Doncha mean like propa amerikaan like yo da man innit bro!

Y'know, for the past 8 or 10 years i've had a compressor in line for my television & movie viewing. It was subtle, but the fact that the quiet passages were loud enough to hear while the loudest bangs and rumbles didn't knock people out of their seats was very much appreciated by my guests, and myself too.

I just recently upgraded to my first 5.1 surround receiver, using the coaxial digital connection from the DVD/tuner to the amp. No compressor anymore. It's painful!

Anyone know of a 5.1 digital compressor?

Probably not to worry. The newspaper article I read said the broadcasters are ready to implement controls on there own weather the government does or not.
JJK

I'm glad to hear (no pun intended) that they are trying to legislate the sound levels of commercials. Regardless of the technology used (or possibly lack of) there are commercials from the same companies that are consistently louder than the other programming.

We usually fall asleep with the TV on and have been awoken many times by TV commercials for one of those companies that sell (pronounced scam) those little blue male enhancement pills. Regardless of the station, time or current programming, those commercials usually blow out the windows. At one time, their ads were recorded at such a high pressure level that the skanky blond announcers voice was extremely clipped and distorted. Even if I were in the market to use their product, I would not buy from them because they have pissed me off so many times.

The ITT Tech commercials here (maybe a regional company and ads) are too loud also.

I know with the increased dynamic range that the current technology allows us may be problematic to control across media, the principal of sound leveling is not rocket surgery.They have been doing it for 60 years in one form or another.

Bring on the legislation! Unfortunately, proper enforcement may be difficult.

"US Legislator Wants to Outlaw Loud TV Commercials"

Good, It's about time.

Terry

Chienworks,

I have an JVC surround sound reciever that is a few years old, I can't remember the model just now. Anyway it has a "sleep" mode that compresses all audio channels. Sleep 1 compresses a little bit, sleep 2 compresses more. I always have it on "Sleep 2" and I still find the dynamic range to be plenty enough.

Seems that a cheap way to achieve dramatic effect in movies these days is to keep dialog way below effects. In order to beat the guy before him it seems each mixer is increasing the dynamic range between dialog and effects to the point where for me uncompressed movie viewing is annoying and actually detracts from the experience the director intended, that is to draw me into the movie.

Anyway it seems JVC is out of the surround sound receiver these days but you might be able to pick one up.

- Mark

Oooooh, thanks! I got a Yamaha model, and it has a couple of "sleep" modes. I had no idea what they were for. The manual's entire entry says something like "press the sleep mode button to enable sleep mode."

Then again, most of the manual entries are as helpful or less.

Has anyone ever considered the possibility that some of the companies running the commercials might pay extra to get that explosion to happen - the one that didn't have to be there. It dawned on me the other nite as I was watching a past version of Criminal Minds. It started with just barely audible conversation (with my volume set at 75%) then a quick cut to a very loud spring break party which was almost deafening at that volume. In editing with Vegas, there is this thing called "normalize" which I think does a very good job of boosting the lows and limiting the highs. So it can't be too hard to do IF they wanted to.

Lynn

"In editing with Vegas, there is this thing called "normalize" which I think does a very good job of boosting the lows and limiting the highs."

Actually, that's not really what it does at all. Boosting the low level material and limiting the high volume material requires the use of a compressor.

Back in the really old days (up to about 1977) network television video was delivered via microwave relays, but the audio was delivered via phone lines with very limited bandwidth and dynamic range. (about 100hz to 4khz, nowhere near as good as even AM radio.) Then they started multiplexing the audio along with the video on the microwave relays and all of a sudden, the audio was 50hz to 15khz with much greater dynamic range and much less noise. This sounded like a mono FM radio, basically because it was FM radio. About five years after that we got MTS stereo audio. Now we have digital audio with five channels of 20hz to 22khz and 90+ db of dynamic range. Now a lot of people want them to severely restrict the audio capabilities and compress the dynamic range down to 20db or so just so they aren't jolted out of their seats during a dramatic moment in a dramatic show? Gee, why don't we go back to the old days and you can just pick up the phone to listen to your favorite TV show.

Unfortunately the loudness of the commercials is huge compared to the dynamic range peaks in the movies broadcast in my area.
JJK

I guess the question really is along the lines of how much dynamic range do you need for Dancing with the Stars, Biggest Loser or some movie shown on commercial TV for the umpteenth time?

For the pay channels like HBO or Cinemax I can understand wanting to retain the dynamic range but with those channels you don't have to worry about commercials.