HDTV Sound Levels

Mark_B · 02-08-2006, 05:57 AM

After reading the Super Bowl thread I thought I would ask how folks handle the HDTV sound levels. I'm a HDTV noob and just don't understand the difference in volume that occurs, especially between the broadcast show and commercials. You'll be watching a show and you adjust the volume to a comfortable level and then BAM, a commercial blows you out of your seat. This sometimes happens even during a show. A good example is King of Queens. The show starts and everything is fine. They cut to the opening theme and it blows you away. It continues thruout the show everytime they play the scene transition music. I have similiar problems with Yes Dear. The difference between the show and commercials is the worst. I have taken to just muting during commercials, but it is a pain. I thought there was some rule against this. I have no problem with analog, just the digital broadcast. All my HDTV is OTA.

One other question, why aren't the reality shows shown in HD. Survivor and Amazing Race would be awesome in HD and 5.1 sound.

mylan · 02-08-2006, 06:40 AM

I have the same problem with every show I watch in HD. Its the same old thing since commercials began airing, make them loud and you'll notice. Now we just get it loud AND in 5.1.
I thought Survivor was supposed to be in HD this season too but it is still in SD on my HDTV. I would imagine getting HD cameras and equipment into remote locations would be the problem, heck ABC was worried about inclimate weather and the distance cables would be ran during the supebowl.

Charlie Campisi · 02-08-2006, 08:20 AM

My workaround is to watch everything on tivo and skip the commercials. No help I know.

Re reality shows in HD, CBS can't even manage to do more than 3 nfl games a week in HD. I don't expect they'd get their act together for a remote island location. Too many cameras.

TravisR · 02-08-2006, 08:56 AM

I always make sure to have my remote's mute button ready when a show goes to commercial.

Patrick Sun · 02-08-2006, 09:04 AM

What's worse is when you channel surf the ATSC/HDTV channels, and the variation in audio levels go from quiet to bombastic with no rhyme or reason for the wide disparity in audio broadcasting levels.

**HTF Ads**

Diallo B · 02-08-2006, 09:31 AM

our problem as htf'ers is that we do not compress the sound in our systems. so we get the signal how it was actually processed instead of compressing it into a certain spectrum.

i prefer not to compress my sound so that i can hear a whisper as a whisper and an explosion as an explosion.

but that comes with a cost, as the sound techs that provide our service are either forced to pump up signals for no good reason or are just jacking up the signal....

like others have said, i skip commercials with my dvr or mute them if i am watching live.

Ken Chan · 02-08-2006, 07:09 PM

Quote:

our problem as htf'ers is that we do not compress the sound in our systems

No, that's not it. Dolby Digital has Dialog Normalization. If it is set correctly, this should not be a problem. (Come to think of it, I'm not sure the decoder I use honors it....) For whatever reason, my CBS -- dialog, everything -- is much louder than ABC, for example.

Diallo B · 02-08-2006, 10:04 PM

ken,

i think we are talking about two different things.

what is dialog normalization?

Mark_B · 02-09-2006, 05:17 AM

From what I have read elswhere, dialog normalization is a bit set in the dolby stream that is supposed to set voice levels all at the same level. It tells your decoder here is the level of normal voice and everything else is scaled from there. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. This would solve the commercial problem, but not the volume differences in an actual show. If the director or whatever wants the music or sound effects blasting, I guess it will have to be. I have a hard time expalining stuff like this to the wife. She thinks it's the new TV.

Tino · 02-09-2006, 05:47 AM

Quote:

Survivor and Amazing Race would be awesome in HD and 5.1 sound

Survivor has been broadcast in 5.1