Old man rant!

[Glamrock]

G’damnit! I don’t know about you all, but I can’t take movie sound anymore. Get the volume right to hear dialogue and then there’s a gunfight, or a car chase, or just music! And it’s all 10 times louder than the dialogue! And you’re scrambling for the damn remote because your ears are fucking bleeding, turn it down and have to rewind because you can’t hear the dialogue! So you turn it up. Rinse/repeat, rinse/repeat, rinse fucking repeat! Drives me nucking futs!

Now get off my lawn!

[Skittles]

1. I,er, hear you

I find myself constantly turning the volume down and up.

[Diamond_Dog]

2. No shit!

I have been complaining about this for YEARS! Closed captioning helps when the dialogue is too low to understand …

[leftieNanner]

3. Yeah but

You have a cool car.

[Glamrock]

5. Hahaha!

Thread winner!


Thanks for the laugh!

[leftieNanner]

7. You're welcome

[MontanaMama]

4. Preach!

I have officially become the get off my lawn lady here in Montana…for different reasons.

[KPN]

6. I hear ya! I found a solution that worked for me.

ZVOX makes a soundbar specifically designed for enhancing dialogue over the music and other "noise". Tried a few other highly recommended soundbars and they were worthless, but this one did the trick. Cost less than $150 at the time -- have had it for a few years now and thinking of getting another one for our other TV in another family room. Plus, they're an American company and I believe manufactured in the USA (Massachusetts if I remember right).

[Glamrock]

8. Dude!

So looking into this!

[KPN]

12. Here's a link. You buy direct from them. They have several models.

Mine is AV200 but it looks like they don't make it anymore. Maybe the AV257 is the same. Anyway, when I bought mine IO bought the one that had the best sale price. It's been great.

[ret5hd]

13. Bookmarking for this info. Thnx.

[Bev54]

21. I use closed caption so I can keep the sound down and still understand

what is being said.

[Earth-shine]

44. I'm a sound engineer with perfect hearing and excellent equipment, and still, I must do this. nt

[Cracklin Charlie]

27. We bought one for Christmas.

Not sure the brand, but it has made a huge difference in sound modulation. I also hear sounds I never knew were there before.

A word of advice given by my son in law: mute the sound on the regular teevee when using the sound bar. Sometimes, you may get some weird reverberations when using sound from both, and sound bar only moderates better the up and down volume effects.

[babylonsister]

9. Old lady rant, too! Drives me nuts. nt

[Cracklin Charlie]

28. Read post #6

[a kennedy]

10. I know, my husband and I both hate it.......🤬 🤬 🤬

[I_UndergroundPanther]

11. This drives me nuts

But it drove me nuts when I was 22 too.

Why dont they just lower the music volume?

Its like being in a bar the music is so damn loud you have to yell to the person sitting next to you to be heard.

If I wanted to go to a concert I'd go to a concert.

[WA-03 Democrat]

14. So I have a solution

A simple external audio compression would limit the gun fight but increase the loudness of the dialog. Basically, this is a common recording studio effect but the degree of amplitude changes/limit (high to low volume) is exactly what it is designed for. I could design it in a cabled or in a blue tooth package and functionality. It could be done very easily by someone who is skilled in software land but I'm a hardware guy. Also, you would have to do one for every smart TV and getting the code or access to the code to do it could be a fools errand at best. It drives me nuts too.
Thoughts?

[Delmette2.0]

15. I just turn on the sub titles. Try that if it is available.

[Martin Eden]

16. I'm 64 and need closed captions for newer movies and TV shows

But the old classic movies -- I can understand every word of dialogue!

[doc03]

17. I have the same problem I am 73, I have to use closed captions to hear

dialog. I can't go to a theater because they have the volume at 100% and the AC set at 50 degrees. If I am
having lunch with a bunch of people talking I can't hear the person next to me. If there is a band they play so
loud I can't hear anyone talk. I try to avoid those situations entirely. I have good hearing it is just the
times when there is background noise. Another pet peeve I have is on TV shows and movies they are always texting
and I can't read the damn text on the phone unless it is shown on closed captions.

[Myrddin]

42. That infuriates me too!

Particularly TV drama shows.

When it happens I have to run up to the screen and put on my reading glasses.

Closed captions, can't read those either, because of my location they're all in Arabic, and the cable provider won't allow me to change to English, or even turn them off.

Perfect storm: The on-screen character sends a text message, the phone image is low enough on the screen that the bloody Arabic subtitles obliterate the view of the phone screen text.

[BobTheSubgenius]

18. Apparently, some systems have a way of "squashing" the sound,

making the loud parts quieter and the quiet parts louder. Similar in general concept to the way that MP3s and cds compress the dynamic range of the audio.

I've yet to find it on my provider's gear (Telus), but I'm assured it works.

This is a MADDENING problem.

[KS Toronado]

19. I'M NOT ON YOUR LAWN !

Just being neighborly shoveling snow off your sidewalks & driveway, but I'll leave if you want me to.
At 71 I can't stand any recent movies because of the sound over spoken words.

[HUAJIAO]

20. LOLOL

[hunter]

22. Now that producers can lazily transfer the theater audio mix to home media, they do.

Seriously, if I wanted the full movie theater multi-channel audio experience I'd go out to the movies, thanks.

At home I'd be happier with an ordinary cd quality stereo down-mix.

We have a plain 1080p television in our family room, not any kind of fancy home theater setup.

[BobTheSubgenius]

48. To be honest, I find the surround-sound effect jarring.

Too many decades of having the audio emanating from the same box as the video. Totally with you on this.

I even have a decent 5.1 system, but only use it to listen to audio recordings...and most of them are at least half as old as me.

[JimWis]

23. Me too.

I have the same problem. And it is not my hearing, because other shows and music I watch, I can hear the dialogue just fine. Some of them I can't hear even with the sound way up. Sounds like whispering or mumbling.

[FakeNoose]

24. Some of the newer TVs have a setting to "equalize" the sound output

I think that's what causes the problem on my TV because I've never had to deal with it on my earlier (non-HD) televisions. So there must be a sweet spot where volume/treble/bass/equalizer all come together and do a reasonable job. I keep fiddling with my settings but I haven't found the sweet spot yet. I use the closed captions a lot too, except captions are a terrible option for sports events. For most movies they're no problem.

[lunatica]

25. I know what you mean

It’s like trying to listen to people talking in another room while the radio is on.

[Shrike47]

26. Oh god, yes! I have the fastest thumb in the West and it still drives me crazy.

[joanbarnes]

29. I agree! I "turn on the words" (subtitles)

[Farmer-Rick]

30. My daughter works with sound on sets in LA .That girl can pick out sounds I don't even notice.

She says that industry wide not being able to hear the actors is a growing complaint.

She says there are many reasons for it. One of the major reasons is that dirty sound is considered more natural. When she says dirty she means dialogue is hidden by ambients sounds like cars, planes and even birds and insects. Or it is muffled by where mike's are located. She says a lot of popular directors think this comes across to the audience as more natural, more real to life. So they don't clean it up.

Also she feels directors are not as concerned about allowing the sound crew to get in there where they need to be to get the best sound because there is so much they can do when they take the track back to the studio to mix. There are so many more technical fixes they can do today that they couldn't do a few years ago that directors ignore the sound crew thinking they will fix the sound later. But if you get really bad sound on the initial recording, there is only so much technology can do to fix it. And bringing back actors to rerecrd can be expensive.

All this to say sound in movies and TV is getting worse. It's not just because you're getting old.

[CaptainTruth]

31. Former Dolby engineer here...

As an electrical engineer at Dolby Labs I helped develop the audio standards for HDTV & DVD (Dolby Digital or AC-3), & also worked with Hollywood studios, broadcasters, & record labels on soundtrack production.

If you're listening to a 5.1+ channel movie or TV show soundtrack on a 2 channel playback system, the 5.1 channels of audio are being downmixed to 2 channels. That's happening inside your TV, & if you go into Audio Settings you should have some control over how the audio is downmixed so you can change how it sounds, for example, to compress the dynamic range to "level out" loud sounds & quiet ones, to address exactly the problem you describe. We designed those features into the Dolby Digital audio system, but not every manufacturer implements every option.

This is from a Sony TV manual & is a good example:

How do I set Dolby Dynamic Range?

Go to the Settings screen on the TV.
Using the HOME button
Press the HOME button on the remote control.
Select Settings.

The next steps depend on the menu options of your TV:
Select Display & Sound → Sound → Volume level → Dolby Dynamic Range.
Select Sound → Sound → Advanced settings → Input related → Dolby Dynamic Range.

Select Standard or Compressed.
Standard mode takes the widest dynamic range because signals are directly played back. Quiet signals remain quiet and loud signals remain loud.
Compressed mode compresses the volume difference and increases the overall volume. The audio is easier to hear, regardless of the dynamic range of the sound source.
--------------------

Note those settings would apply to multichannel (5.1+) playback too.

I've also seen TVs that have something like "Late Night Mode" in the audio settings, for when you're listening at lower volume levels later at night & you don't want loud soundtrack peaks to wake the kids. They do the same thing, compress the audio dynamic range to level out loud/soft sounds using the tools we built into the audio codec bitstream. Those tools give soundtrack producers some control over how it's done, for example to increase dialog intelligibility, as opposed to using an outboard compressor that smashes everything together & causes annoying audio artifacts.

So, look at your audio settings. We engineered Dolby Digital to address this problem, & shame on the TV manufacturer if they didn't implement those features.

[Joinfortmill]

35. Thanks!!!

[Myrddin]

43. Bookmarked, great advice

I'll try this later at home

Thank you

[hunter]

51. It also has to do with the way movies are made now.

There's no expectation that a movie will ever have to be squashed down to a 4:3 aspect ratio and an ordinary stereo sound track for NTSC or PAL broadcast television, or to video cassettes. And major movies are no longer distributed on 35mm film with analog optical sound tracks.

Down-mixing modern movie audio to "vinyl record" or "FM radio" quality isn't really something that can be done electronically without annoying artifacts. Ideally such down-mixing would be assigned to a skilled audio engineer, and it would be done in parallel with the creation of the original theater sound track. (As I recall, Dolby can accommodate such a work flow.)

The first film to have that big "movie theater" sound was a limited run of Disney's Fantasia (1940). This film had four analog optical audio tracks. These were Left, Center, Right, and Control. The control track controlled the gain of the other three amplifiers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasound

For general distribution the sound was mixed down to a single analog optical track, which is what most hometown theaters were equipped for until the late 'fifties or early 'sixties.



The first regular television broadcasts "in stereo" didn't happen until the mid 'eighties. (That was after I'd traded in my dreams of being a television engineer to study biology.)

[Nululu]

32. Turn on closed captioning

[Ocelot II]

33. What?

[Joinfortmill]

34. I hear you, I think.

[BMW2020RT]

36. That is what I said about the Dune remake.

I like the film overall, but the dialog is occasionally lost in an avalanche of sound that accompanies some rich scenes.

[calimary]

37. My son does sound mixing for media. I'll pass your request along.

However, he'll probably say he has to do what the boss wants.

[Joe Nation]

38. Have tried Midnight Mode in your audio options?

It normalizes the level of the audio, so that the softer sounds are louder and the louder sounds are softer - so that you don't have something come along that's unexpectedly loud during the action scenes - so you don't disturb people who are trying to sleep if you're playing late at night.

[Hoyt]

41. Thanks. Gonna try that.

[Ferrets are Cool]

39. We have begun just using captions.

And here is the kicker. The directors are justifying it as "artistic expression".

[chowder66]

40. I stopped going to movie theaters decades ago because I couldn't take it.

I can't concentrate when stressed about when my ears are going to be assaulted again.

I'm also tired of "mumble speak".

[Emile]

45. Even the nightly evening news starts out with Lester Holt talking

and the damn background music gets louder and louder, WTF!

[CentralMass]

46. I have a set of Bluetooth head phones and a bought a bluetooth dongle that you can plug into audio

jacks. While it doesn't eliminate the volume swings it is easier to hear when the volume level drops.

[hippywife]

47. Been complaining about this for eons, but I fixed it.

I stopped watching TV and movies. There's not much of interest to me anymore, anyway.

[iscooterliberally]

49. I have the same problem too, but my car isn't quite as cool as yours.

I was thinking about getting one of these and rigging it into my system. I have my TV running through some powered studio monitors and a small digital mixer.

[highplainsdem]

50. Know exactly what you mean. I am so damn tired of watching with the remote in my hand,

ready to adjust the volume instantly.

[Pobeka]

52. I WILL NOT get off your lawn.

I'll bring an extra brew and we can gripe about this problem together

Totally agree, this is just BS. This is what audio engineers could be used for -- compensating for quiet and loud sounds so they are audible at a single level.