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Tired of loud commercials

post #1 of 31
6/4/08 at 8:47pm
Thread Starter 
Hope someone else is as fed up with loud, blaring, annoying commercials as I am. I'm a Direct TV subsciber.

Are there any new gadgets out there that will either keep a constant volume, or mute automatically ?

I am so sick of constantly having the remote in my hand to combat this.

I wrote to the FCC and got a lame excuse why they don't do anything about anything.
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post #2 of 31
6/4/08 at 9:53pm

Re: Tired of loud commercials

Don't most current televisions have some sort of automatic volume equalizer setting? Check your television's audio menu settings.
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post #3 of 31
6/5/08 at 4:43am

Re: Tired of loud commercials

It's a US thing. I believe there are rules in some other countries that commercials have to be broadcast at the same volume as programming. But here, advertising gets to be shoved down our throats, and into our ears.
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post #4 of 31
6/5/08 at 5:07am

Re: Tired of loud commercials

One of the TOP annoying things about commerical TV. This isn't quite as bad as the promos over the programs since many TVs have settings you can adjust to stop it. Shame there isn't something you can use to remove those promos....perhaps one day....
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post #5 of 31
6/5/08 at 5:17am

Re: Tired of loud commercials

I have hated commercials for years! I just mute all the ads because they are so loud, as you said.
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post #6 of 31
6/5/08 at 5:48am

Re: Tired of loud commercials

What are commercials? Doesn't everyone have a DVR by now?
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post #7 of 31
6/5/08 at 6:49am

Re: Tired of loud commercials

It's really irritating to me, too. And since I have a front projection system, all my audio runs through my A/V receiver. I like to keep dynamic range compression turned off for movies. I wouldn't mind having it on for TV, to try and smooth out the peaks from commercials. But since the setting is tied to my receiver (not to my HDTV tuner), there's no clear way to turn it on for TV, off for movies... short of remembering to do it manually each time.

Edit: wait a sec... I wonder if I can program my Harmony remote to do this as part of my "Watch HDTV" and "Watch a DVD" activities...
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post #8 of 31
6/5/08 at 7:22am

Re: Tired of loud commercials

Edit: wait a sec... I wonder if I can program my Harmony remote to do this as part of my "Watch HDTV" and "Watch a DVD" activities...


That's a good idea. I'm going to have to investigate this myself.

This absolutely drives me nuts. Especially when I'm drifting off late at night, only to be kicked in the face by commercials that are nearly twice the volume of the program that I happen to have on. It's absolutely maddening. If it wasn't for TCM, I would probably drop my cable subscription all together.
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post #9 of 31
6/5/08 at 7:32am

Re: Tired of loud commercials

Quote:
Originally Posted by xfile94
I just mute all the ads...
And that is the solution to the problem.
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post #10 of 31
6/5/08 at 7:45am

Re: Tired of loud commercials

With the exception of during the Super Bowl, I haven't listened to or watched commercials for around fifteen years. I love the mute button.
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post #11 of 31
6/5/08 at 11:11am

Re: Tired of loud commercials

Are broadcasters still insisting they don't do this?
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post #12 of 31
6/5/08 at 11:30am

Re: Tired of loud commercials

It's likely the ads are recorded at a very high level (like CDs ) and the broadcasters are just playing dumb.
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post #13 of 31
6/6/08 at 5:53am

Re: Tired of loud commercials

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ralphie_B
It's really irritating to me, too. And since I have a front projection system, all my audio runs through my A/V receiver. I like to keep dynamic range compression turned off for movies. I wouldn't mind having it on for TV, to try and smooth out the peaks from commercials. But since the setting is tied to my receiver (not to my HDTV tuner), there's no clear way to turn it on for TV, off for movies... short of remembering to do it manually each time.

Edit: wait a sec... I wonder if I can program my Harmony remote to do this as part of my "Watch HDTV" and "Watch a DVD" activities...
In my receiver, TV audio goes to Video1 and DVD goes to DVD, and the receiver has different audio settings for each of the inputs. So if you have your different sources connected to different receiver inputs, you may be able to set TV for compressed audio and DVD to be normal.

Or, if the TV audio comes via your actual TV set, the TV might have an equalizer that would then have no effect on DVDs.
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post #14 of 31
6/6/08 at 3:02pm

Re: Tired of loud commercials

I think people have complained about this for years and nothing ever changes.

I'd guess I record 95% of what I watch and mute the ads on the other 5%.

Fast forward through commercials, most opening/ending credits and particularly those annoying "coming up next" blurbs before the commercial showing you previews of the next ten minutes you'll see after the commercial.

You can easily drop almost a third off the viewing time for most shows just by bypassing the crap.

After volume and quantity, I'd also have to rank frequency next on the annoying list.

Recorded both parts of "The Andromeda Strain" last week to watch in one sitting. Part I started with 20-22 minutes of programming followed by commercials. By the time it got to that last half hour or so, it was down to six minutes of programming, four minutes of commercials, repeat until done. By that point they figure they've got you hooked on the story, so why not up the commercial time to 40%.

I know a lot of shows use this technique, but don't ever recall having seen it so obnoxious as the 60/40 ratio.
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post #15 of 31
6/6/08 at 5:27pm

Re: Tired of loud commercials

That is absolutely crazy. Are they shooting themselves in the foot?
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post #16 of 31
6/6/08 at 8:29pm

Re: Tired of loud commercials

Quote:
Originally Posted by Radioman970
That is absolutely crazy. Are they shooting themselves in the foot?
No, they (hopefully) get you interested in the show by having a long opening act and once you're interested, you stay tuned in.
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post #17 of 31
6/6/08 at 8:40pm

Re: Tired of loud commercials

Whenever I record a show or film off of the television for keeping, I do one of two things. I either 1) watch it then, and cut out the commercials as I am watching the film (gotta love the Rec Pause button); or 2) I record the film at SP on one VCR and then tape it from that VCR to another, cutting out the commercials at that point. Either way, they're gone.
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post #18 of 31
6/6/08 at 9:25pm

Re: Tired of loud commercials

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ockeghem
Whenever I record a show or film off of the television for keeping, I do one of two things. I either 1) watch it then, and cut out the commercials as I am watching the film (gotta love the Rec Pause button); or 2) I record the film at SP on one VCR and then tape it from that VCR to another, cutting out the commercials at that point. Either way, they're gone.
What is a VCR? Seriously.
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post #19 of 31
6/6/08 at 10:24pm

Re: Tired of loud commercials

It's like a DVR's mommy, with moving parts.
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post #20 of 31
6/7/08 at 2:48am

Re: Tired of loud commercials

Quote:
What is a VCR? Seriously.

I still have a VCR. Two, actually. I don't have a problem with DVRs, but, I like having movable media. If I want to take something that I recorded over to a friend's house, I can't do that with DVR.
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post #21 of 31
6/7/08 at 8:04am

Re: Tired of loud commercials

Quote:
Originally Posted by ScottH
What is a VCR? Seriously.
Seriously? It's a video cassette recorder. We own four of them. We also own over 1,000 VHS tapes, many of which we watch every week.
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post #22 of 31
6/7/08 at 10:36am

Re: Tired of loud commercials

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kevin Hewell
I still have a VCR. Two, actually. I don't have a problem with DVRs, but, I like having movable media. If I want to take something that I recorded over to a friend's house, I can't do that with DVR.
Same here. Almost verbatim. I've tapes alot of shows and can take that to a buddy's house if he missed an episode of a show. I don't have to worry about space on my VCR or erasing an episode off my DVR and then finding out that the music was changed on the DVD release. As long as I can find blank tapes, I have no interest in a DVR.
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post #23 of 31
6/7/08 at 12:39pm

Re: Tired of loud commercials

Quote:
Originally Posted by TravisR
As long as I can find blank tapes, I have no interest in a DVR.
Agreed. For me it's also aesthetic, as well as the fact that I am a collector and an archivist. For my own part, the VHS tape wasn't replaced by the DVD, it was displaced, much in the same way that the radio was displaced (and not replaced) with the advent of television.

I use both VHS and DVD in conjunction with one another, and also for comparative purposes when I am doing research, which in my line of work is almost all of the time.

Incidentally, I bought a ten-pack of blank VHS tapes the other day. There were quite a few there on the shelves.
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post #24 of 31
6/7/08 at 1:57pm

Re: Tired of loud commercials

I have switched to a DVD recorder, myself. Discs take up a lot less space.
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post #25 of 31
6/7/08 at 11:25pm

Re: Tired of loud commercials

Quote:
I'm a Direct TV subsciber.

On channels you're paying for, there shouldn't even be ANY commercials!

When I used to record stuff from TV (before the shows themselves became unwatchable) I always left in the commercials- it's easy enough to skip through them when you don't want to see them, and after a few years they become more interesting and valuable than the show itself. Just check my YouTube postings for proof of this. The current era of TV may best be forgotten however.
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post #26 of 31
6/8/08 at 5:53am

Re: Tired of loud commercials

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jesse Skeen
On channels you're paying for, there shouldn't even be ANY commercials!

When I used to record stuff from TV (before the shows themselves became unwatchable) I always left in the commercials- it's easy enough to skip through them when you don't want to see them, and after a few years they become more interesting and valuable than the show itself. Just check my YouTube postings for proof of this. The current era of TV may best be forgotten however.
Yeah, I must admit that I wouldn't mind having a tape or DVD filled with commercials from yesteryear. I would, for example, buy up a set of commercials from the 1950s and 1960s. It would be fun to watch those cigarette commercials again. I still play a lot of those jingles on the piano on occasion. People like trying to guess which cigarette commercial they're hearing.

Incidentally, one of the other reasons I cut commercials out is because I can fit at least one more episode (taped at EP) on a six-hour VHS tape (thirteen episodes per tape as opposed to twelve). That's a half-season (and in some cases, a full season) of shows from various series that are watched in our home.
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post #27 of 31
6/8/08 at 9:11am

Re: Tired of loud commercials

I also hate commercials (with a passion). I tend to just mute them and wander away for a few moments. Also, we tend to just fast forward through commercials since we dvr everything. I'm usually never home when the show is actually airing.

We own a VCR (two really, since we own a tv with dvd/vcr combo built in). I still have all my old videos that I taped off television and I will never part wth my US version of the BIG BLUE movie as it is no where to be found on dvd).

VCRing is a lost art!
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post #28 of 31
6/8/08 at 10:37am

Re: Tired of loud commercials

Quote:
Don't most current televisions have some sort of automatic volume equalizer setting? Check your television's audio menu settings.

My TV has this setting but it doesn't actually work. Perhaps if I turned it off the commercials would be REALLY, REALLY LOUD instead of just REALLY LOUD.
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post #29 of 31
6/9/08 at 4:51am

Re: Tired of loud commercials

Here is a bit of an explanation, which includes word of a Dolby audio device that mitigates sound differences:

Why are TV commercials so loud? - ConsumerMan - MSNBC.com

And here is something else on that Dolby device:
Dolby Eases TV Commercial Volume : Christopher Null : Yahoo! Tech

And, lastly, a recent international article on the subject:
Turning down the volume on TV commercials - International Herald Tribune
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post #30 of 31
6/9/08 at 6:58pm

Re: Tired of loud commercials

I can sadly report this is not unique to the US; we get it as well on local broadcast TV.

Hence the DVR. Nowadays, even if I'm home in time for a TV show, I will actually either hold off watching altogether (and watch a DVD instead), or will wait around 15-20 mins after the program started and use the time-shift feature (called 'chasing playback' on some machines, I think) to watch it 'not in real time' so that there is enough 'slack' in the recording to allow me to skip through all commercial breaks.

Better yet, the local broadcast station very kindly has commercial breaks that are almost exactly 5 minutes long -- and my DVR has a jump button that forwards the recording by 5 minutes. Bliss... (although that 5-min jump only works on an already-recorded program, not one that is still being recorded)
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