Sound Levels: Aaaaargh!

[canuckamuck]

In our marvelous digital age there are a few things that have yet to be civilized. The most obvious to me is sound levels. Sound is part of nearly every media experience, and it is often the most critical for enjoyment. How many times have you opened a video link while having a quiet morning coffee and been loudly blasted because the embedded video player defaults to maximum on opening.

Now that the whole house is awake, why not put on DVD and watch a movie. As the opening production credits roll (always at maximum levels) you turn down the sound to match your comfort level. Oh but alas, as soon as the people start talking you realize that the dialogue sound levels are impossible to hear. No problem turn it back up. But wait here comes a car chase scene and the sound is loud enough to rattle your windows. I guess you have to turn it back down. And why is it that on my TV a broadcast signal requires a volume setting of around 12 -20 and DVD's require 35-100, and sometimes 100 is insufficient for dialogue. I realize movies are made for big theaters with expensive sound systems, but if you are selling disks to the public it might occur to you that the majority of people only have a DVD player and a TV to work with. Why no option to optimize that configuration. And by the way I have used surround systems and still came up with similar issues.

And then there is music. Why don't mp3's have sort of industry standard so that if you make a mixed disc, you don't get mixed sound levels as well.

Where is the technology that helps sort all this out. Why can't I put a program in my computer that when activated harmonizes audio levels so that I don't get blasted by a CNN video clip, but Youtube comes in fine too. Why doesn't my DVD player or my fancy flat screen have any options to flatten the sound curve or to pull up low level dialogue when requested. Why isn't my car stereo smart enough to make some adjustments, like traction control on a car or automatic exposure on a camera. C'mon sound guys there is room to improve.

[lomatopo]

For mp3's, MP3Gain and MP3TRIM seems to be worthy?

[Crossy]

I find commercials too loud compared with the programming material, it's been that way for years, supposed to get your attention, it just annoys me (but I get wound up when Tesco move everything around and screw up my carefully planned shopping route).

Does your TV / home theatre support 'Night Mode'?

From http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080125184700AAB57dY :-

“Night Mode” (aka, D.COMP or Dynamic Range Control) is a digital audio feature commonly found on most receivers, ‘pre/pros’ (preamplifier/processors,) DVD players, etc., equipped with applicable Dolby and DTS decoders. When the Night Mode option is enabled the sound level of compatible digital audio soundtracks will be dynamically compressed. Dynamic range compression (aka audio compression) increases low-level audio content such as dialog making it easier to hear at low volume levels while at the same time reducing the intensity of higher-level audio content. Please see the following quotes:

________________________

“Dynamic range control (Night mode) enables you to customize audio playback to reduce peak volume levels (no loud surprises) while experiencing all the details in the soundtrack, enabling late-night viewing of high-energy surround sound without disturbing others.”

http://www.dolby.com/consumer/technology/trueHD.html

[canuckamuck]

Ok, so there is a move to solve this issue, I can only hope that it becomes a basic part of electronics to be able to compress and or balance sound levels. It is a obvious and previously overlooked issue for improving the experience.

Thanks for the responses to my rant.

[dave_boo]

The setting is sometimes called 'normalization' also...

[longball53098]

Maybe this company and the device they sell can help you

SRS

[Darrel]

Nearly all recent TVs will have a delta volume setting that will normalize the volume. It may be called "auto level" or something similar. This will solve the "loud ads" problem, and the problem of speech being quieter than music.

Some TVs (and nearly all amps) will have a "midnight" mode which is also useful, as mentioned.

Unfortunately there is no such setting on any PC soundcard drivers I have ever seen. They would be a welcome addition.

There are various normalizing settings in various media players. They do the trick nicely for playback of local audio/video files, but none of them will have an automatic effect on every sound source on the PC, such as webpages, Youtube etc.