Film sound

[longdogs]

Does anyone else have trouble with the sound when watching movies? One minute you can't hear Ben Affleck (for example) mumbling in his native drawl so you turn up the volume only to be blasted out of your socks by the music.

Have the sound engineers never heard of VU meters?

Also, I wonder why music producers never make the most of stereo sound. Everything is in stereo these days but when do you ever hear separate instruments from different speakers - remember the fantastic sound of 8 track! There a few songs that are great in stereo, Pinball wizard being one of them. Any others you can think of?

 

[royboywales]

Black Eyed Peas - Rock That Body
Pink Floyd - lost for words

In fact anything by pink Floyd

 

[joinerjohn]

I have trouble with the BBC Breakfast news. When they skip to the local news and the intro music plays, I have to adjust the volume down. Then when the news announcer starts reading the news I have to turn the volume up again. Same at 7 o clock and 8 o clock when they play the intro music for the BBC National news.
ITV are no better tbqh, Neither are Channel 4 or 5. Why they can't transmit at the same volume all the time is beyond me.

 

[LastMagicBean]

Does anyone else have trouble with the sound when watching movies? One minute you can't hear Ben Affleck (for example) mumbling in his native drawl so you turn up the volume only to be blasted out of your socks by the music.

Excellent point.

Drives me bloody mad.
Turn it up because you can't hear the whispering at a vital moment in the film, next minute the guns go off, and the neighbours must think your doing a raoul moat.
Same thing happens with adverts.
B*stards.
What's the matter with these people.

 

[Alarm]

All I could find, but it is a bit old.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7388473.stm

Trouble is with so many different channels now it is probably difficult to enforce now.

 

[EddieM]

expanding the subject a bit, it is also very frustrating watching atmospheric films, like say blade runner on TV as unfortunately until we get proper OLED tv's or similar, the contrast in not good enough to see anything!!

 

[Blasphemous]

Email them and complain. I've done it. I'm fed up with the Beeb/ITV et al's notion that we all need to be alerted to the fact their news is coming on by having a music intro that's had its volume increased. I don't need a piece of music to alert me to the fact that the news is starting, I've already got the bleedin channel on!

I've got a Surround Sound system in the front room and that can be set to 'level out' the sound but we only really use that room and the system for watching movies. Some newer TVs have settings that allow 'levelling' of sound but they still struggle with the likes of the news intro because it's such a jump in volume.

Email/badger them to stop!

 

[Alarm]

Post Badgers?
Watch out you will have a visit from peaps.

 

[Space cat]

I've noticed this too and, looking back, it seems to have coincided with the arrival of the DVD. When you watch a movie in the cinema, the dynamic range of the sound track is huge. The dialogue is quiet, though clearly audible, but the music and other sounds can be very loud indeed - and we expect that.

DVD can handle this dynamic range so why not use it. The problem seems to me that broadcast movies have gone the same way, which is not necessarily what everybody wants. Do you really want to wake up the whole street so that you can hear the dialogue without straining your ears?

The inability of TV broadcasters to balance the sound levels of different sources is another matter for which their is no excuse.

I have trouble with the BBC Breakfast news. When they skip to the local news and the intro music plays, I have to adjust the volume down. Then when the news announcer starts reading the news I have to turn the volume up again.

In our case it's not just the intro; the entire local news slot is louder. How difficult can it be to standardize sound levels between studios. Come on BBC. Your reputation is on the line here. The subject was raised on Watchdog not so long ago and there was much indignation about loud adverts. But guess what; one of the worst offenders at the time was a deafening - and totally unnecessary - 'jingle' on Watchdog itself!

PS: Why not post this in the Audio Visual forum. Maybe the boffins in there will have a definitive answer.

 

[imamartian]

Nope, not noticed it at all.....maybe you lot are getting old and your ear muscles aren't quite so elastic?

 

[conny]

Nope, not noticed it at all.....maybe you lot are getting old and your ear muscles aren't quite so elastic?

On the contrary! Maybe our ears are finely tuned and you're a deaf old git?

 

[imamartian]

Nope, not noticed it at all.....maybe you lot are getting old and your ear muscles aren't quite so elastic?

On the contrary! Maybe our ears are finely tuned and you're a deaf old git?

lol, i'm not old.... or fussy !!!!