Finally..a law I will support...
 

I called direct TV to complain about this and they blamed it on the individual programmers......It should pass......



http://www.congress.org/congressorg/...9&congress=110

that is annoying as hell. I complained to Dish Network and got the same answer.

Un-fortunately,there is not a damn thing to be done about.The commercials are recorded at(example)"C" level.Then are shipped/transferred to the broadcaster.Say the broadcaster is broadcasting at "B" level.THe commercial will be louder.And there is no way to syncronize.

I say make a standard. All shows/movies/commercials are recorded to that one standard. Obviously louder things will still be louder, but 1 standard. More than once I have woken up someone because I am watching a show that I have at a volume that is OK for me to hear and not too loud for them to sleep, and the commercial comes on at twice the volume.

The already is a law on the books about TV commercial volume. Its probably too weak and is an old law.

I have Comcast cable and the commercial volume is acceptable and it not louder than the TV shows. I NEVER have to adjust the volume.

But my sister has dish network and OMG. :eek: You have to hold on to the remote and turn the volume waaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyy down when the commercials come on. If you don't, you risk damaging your hearing. Its terrible.

Why is it a problem on dish TV and NOT a problem on my "wired" cable service?

If I remember correctly, they used to sell TV's with a "constant volume" feature that eliminated this problem. I wonder if they still make that option on any TV's?

I looked at this a while back but, unsure which was best and if they really worked?.

oops!!!


http://www.smarthome.com/7848T.html

I have Direct TV and I only have this issue when I am watching an HD channel. But boy is it an issue. I need to turn up the volume to any where from 19 to 25 to watch the HD and during commercials I have to either turn it down "real fast" to around 9 to 11 or just hit the mute button and lip read the comercials. 427 S/O, I like the idea of that box. I will need to look it up more and see how it actually works. Like if the volume is set for the comercials and a show comes on in HD will it raise the volume to compensate.

Terry

I didn't notice the reviews!, seems most are happy with it. I'll check around and see what else is out there?.

http://www.smarthome.com/asp/ReviewR...emnumber=7848T

Thanks
I just sent that link to my sister.

I need an HDMI one. More than likely I will just deal with it until I upgrade my home theater. I will likely get one that has the audio leveling features anyway as I am wanting to do a real nice system.

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.

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 :rolleyes:

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. :eek:

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. :rolleyes:

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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