Finally..a law I will support...

[Paul F]

Sounds easy, but it is not. Movies, TV shows, and commercials have different objectives. I don't see a practical way to control loudness on commercials vs TV shows.

It is the source material, not the network that control this.

TVs and movies use the full dynamic range of recording equipment. They like quiet and loud scenes. They generally don't compress the sound. So the overall apparent loudness is 'normal'.

Commercial produces want things always loud, so the compress the dynamic range so that all of the sound (whether quiet or loud) is compressed into the top of the volume range. This way, the apparent loudness is higher.

I don't see a way to tell sound engineers not to go above a certain volume. If you did, then all that would happen is the dynamic range available to the movies and tv shows would be reduced (making tvs and movies sound crappy) and the commercial producers would still compress the sound to the top 20% of the loudness they are allowed. Then you would turn your tv up to hear the tv show and the commercials would still sound loud. Don't legislate it. Leave it alone.

[Ron61]

Back years ago there was a law about that but it has long since been forgotten. As for not telling sound engineers not to go above a certain level, that is not a big problem. You don't have to reduce the dynamic range at all. Just make the commercial maker compress their dam commercials to the bottom 20% of the allowed volume. Me, I just automatically pause the show until the allotted time for the commercials is over and then skip them completely and pick up the show at the next part. Beats muting as I don't have to even watch them.

Ron

[Wes Tausend]

Originally Posted by Paul F

Sounds easy, but it is not. Movies, TV shows, and commercials have different objectives. I don't see a practical way to control loudness on commercials vs TV shows.

It is the source material, not the network that control this.

TVs and movies use the full dynamic range of recording equipment. They like quiet and loud scenes. They generally don't compress the sound. So the overall apparent loudness is 'normal'.

Commercial produces want things always loud, so the compress the dynamic range so that all of the sound (whether quiet or loud) is compressed into the top of the volume range. This way, the apparent loudness is higher.

I don't see a way to tell sound engineers not to go above a certain volume. If you did, then all that would happen is the dynamic range available to the movies and tv shows would be reduced (making tvs and movies sound crappy) and the commercial producers would still compress the sound to the top 20% of the loudness they are allowed. Then you would turn your tv up to hear the tv show and the commercials would still sound loud. Don't legislate it. Leave it alone.

Paul,

Although the louder sound irritates me as much as any, I have to agree with you about no government interference here. Not that I don't want quieter commercials but I think the entire free-programming-paid-by-commercial system is already in enough danger.

Because of steep competition from cable and satellite paid subscribers, free over-the-air tv is in danger of eventual extinction. Adding to the OTA burden are recent digital upgrade requirements that may not work as well as the old analog system (people are already concerned about program drop-outs just as forced digital cell phone conversion also degraded for the same reason).

Paid commercial time is the only way such free over-the-air entertainment can exist. Once this "free" option disappears, I see us spending way more for programming ...as the entertainment industry will suddenly have us by the short-hairs.

On a different note, I'm familiar with the dynamic compression trick used to boost overall sound levels and I think a box such as the Terk or AudioVox ( http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16204964/from/RS.3/ ) could be used to over-subdue or mute commercials altogether. It would kick on whenever high sustained volume levels drive a trigger control. It is designed similar to VOX controls on Ham radio mikes or opposite to squelch settings where a certain level and up, turns on audio. This device could be built into TV's but I haven't seen it.

Such a control sort-of exists on one of my theater receivers (Onkyo) that can be set to "late night" where it compresses all volume by killing dynamic range. The advantage is no huge explosions during movies while others are sleeping. It only works with digital sound in this case.

My favorite manual sound control is the built-in soft-mute on the Hitachi TV. Leaves just enough sound to remind one that regular progamming is back on. Now if I could just develop a homemade VOX control that would do this automatically.


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