Then comes a commercial break and all hell breaks loose with the sound levels.
What are commercial breaks?.. I stopped watching TV many moons ago. I stream and sail the seven seas.
Ads are making a comeback on streaming services. Not only Youtube, which is now getting more serious about blocking ad-blockers, but even on paid streaming. Netflix has an ad supported tier, Amazon runs ads for its own stuff (so far)…
Came here to say this. I HATE it when I set a reasonable volume level for the show, and all the commercials are twice as loud. Grrr!
I was watching a “free” movie on Tubi the other day, when a commercial came on and blasted my eardrums. It really took me back.
For it was my late childhood and early adolescence that our family finally achieved cable television. If you fell asleep with the TV on, god help you when it woke you up at 2 AM with a commercial louder than an atomic blast playing Enya and Enigma in Pure Moods.
Glory to Cable Networks and bless the FCC for the awakenings. For even though everyone hated the constant volume change, the FCC was powerless to stop it against the might of The Telecommunications act of 1994, which they themselves crafted with the wisdom of the telecom industry. Specifically these glorious sentences:
Title III: Regulatory Reform - Bars any State or local statute, regulation, or legal requirement from prohibiting the ability of any entity to provide interstate or intrastate telecommunications services.
and
Title VII: Media Diversity - Requires the FCC to complete a proceeding to: (1) modify or remove national and local ownership rules on radio and television broadcast stations to ensure that broadcasters are able to compete fairly with other media providers and that the public receives information from a diversity of media sources; (2) review a certain ownership restriction with respect to cable operators and report to the Congress on whether such restriction serves the public interest; and (3) consider the applicability of the FCC’s rules regarding network non-duplication protection, syndicated exclusivity protection, and sports programming exclusivity to programmers whose programs are transmitted on common carrier video platforms.
Which, among other things, allowed monopolies in media including ClearChannel which quickly ruined radio for everyone. Bless us all.
The commercials on B104 in the lehigh valley of PA in the morning are so loud it’s distorted.
I was gripping about this last night. Actors practically whispering. Had to move to headphones. Many times i wonder why the industry can’t seem to properly mic the scene or pick a decent cohesive/compatible decimal range.
There is a lot that goes in to sound engineering in order to make a movie going experience really good. Basically the sound is engineered to sound really good on the 100ish channels that movie theaters have, but when going to a home they have to crunch all that down to work with a 2.1 or 5.1 etc and there is inevitably loss due to overlapping frequencies and even immersive aspects. How can a voice seem to be as loud as an explosion for example.
On top of those difficulties you have directors like Christopher Nolan who has said that he doesn’t care about home audio and that his movies are made to be seen in a theater.
But why do they do it in TV series as well? It’s not like I’m watching better call Saul in cinema.
The people that made it probably wanted to make the audio sound best for the one person that has a great sound system, there’s a good YouTube video about it https://youtu.be/VYJtb2YXae8
Exactly! My comment above was in reference to Breaking Bad (not something in theaters). I’m watching this thru probably for the fifth time but the really quiet skyler and walt whispering dialogue (crank to 32 to hear) takes time so i missed part of it. Volume averages at 10 in my living room. Then have to be johnny on the spot and hope that 32 gets back to 10 before the whispering is over. And good help you if you’re watching subtitles because the volume indicator appears right over them.
There is a lot that goes in to sound engineering in order to make a movie going experience really good. Basically the sound is engineered to sound really good on the 100ish channels that movie theaters have, but when going to a home they have to crunch all that down to work with a 2.1 or 5.1 etc and there is inevitably loss due to overlapping frequencies and even immersive aspects. How can a voice seem to be as loud as an explosion for example.
A simple sound compression of the entire signal would solve the issue. VLC player has this feature and it’s working perfectly.
Yeah, unfortunately while it’s very simple to set up compressor levels in a DAW or even in feature-rich players like VLC, I haven’t come across any easy way to blanket apply one to your computer’s output without weirdly looping it through something like Ableton.
It seems like it should be so simple to have in Windows sound settings, but it’s never been an option. Sometimes there’s a toggle for “normalization”, but that gives you no control at all. You at least should be able to set compression ratio, lower threshold (in dB), and upper threshold (in dB).
I was wondering if there’s a software compressor for the master channel of a computer. Like many, I usually stream movies nowadays, so VLC is of no use unfortunately. Any ideas? I’m on windows, if that matters.
unfortunately it sounds like this in the cinema too. Dialogue is barely understandable and 80% of the scenes are so dark, it looks like shot with an iPhone under moon light.
Just compare with any movie from the 80’s or early 90’s.
I personally reached a point where don’t even bother to pirate those movies anymore.
Who watches movies anymore? Costs a fortune, theater is dirty, people are annoying, food is overpriced, show times are inconvenient, …
At home you can just choose another movie to watch, pick another video.
They can. You’re listening to the incorrect audio stream on your device. Your device has to request the stereo stream from Netflix or whatever, otherwise it’ll just send you a surround stream and then your TV will downmix it badly… resulting in quiet dialogue.
/work in the industry, we have to hit specific loudness averages and ranges for both dialogue and overall mix. -24 LUFS, if you’re curious.
The main reason why I bought an Appletv. Its “reduce loud sounds” feature is amazing
You preparing yourself for Oppenheimer?
I honestly believe this crap should be illegal. The visual equivalent is GoT’s level of just blackness. I can’t afford a damn OLED TV you fools. And besides Lord of the Rings had the perfect solution to show darkness two decades ago.
