-
When watching old movies on the internet I set the volume loud enough to hear the dialogue, then when the music comes in or there are sound effects like trains, planes, car crashes, etc. the volume is way too loud. This is especially irritating at night when trying to keep the volume low. Does anyone know of a solution for this? It seems someone could make money inventing a device to solve this problem. What is the cause of it? I don't think there was such a dramatic contrast in sound volume at theaters. It's exagerrated online.
-
12-30-2022 03:24 PM
-
I hear ya zephyrregent! Got the same issues. I keep the remote handy with finger on the volume/mute buttons. Will be watching this for any solutions.
-
Thanks! I am checking it out on Google. I listen to the movies on my home stereo so the solutions for TVs don't work. Stay Tuned!
-
If you are listening in Stereo, yes you will have louder SFX and Music cues. The dialogue (mono) is being split between L-R, the Music and SFX were most likely mixed in stereo or panned L-R.
Do yourself a favor and get a receiver that is 5.1 Dolby or better capable. You will need a Center channel speaker as well. No need to hook up the L-R surrounds (usually placed above and behind the listening area) or subwoofer. You can do that later.
Now you will able to control the Center and L-R stereo information separately. Generally speaking, the Center channel has dialogue.
I was a post production Sound Mixer (re-recording) in Hollywood for 10+ years. The above advice is very simplified. And the buy in is pretty inexpensive.
-
Originally Posted by SierraTango
Any non-stereo options or fixes ? I enjoy foreign films, and find most of those ( British esp. ? ) have low dialogue levels. I can't see a five speaker - subwoofer etc etc arrangement in a small living room, so ???
Thx.
-
I purchased a “smart T.V.” that had inconsistent volume, I bought an audio compressor (dbx 266xs) and that solved the problem.I think since I ran it as a “limiter” I could have purchased a limiter for less money, but at the time I didn’t know what was called for.
-
I turned on closed captions years ago. I turn down when loud parts happen and don’t turn it back up.
-
Are you watching on a TV or a computer?
LG TVs used to have a feature that would raise the center channel level prior to the two-channel downmix. If memory serves, it was marked as "dialogue clarity" in the audio setup menu. This caused quite a stir in the royalty collection department of our organization, since the theory was that an extra charge for accessing a third channel of the multichannel bitstream was appropriate.
It's been a long while since I tested products for the Cosmodemonic Codec Company, but my guess is that since patents have expired, many products may incorporate a similar feature. (maybe even soundbars that can be easily added to an existing system).
-
music mixed up
too loud is a problem for me
too
not particularly ‘old movies on the internet’ more the new movies and
TV shows
I believe this is caused by psychological effects in the people doing the final mix
ie when you’ve heard the dialogue in a scene many many times
you can easily fool yourself that it’s loud enough for the first time listener ,
when it’s in fact way too quiet relative
to the music and fx ....
Sorry I don’t have a fix for you
I wish I did !
-
There seems to be a fashion for mumbled speech and over-loud background music these days. We watch TV with the subtitles on whenever it gets too bad.
-
Originally Posted by gionnio
We have a medium size living room with a 5.1 set up. Not super high end equipment, but it works nicely.
Someone mentioned the psychological effects of the people mixing the media. Oh the stories I could tell. In my experience as a union re-recording mixer, the dialogue guy was the senior and highest paid member of the crew. It is a very tough and demanding job. Many times the post supervision tasks are shoved off on junior associate producers (AP's) who are looking to impress the higher ups with big effects and music cues. By the time the boss comes in for the final mix check, they are usually on to other projects, give it a quick listen, and approve.
That's showbiz!!
-
Home Theaters have been around for 30 years. Just sayin.
-
Look in the system settings for your TV - many of them have a setting that enhances the clarity of dialogue as well as separate EQ for the overall mix.
Originally Posted by grahambop
I think a lot of newer material is mixed with the expectation that the viewer has a 5.1 or 7.1 system turned up so that explosions are loud and dialog only slightly less so.
I watch with CC on most of the time because I keep volume very low - I am not trying to recreate the theatre experience at home.
SJ
-
I hate cc. If I want to actually watch the movie/whatever, the cc is a distraction. If I'm reading the dialogue I can't actually SEE what the actors are doing. This is not a solution for me. And, yes, I hate foreign movies with cc.
-
I can understand that modern movies are mixed for theaters and state of the art sound effects and may have problems when viewed on a computer. However, old movies on the internet from the 30's to the 50's have the same problem. One application suggests using the built in compressor but I don't watch movies on apps, just on the internet such as YouTube, Ok.ru and Archive.org.
-
Originally Posted by grahambop
-
Originally Posted by lawson-stone
(deliberate and wrong !)
a nice compressor would help
my telly doesn’t have one (Samsung)
my soundbar doesn’t have one
(panasonic)
they’ve of course both got umpteen ‘sport’ ‘cinema’ ‘speech’ settings etc
but these are just different preset EQ settings of course
ie not what we need ....
-
Is there no inventor out there who will rescue us all from this dilemna? It's a common problem and there would probably be a good market for it. We used to hook up "blab off" switches to TVs back in the '60's and '70's to get rid of irritants like constant Ed Barbarian commercials and All Night Movie blabber (my dog Major is not for sale). It's only sound science, it's not jazz theory!
-
Originally Posted by lawson-stone
-
( ' No affiliation w/ any sb's mentioned ' etc etc )
......... maybe
' Tastes Great ' vs ' Less Filling '........... ( ? )
-
Just happened to stumble across this: see if your TV has a "night mode"
How to Deal With Movies That Bounce From Too Quiet to Too Loud
-
I watch my series and movies at night too, from a computer and wearing headphones. That does help keeping the sound down but I also installed a DSP plugin ("Hear", for Mac but I suppose MSWin must allow similar plugins). I rarely need to change to a different profile.
All those X.Y home theater schemes are nice but I don't see how they can help if you use headphones... (And FWIW, with the tiny amount of spatialisation I configured via DSP I'm getting an amazingly realistic stereo image via my entry-level Grado phones, background noises from the soundtrack often fool me.)
-
Dump the Dolby. My son gave me a center speaker he no longer wanted, and I reinstalled a receiver with Dolby to use it. Immediately the loudness issue arose. Bypassing the Dolby returned things to normal, and everything stayed at an acceptable volume, near enough to whatever I set. Even without rear speakers, the Dolby system vastly increases volume differences. To me, it's not worth having.
-
Originally Posted by sgosnell
Dolby does aim to provide a more realistic experience, and it's not incorrect that certain sounds need to be LOUD for that. That's somewhat OK in a theater, much less at home.
BTW: there's a small Norvegian recording company (2L) who produce on BR discs in 5+1 format. I have one or 2 of their discs and even with just my 2 floorstanders and 2 shelf speakers as the satellites (all Klipsch) the experience is indeed very nice. Of course you want to turn all theatre DSP stuff off on the amp when listening to that.
Aer compact 60/4 $1,450.CAD
Today, 03:15 PM in For Sale