All right so it's not like I'm using my TV's speaker to watch this Prime video show that a lot of money has been sunk into. We've got a pretty nice sound bar which has several settings that are supposed to, when necessary, balance things out between the centre-voice channel and the sides (as well as a sub).

But no matter what the setting, I'm riding the volume like a fool because dramatic scenes loaded with special effects are about 2 and 1/2 times louder than the dialogue.

What is wrong with these expensive sound mixing outfits that they can't get the sonic balance right to any respectable degree? More and more shows on TV are falling into this category and I'd rather watch an old episode of Columbo for the balance between dialogue and music than anything being produced right now in the best of studios with the best of equipment and the best of plugins.

Thoughts on this issue?

 

You're right. But I wonder if this might be different in a surround sound environment. It's a nuisance when you just use stereo or 2/1.

 

This due to the reseller high compression. It can be your isp or who ever sells this to you. Or the emitting channel itself.
I have a descent audio plugged to my TV, and depending on the channel or the provider if it's online (prime, hbo, Disney etc..) there is or not this supercompression effect.

 

Last edited: Sep 6, 2022

5.1

 

Independantly user-adjustable volume levels for dialogue, fx & soundtrack?

 

There's some decent points about "cinematic" mixes for non-cinema content in these articles from a few years ago:
https://www.pro-tools-expert.com/ho...n-tv-mixes-are-tv-mixes-becoming-to-cinematic
https://www.pro-tools-expert.com/ho...new-loudness-delivery-spec-a-stroke-of-genius

Is the LRA too high on stuff? Probably. Would I rather have the opposite problem? definitely not. There's a discussion to be had about allowing mixers to do what they want vs content delivery platforms dictating acceptable ranges (more than they already do), but I'm not sure this thread is going to be the place for it.

I think some compression presets in the software players themselves would definitely be nice to have though. There's never going to be enough budget to do multiple mixes and you also don't want to hand over control over DM&E to consumers because that's just 3 levels they're going to be riding the whole time instead of 1.

 

If one is riding the volume, that seems that not enough compression is being used.
The effect of compression is to reduce the overall dynamics so there is less difference in level between soft and loud sounds.
Used properly it boosts whispers and cuts explosions.
What i seem to find in some movies is not quite the opposite, but close. The dynamics are such that, once i turn it up so i can hear the dialog, explosions are intolerably loud.
I hated BBC tv for their tendency to boost ALL low level sound. Yes, it makes softer dialog louder, but it also boosted every fucking sound in the studio. Dialog was overwhelmed by the rustling of fabric and the fire sputtering. Every chair squeak and the sliding of a plate on a table made the compression very annoying.

 

Lets keep it about the sound, i found it ok, but then again i do find excusive dynamics in a lot of new movies, like MCU stuff, and what really triggers me more then the woke stuff is the sub whooshing noises they put in TV shows, someone slams down a cup on the table for example, Boomn!!! zoom in the girls reaction, WHOOSSH, with sub 60hz sound effects, now and again for effect is fine, but its every 10 seconds on some shows and i wonder to myself, there is some poor bastard who has align these silly effects on a timeline editors somewhere.. NOW to add to this , i watch and love moves from the 80s..90s and early 2000s, IMHO that is the very peak of film making, you never get that over the top sub sounds. Even in action moves. If you watch Back to the Future as i have recently with a huge sound system that can deliver 40hz, you wont ever need to ride the volume so you can hear dialog, its just perfect all the way though, even original LOTR trilogy including The Hobit, just perfectly balanced . I'm so sick this in modern times, they just don't know what they are doing and i find myself having to resort to subtitles to understand it unless i use headphones. I'll watch the 3rd episode and listen out more for the sound, its something to watch i guess, but its not really Tolkien, just as new starwars isn't Lucas. Expensive fan fiction financed by Marxists. Art with an agender isn't art and it has no love in it, of course the sound its going to totally wrong. They dont care..

 

In the effort to make impactful sound effects and realistic scenarios, a large majority of shows suffer from the dialogue appearing under the sounds and music. This is because a large proportion use surround sound and when played in stereo, the sounds are mismatched. It's interesting after seeing the same movie watched on a stereo TV watched again on surround how it suddenly appeared balanced. Sign of the times I guess.

 

I haven't watched the rings of power yet, but excess of dynamic range is very annoying in movies and in classical music, no matter if you are in a theater or at home.

 

I haven't yet seen it, but House of Dragon (Game of Thrones) sound mix balance is good imo

 

I have a slightly weird (4.1) setup w/ my tv, and the Lord of teh Pingu sound mix is quite broken; in stereo passthrough or not. A lot of the mumblecore v/o ish speech at the start of one ep needed subtitles, ffs. It is breathtakingly slow and dull, compared to the (far better) GoT thing. It's actually stereotypical (and offensive) to have huffoots all be Oirish to the max. For some reason.

Spoiler

I guess I'm the only one who likes wide dynamic range ;_____; It's not the problem here.

 

Some of us like it that way, different strokes for different folks.

 

Guys, all off topic, political comments cleared.
You should read the title BEFORE spitting opinions.

This is a technical thread, also, political content is not allowed here.

 

thats the case with ALL movies though... I would love to see a movie reccomendation where I can hear everything at 35 volume and don't go deaf during action scenes.

 

I wonder how much Nolan's mixing had to do with some of the extreme range. I think Nolan, like especially in his newest one Tenet has made concious choices to say fuck it, people understanding the dialogue is less important to me than the other impact of the sound.

 

Wow, I remember that one. That mix was bananas. From the theaters to the TV. I wonder what really happened.

 

It all comes down to translation from production environment to other mediums. Some do this very well and also check their work for consistency. Maybe they leaned to heavily on AI/Neural Networks/Machine Learning.

I am not happy with the overall production (scripting, acting, production choices to name a few).

House of the Dragon is better so far but, not by that much.

 

Theatres are easy and it's mostly a calib/local law and DD-AC3 or DTS or whatever you screen is pushing.

Film dialog for something big like that complies with DialNorm. Dialogue follows set levels so that language dubs, recaps and trailers can port easily. The FX and Soundtrack Channels can be abused for maximum impact as there is artistic intent and realization there; this interacts with DDs calib for a particular room/screen which might or might not have max momentary loudness rules/laws.

So if you have a 87 dBSPL S cap on that screen and sound comes out the DD max of 89dBSPL for S you loose 2dB and while the cannon fire will still be audible the low chit chat will blend in with every fat goober eating three bags of popcorn and slurping the ice on his bladder bluster 3L soda pop while farting nonstop making hearing anything clearly impossible. Used to be that not much made it up into the upper reaches of an audio track's peak range, now it's pretty common.

That particular movie does have a lot of sustained loud events and FX sounds, didn't have a problem with the dialog myself but I don't mind the transition between loud and a comfortable dialogue level when it's quiet.

I can promise you that in the quiet screening room, for the people that stayed awake for the whole movie it sounded just fine.

Televisions are a different story, but I think that is offtopic so be it.

 

Robin Hood from 2010 with Russel Crowe same thing happened to me, the difference between silence and loud action was soooooo incredibly high, so after 5 minutes I stopped watching