Unfortunately with the dynamic sound of Dolby Digital sound in HD programming also comes crazy loud commercials. In addition to a
few technical reasons, the main way advertisers get around the FCCs commercial volume regulations is by making the entire commercial just as loud as the explosion that killed off your favorite character. Obviously this is ridiculous and Rep. Anna Eshoo of California intends to do something about it by introducing CALM (Commercial Advertising Loudness Mitigation Act) to the House of Representatives. At the same time the folks at ATSC are looking for ways to let broadcasters get it under control, and of course there is
Dolby Volume and
SRS TruVolume if you want to take matters into your own hands. Personally we wish there was just a hack that would automatically hit the mute button during commercials, and just for the record, we DVR everything and skip commercials for everything except sports.
posted Oct 9th 2009 4:16PM
Even my Denon receiver in my man's room that has a setting to keep that from happening doesn't work..nor does another setting on the tv in our living room. I'm thankful to have tivo to skip most of the commercials but boy if i'm slow on the button BOOM goes the dynamite.
The only problem with using a DVR is that the products are actually embedded into the shows now. Even Engadget should realize this. You are constantly showing new hardware in your "screen grab" pieces. It used to be that shows had generic labels placed over products when they were used. These days are long gone, and Pepsi/Coke, etc., are now having the actual product used on the show. Also, you have the stupid banner ads that come up, covering up to 1/3 of the screen during shows. It will forever be completely unavoidable.
I don't think product placement is that bad, if anything it adds realism to the program. It always bugs me when they put a peice of duct tape over the apple logo, or if they are drinking "Cora-Cola" or something stupid like that. But like everything, it is best in moderation. When they change elements of the show for the sake of the product it becomes a problem.
I agree with you on the banners however, they are getting out of hand.
"Not that bad", you say? This is EXACTLY how the political correctness movement started. A little here, a little there. Look where we are now.
Eventually it will be like this:
http://www.comedycentral.com/videos/index.jhtml?title=lightspeed-briefs&videoId=156516
right... maybe you should put your tin hat back on then
This is a joke, right? All of my TVs, even my cheap-ass 21" Insignia (Best Buy brand) 4:3 tube TV has a setting for automatic volume adjustment to resolve this issue. And act of Congress to do what can easily be done electronically?
Automatic leveling of that nature is crap. On quiet bits, you get a hissing sound that gets progressively louder until some loud noise clamps down on it - incredibly annoying. Commercials don't have this problem because they are already compressed up to the eyeballs as it is.
You would think that advertisers would realize that pissing off their customers is a bad idea.
*sigh* Never mind.
Unfortunately, advertisers know that they can do what they want. Without the dollars from these advertisers, we would have less HD programming. TV Networks are a for profit business like all others and it's not free for them to broadcast HD programs. If the FCC was serious about loud commercials, they would actually punish advertisers for loud commercials! Has anyone been fined? i haven't heard about anyone being punished, i just DVR almost everything, so i can skip commercials anyway. Dolby volume is too new and not available on most A/V receivers unless they are relatively new. Most TV's automatic leveling does little to help the problem, seems like were just gonna have to deal with it, or watch less TV!
It seems as if this problem has been taken care of:
http://theregoesfun.com/post/208730764/say-what
I would think that if the ads push it too far, then that would leave a negative impression of the product.
The annoying digital/non-digital commercial thing was driving me nuts. It always seemed worse when the local affiliate plopped their crappy commercial in between national commercials. Ick.
I then discovered something: Audyssey's Dynamic Volume. It constantly monitors the volume but also retains the dynamic range of the audio.
I heard it demonstrated. I thought enough of it to make sure my receiver (a Denon) had it. I love it. Give it a try. Until those boneheads can figure out how to create the audio right, it fixes things.
Well the solution is obvious, guys. Commercials just need to start having high quality audio with little to no compression, just like our favorite HD shows. That's not too much to ask... Is it?
Is it?
I don't think it is. Many of the HD commercials during the major network prime time viewing window in the US have better 5.1 surround than the shows. For the first time in years I'm watching car and cell phone commercials just to enjoy the capabilities of my home theater.
Some of these commercials are a little loud, but nothing like a Billy Mays ad on a HD cable channel. (R.I.P. Billy, we did love you no matter how loud you were.)
ABC is the worst, the commercials just knock you out of your chair when they come on. Then you can't hear the dialogue on the program after you've cut the volume to nothing. I appreciate wide dynamic range, but this is ridiculous.
See, that's your problem right there. Why on Earth would you be watching ANYTHING on ABC?
The problem is the commercial producers -- they're just "normalizing" the audio to 0db (maximum volume). While this is the best thing to do to maximize signal-to-noise ratio, it causes the commercials to seem a lot louder than the TV shows.
If we can get the commercial producers to produce their commercials at -12db, that would be a lot nicer to our ears... but good luck with that ever happening.
Wow, finally something from congress that I approve of.
Great post Ben!
Hello Engadget readers! I just wanted to add that SRS TruVolume is already included in most Samsung and Vizio TVs; and for those TVs and AV systems that don't include a volume leveling solution, SRS Labs is currently working on rolling out a stand alone box (about the size of a deck of cards) with HDMI pass through that applies SRS TruVolume to anything connected to it. Because of the way TruVolume processes audio data, the technology does not change the characteristics of the source audio, preserving the audio's natural sound, does not create a hissing tone and plays everything at a consistent listening volume.
Also, if you're interested in winning a new 40" Samsung LCD TV, visit www.truvolume.com and enter to win. All you do is watch our TV commercial and decide how it should end. Good luck!
This is not as simple as it "sounds." Human hearing is not uniform over all pitches. There is a mid-range, between 20Hz and 20000 Hz we hear best. Higher and lower sounds are "invisible" to us.
However, a decibel meter measures all sounds, equally, even the ones we can't hear.
There is a process called "folding," that allows advertisers to remove all the low and high sounds we can't hear, while accenting the mid-range sounds we hear best. The decibel meter would not detect this change, but it will sound much louder to us humans.
You would need a special device that "hears" like a human, if you want to measure what we consider to be loudness. Since all humans are different, this will be no easy task.