Output buffer: The Output Buffer allows a time buffer (up to 300 seconds) to be set between what is viewed in the Live Output Program and the actual video being encoded for output. (ISSP/RTMP/Social media output is supported)
  This is primarily so the operator can censor the live source for any issues in the program (such as profanity). If an issue occurs, you have time to react and can switch to a replacement video/image.
• Follower mode: Enable this feature to define programs following the main program. Use the Configure link to define which sources follow the main program. Choosing this feature means this production is the main production.
• Source delay control: Enable this feature to set a delay in ms for a producer source.
• Input Source Recording: Enable this feature to select which source you want to be recorded. You can find the recordings in Cloud Record->Remote Recording.
• PGM Recording: Enable this feature to allow recording functionality.
• Replay: Enable this feature to allow replay functionality. Replay is not a standard feature and must be enabled by TVU Support before it can be used. Contact support@tvunetworks.com for more information about the Replay App and testing the feature.

Note: The region is related to your IP address and is preset.

7. Click Start to start your program in TVU Producer.

8. To change a program setting, click the three dots “…” in the program window and click Settings. Make your changes and click Save.

Basic Audio Mixer functionality

Basic audio mixer functionality is embedded into the Producer User Interface. Each input source has a dedicated audio speaker icon that enables the operator to view, raise, and lower the volume of the audio channel.

Note: The basic audio mixer feature is enabled by default.

Audio control

The Audio Mixer tab is located in the left navigation menu.

• The Audio Follow Video mode (AFV) switch is enabled by default, allowing the input source cut to live broadcast/PGM to have its sound channel cut along with it.
• If the AFV switch is disabled/off, the sound for live streaming is selected by choosing an alternate audio channel source.

To choose an alternate audio channel source, complete the following steps:

1. Click the Audio Mixer tab.

The Audio Control menu opens.

2. Move the Audio Follows Video switch to the left (green) to disable the switch (AFV off). The Audio control window displays alternate channels.

3. Select a radio button for an alternate audio channel source. When an alternate audio source is selected, the audio icon changes from Audio ON to Audio 1.

4. To adjust the volume control for each source, click the speaker icon and move the slider.

Advanced Audio Mixer functionality

To switch to the ‘advanced’ audio mixer functionality, complete the following steps:

1. Click the Audio mixer icon in the left panel. The Audio Control menu displays.

Note: the menu options for the advanced Audio Mixer functions display.

2. Click Copy at the bottom of the Audio Control panel.

3. Open a browser window, paste the URL in the address bar, and press Enter. Alternatively, you can click the URL to open the advanced version of the Audio Mixer in a new browser window.

Advanced Audio mixer interface

The TVU Audio mixer user interface displays.

The Advanced Audio Mixer has the following controls:

1 – Audio Mixer source settings menu
2 – Audio Mixer MIDI device menu
3 – Audio Mixer AFV toggle
4 – Headphone control or sound monitoring
5 – Fader level control
6 – Pan control
7 – Audio usage Indicator and audio enable/disable, displays red or grey
8 – Mute icon
9 – Master audio level setting
10 – Monitoring modes
0 – Video Preview toggle
1 – Audio Output Pair Control
2 – Monitor Levels setting

All of the audio mixing controls are available for the event. The audio mixer engineer can work with up to 4 output pairs. Each output pair has a dedicated independent audio panel. Each input source can have up to 4 audio pairs. Each pair can be controlled independently.

Left panel controls:

The Audio Mixer source settings menu displays visible and unavailable sources. In this menu, you can add a description to each source displayed at the bottom of each input source.

The MIDI device menu displays available and connected MIDI devices.

AFV is disabled by default for the remote commentator. All commentators that join are enabled and mixed to the output pair number 1 by default.

Multi-audio channel feature

This feature supports 2, 4, 6, or 8 embedded output audio channels in Producer. The Audio mix option in Producer allows up to 4 pairs of audio channels to be configured by selecting a number in the Audio Output Pair Control feature in the Audio mix panel. This feature is useful for multi-language outputs.
A user can independently adjust the volume of the audio output channels assigned to each pair. The volume for each pair of output channels can be adjusted or muted using the Master output level control slider in the Audio mix panel.

To set up multiple audio output channels in Producer, complete the following steps:

1. Select a source in the Producer User Interface and click the Audio Mixer icon in the left panel. The Audio Mixer panel opens.
2. Click the URL at the bottom of the panel to open the Audio Mixer interface.
3. At the top-right corner of the interface, locate the “Audio Output Pair Control.” Channel setting number 1 is selected by default.

4. Click the Left-Right buttons in the audio source panel to select the audio source channels you would like to pair to setting 1.

Note: Refer to “Advanced Audio Mixer user experience behavior” on page 7 for information about stereo and dual mono settings.

5. Adjust the individual source audio settings for channel 1. Then, adjust the Master audio level in the left panel to the desired setting.
6. Click channel setting 2 and repeat steps 7 and 8, respectively, to pair up to 4 channels (with a maximum of 8 outputs).
7. To adjust your audio channel paired settings, click the appropriate Audio Output Pair Control channel number to display your settings.

Advanced Audio Mixer user experience behavior

The following two types of audio sources are supported in the Advanced Audio Mixer interface:

• Stereo – Stereo has one channel and includes one fader, one pan control, and two audio level indicators. When stereo is selected, both left and right indicators illuminate together to indicate one channel.
• Dual mono – Dual mono has a left and right channel and includes two fader controls, two pan controls, and two audio level indicators. When dual mono is selected, both left and right indicators illuminate separately to indicate two channels.

The ‘Stereo and Dual-mono channel examples’ figure shows the Stereo and dual mono channels:

• Source 1 indicates Stereo (one channel)
• Source 2 shows Dual mono (left and right channels)

The Fader level indicator ranges from -∞ to +12

Note: The following stereo and dual-mono channel example is shown to highlight the differences.

Audio usage indicators are displayed in red at the bottom of the panel.

Stereo audio source

The Stereo audio source has only one fader and one balance control (or Pan control), as shown below.

• The fader level indicator range is from -∞ to +12.
• Balance control ranges from 0 to 100. The balance is set to 50 (middle).

Dual-mono audio source

The Dual-mono audio source has two faders and two pan controls. One fader is for the left channel, and the other is for the right channel. The two channels operate independently.

• Each channel has an independent fader level indicator showing ranges from -∞ to +12.
• The pan control slide ranges from 0 to 100. The left pan control setting is 0. The right pan control setting is 100.

Headphone control and sound monitoring

The headphone icon allows the operator to monitor a specific audio channel.

Fader level control

The fader level indicators show the appropriate status from the basic mixer. When the Audio Mixer displays for the first time, the fader level indicators must be set to the appropriate volume or gain even though sound monitoring is switched.

This will provide real-time results to the audio operator to ensure all audio channel volumes are correctly working. The operator can then adjust the gains of specific audio channels as desired.

Audio usage indicator and enable/disable functions

The audio usage and enable/disable indicator button at the top of the panel (turns red or grey).

The Audio usage button (one for each channel in the input source) indicates which audio channels are used or enabled.

• When the audio switch is ON or enabled, it turns red
• When the audio switch is OFF or disabled, it turns grey

When live sources are switched, the audio usage indicator (in red) is applied to the newly switched input source and the channels. If PIP is enabled on a live source, then both these input sources, which are going to program output, will indicate usage when their left and right channel indicators turn red.

Notes:

1. If AFV is enabled, the audio usage is read-only. Customers cannot enable audio on more than one channel.
2. If AFV is disabled, the operator can click on the audio usage button to switch between grey (disabled) to red (enabled) or red (enabled) to grey (disabled).

If the customer changes the audio usage on two different channels to Red, those two audio channels will go to program output.

Audio control for quad mode

When the quad mode (input source 7) is selected, it behaves like any other source.

The audio usage indicator is ON for source 7 (and is only lit up for source 7), and whatever the presetting was for its source still applies.

Monitor level control

The Monitor level control in the audio mixer controls the volume of the Audio Mixer tab in the Chrome browser.

Mute control

The Mute control allows the end-user to silence the audio channel completely. This will also silence the channel output audio.

Note: Mute can be used in both use-cases, when AFV is ON or OFF.

When AFV is ON, the user can mute the stereo source channel or both dual-mono source channels. When the mute icon is switched ON for the ‘Source’ chosen to go to Program output, the master volume is also muted.

In the following example, AFV is enabled. Video source 6 is chosen to go to program output. When both channels are muted for this specific audio source, the master volume is entirely muted on the program output. Group audio is not enabled in the following ‘Use-case example.’

Mute functionality works similarly if AFV is OFF and the Group Audio feature is enabled.

In the use-case example, the user can choose to directly use the mute functionality associated with the group. When using the mute icon associated with Group 1 or Group 2, the user can mute all of the audio sources assigned to Group 1 or Group 2.

The user can also mute one of the audio channels chosen for Group 1, which will only silence that specific audio channel.

Group Audio feature

The Group Audio functionality is enabled only when AFV is OFF. Users cannot choose groups in AFV mode.

The Group Audio feature enables users to assign audio channels to specific groups. Two groups are supported in the Audio Mixer Panel.

To use the Group Audio feature, complete the following steps:

1. Open the Advanced Audio Mixer panel.
2. Assign each desired audio channel in each respective audio source (whether a stereo source or dual mono) to group 1 or 2.
3. Choose the desired channels and assign them to either Group 1 or Group 2.

Note: Selecting audio channels for specific groups can be completed initially without enabling the group audio functionality.

4. Select Group 1 or Group 2 in the program output panel to change the Group Audio setting. Then, click the ON button in the Audio panel above Group Audio.

Note: Users can switch either group or both groups simultaneously to manage and control all of the audio channels and sources associated with a specific group.

5. If desired, a user can dynamically assign new channels to either of the groups.

Note: the ‘ON” Audio Button can be enabled only after assigning at least one audio channel. If the user has not assigned any audio sources to either group, the user cannot switch ON the group audio.

In the following ‘Channel and input source example,’ channel 2 of input source 1 is assigned to Group 2, and in addition, the two audio channels of input source 3 are also assigned to Group 2. The User interface will allow the user to switch on the Group 2 control and then reduce the fader levels of all the associated channels using the Group fader controls.

Note: Enabling the group feature will not have any impact on the current master volume functionality.

Purchasing TVU Producer

After registering for the 30-day (20 hour) trial period, a user can purchase Producer online using PayPal. To purchase a TVU Producer subscription, sign in to your trial account and click the Purchase button in the top main navigation bar.

We empower publishers, broadcasters, and enterprises to deliver the broadcast to the widest audience on any platform, anywhere on the globe, by transforming your PC into a live production control room. You can innovate and create your live event into a unique next-generation experience.

There are two ways to purchase TVU Producer:

• Online at https://TVUNetworks.com
• The TVU sales team can set up a monthly pricing schedule for customers who do not prefer to pay online by contacting TVU Sales by Phone at +1 650.440.4812 or email at support@tvunetworks.com

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TVU Producer Audio Mixer QSUG Rev D EN 09-2023