Senate Votes To Turn Down Volume On TV Commercials 625
Hugh Pickens writes "Ever since television caught on in the 1950s, the FCC has been getting complaints about blaring commercials but concluded in 1984 there was no fair way to write regulations controlling the 'apparent loudness' of commercials. Now the AP reports that the Senate has unanimously passed a bill to require television stations and cable companies to keep commercials at the same volume as the programs they interrupt using industry guidelines on how to process, measure and transmit audio in a uniform way. Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY), a co-sponsor, says it's time to stop the use of loud commercials to startle viewers into paying attention. 'TV viewers should be able to watch their favorite programs without fear of losing their hearing when the show goes to a commercial.' The House has already passed similar legislation, so before the new measure becomes law, minor differences between the two versions have to be worked out when Congress returns to Washington after the November 2 election."
It's almost as if (Score:5, Insightful)
Congress was working for the people... Is this some kind of sick joke meant to lull us into thinking that every congressman isn't in the pockets of big business? Hrrrmm. It's getting near election time, that must be it...
Re:It's almost as if (Score:5, Insightful)
If the government and powerful corporate higher-ups weren't impacted by the volume issue the same as the rest of us, we wouldn't be seeing this bill. I'm surprised they didn't conceive some way to fix the problem only for themselves.
Re:It's almost as if (Score:5, Insightful)
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Does the commercial volume bill apply to campaign commercials? I'd bet there's an exception in there somewhere too.
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Re:It's almost as if (Score:5, Insightful)
>>>the #STRING will still find some way to fuck it up.
where #STRING alternates between "Democrats" and "Republicans". Stop wasting your vote on the same D or R screwage. Vote third party. Even if you lose you can brag, "Well I didn't vote for either asshole. Can't blame me."
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I don't usually feed anonymous trolls but this fallacy deserves to be exposed for what it is.
This is how it works:
1. Vote 3rd party (or independent).
2. Act smug, impressing the idea that both Rs and Ds are equally assholes onto frie
Re:It's almost as if (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a wildly popular bill with broad bi-partisan support, a true no-brainner. With that said, don't worry, the party in power will still find some way to fuck it up.
There. FTFY.
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Because it is a popular bill with broad bi-partisan support, its a good place to stick riders and amendments that a small minority wants passed. The bill then becomes nastier and nastier as the congress attaches more and more crap. Finally it becomes a big problem for people who want to vote for it due to all the other BS that has gotten shoehorned in. Do they vote for it and vote for all the unread amendments, or do they vote no and face commercials about how they voted a
Re:It's almost as if (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean "Also, the Republicans will...." Fish gotta swim, Republicans gotta screw us, Democrats gotta screw up.
Re:It's almost as if (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean "Also, the Republicans will...." Fish gotta swim, Republicans gotta screw us, Democrats gotta screw up.
"Everyone in Congress is on the same side, and it's not the one you're on"
Re:It's almost as if (Score:5, Insightful)
I keep hearing this more and more lately. Democrats are terrible at implementing their good ideas, Republicans are good at implementing their terrible ideas. You're screwed either way.
Re:It's almost as if (Score:4, Funny)
Fish gotta swim, Republicans gotta screw us, Democrats gotta screw up.
Democrats doing something which they could screw up at, rather than doing nothing, would be at least a refreshing change of pace.
One wonders why republicans don't threaten to filibuster congressional democrats' orders at restaurants. Within days, most of the democrats would have starved to death.
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You mean, just like the Democrats?
They are two sides of the same coin, dude.
Scum, the whole sorry lot of them. Schumer, while not evil, is wholly corrupted by vote-whoring.
Re:It's almost as if (Score:5, Funny)
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
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Alternately, vote Cthulhu. Why support the lesser evil?
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It works fairly good with MythTV, but only for recorded content (it looks for blank frames at 30/60 second intervals).
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Certainly, this is grandstanding. Just like 75% of what comes off the hill.
Re:Bit Mental (Score:5, Insightful)
Does this sort of thing really need to have the law getting involved? It's only a small irritant.
Is it a bit of deflection from the real issues that are going on at the moment?
I was going to try to write this preemptively, but slashdot idiocy prevails...
A) This is a problem, and potentially a safety issue as well. As more and more people use (ear|head)(buds|phones), the insane relative loudness will certainly contribute to very premature hearing loss. (Ever watch 24, the commercials were easily 20+ dBa louder than the program; if 75 dBa is comfortable, abruptly switching to 95 dBa is startling at least, and likely damaging, even for the brief period prior to hitting mute or fast-forward).
B) The industry has had decades to regulate itself; the government has so far exercised uncharacteristic restraint (something slashdotters are quick to bemoan) in legislating a fix.
Re:Bit Mental (Score:4, Insightful)
A small irritant? Would you like it if your desktop sound effects were far louder than your gaming volume, so every time an alert popped up it scared the hell out of you? That would get old pretty fast. Or how about if the indicators in your car were louder than the radio? Or everyone in the world sounded like Darth Vader when they breathed? Okay that might be cool, but nevertheless.. I can imagine the commercial thing would be very annoying, if I actually watched them.
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Are you kidding, this is what Politicians think they are PAID TO DO. THIS IS THEIR JOB. /sarcasm
Look at it this way, say the US was suddenly PERFECT and everyone was COMPLETELY HAPPY with it. We've even mitigated Acts of God, disease, cancer and HIV. Absolutely perfect for everyone, but we still had a bunch of reps, a prez, etc...
Seeing that our country is PERFECT, then they should have nothing to do. Right? They should just sit around and not create any bills, not put any restrictions on people, life wo
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Holy crap, that looks like I wrote it! Am I posting to slashdot in my sleep now??
How about a rule that... (Score:4, Interesting)
Tivo? (Score:2)
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No. I believe there are signature codes embedded in the audio and/or video signal that help local stations detect commercial blocks.
Re:Tivo? (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't know about Tivo specifically, but MythTV has a couple of methods that, AFAIK, don't have anything to do with volume.
From http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Commercial_Detection [mythtv.org]
# Blank Frame Detection - Is used to determine when a programme fades to black (this invariably happens between show segments)
# Blank Frame & scene change detection - As above but tries to determine that a large amount of the picture has changed
# Scene change detection - Tries to determine that a large amount of the picture has changed
# Logo detection - Looks for a part of the picture that does not change during a recorded show - i.e. an onscreen logo. Logos are usually removed for the duration of commercial breaks, making them 'easier' to spot.
And the worst offender ... (Score:2)
At least in the DC area ... are the local PBS stations. I'm not sure which one it is, but there's one that makes me almost jump out of my skin when the show ends, and they go to commercial.
Hopefully the legislation doesn't actually include the term 'interrupting' in the volume limits, or the commercials in between shows (like all of the ones on PBS) will be exempt.
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Smart Sound (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Smart Sound (Score:5, Insightful)
I torrent everything I watch. Commercials are not a problem for me.
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And if everyone torrents everything they watch having new things to torrent wouldn't be a problem either, since there wouldn't be any.
It's like the people who won't get their kids vaccinated because they know about herd immunity. Get enough freeloaders and it stops working.
So for the remaining people who do watch TV they need to make the commercials even more attention grabbing to compensate, making them even more annoying. So hats off to you, freeloading AC, for making commercials even more annoying.
Re:Smart Sound (Score:4, Informative)
And if everyone torrents everything they watch having new things to torrent wouldn't be a problem either, since there wouldn't be any.
[Citation Needed]
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Uh, yes, my super-cheap-ass no-name LCD has Automatic Volume Levelling. It's hardly rocket science.
The other thing is: who the fsck listens to adverts anyway? I've been reflexively muting them for as long as TVs have had remotes (HEY YOU KIDS, etc). Now that I'm DVR'd up, I don't even have to do that, since I'm just going to skip straight from content-to-content anyway.
So yay to Congress for finally legislating a solution to a problem that we've already solved ourselves.
Billy Mays here for another exciting product.... (Score:5, Funny)
Hi Billy Mays here for the Commercial Kill.
Sick of commercials blaring and waking up your hooker in the middle of the night?
Using the power of the internet we can eliminate loud obnoxious commercials for your viewing pleasure.
Note: Commercials only removed from pirated material. Non Pirated material will be subject to EVEN LOUDER commercials that conveniently have the volume control disabled during duration.
I hyperbolically hope this spreads (Score:2)
Of all the things that started out in the good ol' US of A, this is second only to the lightning rod in "things that need to reach global acceptance".
Congress has it's priorities (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Congress has it's priorities (Score:5, Informative)
Surprise surprise, things that don't really matter are easier to come to agreement on than things that are considered important and on which very different opinions are held.
Amazing!
Re:Congress has it's priorities (Score:4, Funny)
Yeah, thank god. I'm glad I can spend the time I would have spent clicking the mute button on my remote.........sitting in front of the TV anyway. It's a great day for freedom people. We need to mark this with a special 4chan-style holiday, National Commercial Volume Law Day, where teenagers traditionally secretly turn up the volume of every television and stereo they can find and then mute it causing the next user to be reminded of the glorious freedom of America.
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You can blame the Republicans and blue dogs for that. They want to cut taxes, but are unwilling to cut any of the services which their constituents want. Sure people like tax cuts and don't mind somebody elses services getting cut, but the fact is that as long as they refuse to contribute to a solution we're not going to have one.
If you pay really close attention to campaign ads for conservatives they rarely if ever mention what precisely it is that they intend to cut in order to reduce the deficit nor do they typically point out that unless you cut spending by more than you cut taxes you end up with either no change in debt levels or an increased debt load.
Democrats and liberals aren't exactly saints, but at least they understand that it's tax and spend, not charge and spend. It's easy to be the party of thrift when you can make the other party actually find the money.
Of course Republicans don't want a cut in the services they receive. They just want the FEDERAL government to cut the services it offers. Republicans, actually conservatives, don't mind paying taxes for government services, they just want those taxes and services to be local, where there is more control. The only power the federal government should have are the powers spelled out in the Constitution.
Why should someone in North Dakota pay to fix a bridge in Florida? Why should someone in New Mexico pay f
Uncharacteristic: (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not that I'm especially fond of advertisers, it's just that I have trouble acknowledging a world where ANYBODY GIVES A FUCK about this "issue".
Re:Uncharacteristic: (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Uncharacteristic: (Score:5, Interesting)
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summed up as: we have more dynamic range now (with HD) and so the content we care about can be sitting at, say, 20 or more dB down from normal and then the commercial comes on normalized to peak at 0dB (or clip; probably clip and clip a lot).
when they used a lot of compression for audio (10 or 20 yrs ago) this was less of a problem. now the audio comes thru digitally and that's 90+ dB of range they can fuck with. they can bury content way way down so that we turn our volume controls up to hear the main sh
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Advertisers want to be as annoying as possible to get your attention. If
Television? (Score:2)
TVs can have this, and have had it. (Score:2, Informative)
Why don't more TVs have it? (rather, I know "cost" is probably the main reason, but it should be a good enough feature to be fairly standard today, you'd think)
While they're at it ... a safety suggestion (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Sirens already solved in most markets (Score:3, Insightful)
This tends to correct itself. This was tried a couple years ago and it's use has died out. Research showed the moment someone heard the commercial siren, they automatically tuned out the commercial and gave attention to the road looking for the emergency vehicle and most often did not even register the commercial message. When the source was identified as the radio, the most often response was to turn it off and continue to see if there was a real siren in the area. I have not heard a siren in a commerci
What? (Score:2)
I can't hear you over the commercial.
Seriously - this should be easy for sound engineers.
Rest Easy (Score:4, Insightful)
Now I can rest easy, knowing that the folks in charge are focusing on the really important matters. It was just last night, I was jolted out of a nap in front of some program on global warming or something by an ad for American Idol...
Wow... I would get cable TV now... (Score:2)
HI (Score:3, Funny)
Thank God, but it is too late (Score:5, Insightful)
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"I already dropped cable for dsl" ... "my generation [does] not need landlines"
?
Whatever happened to Smart Sound? (Score:3, Interesting)
Magnavox TV's used to do this, if I recall correctly. I tried to find something similar for my Myth setup, but never did. Did that idea just fade away?
The buck stops here. (Score:2)
Only $2150.00 [musiciansfriend.com] to do it yourself.
One blew out my speakers. (Score:3, Interesting)
All these little laws (Score:4, Interesting)
Things can sound like a good idea on paper, and often have positive intentions, but when you make a law out of every good idea it can create problems. Every law we make takes away just a little of our freedom (in many cases, a lot). Make murder against the law, I lose the freedom to murder you, and vice versa. That's well worth the cost. But all the little laws like this stack up.
I mean in this case, sure, having a commercial that's loud could inconvenience people, maybe annoy people. And I'm sure it'll make a lot of people happy to not have to deal with it. But as Americans, we don't have a right to not be inconvenienced, to not be annoyed. Of course quieter commercials isn't a really a big deal to us. Maybe it will be more "pleasant." But having a loud commercial be a crime? Really?
Usually when someone says, "You know, there oughta be a law," there shouldn't be.
Re:All these little laws (Score:5, Insightful)
From the general feel of the comments so far, it looks like my opinion will be pretty unpopular
If by "unpopular" you mean "illogical", then you're right. Your argument makes no sense at all.
when you make a law out of every good idea it can create problems
Only if the law is badly written or unevenly enforced, or the idea merely seems to be a good one as many bad ideas often are.
Every law we make takes away just a little of our freedom. Make murder against the law, I lose the freedom to murder you
No, it only tales away anarchy. You do NOT have the freedom to murder. Your freedoms end where mine begin, and that's how it should be. You should NOT be "free" to break into my house and deprive me of my freedom of privacy. You should not be free to take my belongings and deprive me of my property rights. My privacy and property are my freedoms. You and nobody else have the right to deprive me of my rights.
But as Americans, we don't have a right to not be inconvenienced, to not be annoyed.
We do to a point. My freedom of speech does not tale away your freedom to ignore me (and BTW, the first amendment IS a law, and it does NOT take away anyone's freedom or rights). I do not have the right and should not have the freeedom to come into your home and wake up your sleeping children. If I wake up your children I'm doing you harm. It's just plain WRONG to do that, and you have no right to do me wrong.
Now, if you want to smoke a joint in your own living room, go for it. You're not harming anyone. There are good laws and bad laws, this is a GOOD law, pot laws are BAD laws. You're getting "bad laws" confused with "all laws".
Volume Limiter (Score:2, Interesting)
Just run your TV sound out through a volume limiter. Turn the TV volume up to a higher level that you are comfortable with during regular programing, Then turn the volume limiter to a comfortable level. Commercials won't be able to go above that volume.
Re:Volume Limiter (Score:4, Informative)
A much better solution would be a compressor, which would reduce the impact of very loud sounds and leave quieter sections untouched. Yes, the limiter would also have this effect to a degree, but the usage that you describe is much better suited to the more detailed controls of a compressor. Tweaking the compressor curve and combining that with a slow acting AGC can leave you with quite a bit of dynamic range while still keeping perceived volume to a non ear splitting level.
Typical politicians (Score:2)
Senate Votes To Turn Down Volume On TV Commercials
Why waste all this time voting. The one with the remote control should have just done it.
The advertisers did it to themselves (Score:4, Interesting)
While I think there are more important things that Congress ought to be doing, the advertisers have only themselves to blame. They've known for decades that loud commercials piss people off, they've been told over and over that they should stop this practice, yet they've ignored all of this.
And some of the blame can also be laid at the feet of the local TV stations and cable systems, whose commercials can air at much higher volume than the network feed they're inserted into because someone is too lazy to adjust the fucking levels properly. Is it so damn hard to fix your equipment so that, when I have the volume set to enjoy "Mythbusters" at a moderate sound level, the ad for Billy Bob's Gently Used Washing Machine Emporium doesn't set off car alarms three blocks away?
And, while we're at it, can we do something about businesses that insist on using little kids in their ads, apparently in the belief that cute kids drive up sales? There's a local furniture store here that uses the owner's kids in every single ad. Those kids should sue the guy for child exploitation. And does anyone else find this practice as nausiating as I do? If you're going to show me an ad, just cut to the chase and tell me about how much I can buy a decent couch for and leave your kids at home where they belong.
Wrong perspective (Score:3, Insightful)
FTA: a bill to require television stations and cable companies to keep commercials at the same volume as the programs they interrupt
The programs interrupt the commercials, or hasn't Congress watched TBS lately?
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And note: they *are* at the same volume: measured by *peak level*. The peak levels of the commercial never get any louder than the peak level of the program, cause both are about 95% deviation
See also: audio compression.
Re:This is impractical (Score:5, Informative)
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The point is that now it will be the same volume measured by *average level*. So one big explosion in CSI doesn't give the advertisers card blanche to blast their ads at you.
That's right, it takes two!
Re:This is impractical (Score:5, Informative)
Duh. The commercials must obviously be operating at near to peak levels with little dynamic range, whereas the TV shows are save a little range for swelling dramatic music, explosions etc.
I have the same problem with BBC Radio 1, the presenters are far too loud in comparison with the music. If I ever listen to the radio these days I tend to be fiddle with the volume a lot.
Re:This is impractical (Score:5, Funny)
The presenters are too loud on Radio 1 because you can hear them.
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Re:This is impractical (Score:5, Funny)
If only there was some way of taking a single piece of source material and adjusting its loudness at the time of transmission so that different volumes could be selected for different situations.
Alas, apparently the technology to dynamically alter sound data in such a way does not exist.
No, it is practical (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:No, it is practical (Score:4, Funny)
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It was sarcasm. :-)
The summary, of all things, even points out that this proposed legislation is *after* an industry organization published guidelines for exactly how to do this sort of thing.
Re:No, it is practical (Score:5, Insightful)
>>>I have to master audio
Please tell your colleagues that the best music uses all or most of a CD's 80 dB volume range, not just the top 5 dB (i.e. avoids volume compression). If your bosses are wondering why CD sales are dropping, it's because there's little point buying a CD that sounds like it was mastered from a 128k MP3 file. Make the CD sound better than an MP3, and we'll buy it. IMHO. A Fan.
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Disagree.. It's because most CDs have one or two good songs and the rest are crap. Studios know this. Why do you think studios moved from singles to records in the first place? To make more money...
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Level compression != data compression. MP3 does not effect loudness, it's applied in the mastering process. And the reason CDs sound like MP3s is because MP3s are ripped from CDs. Indeed, if they fix CDs, our MP3s will sound better too.
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>>>different volumes could be selected for different situations.
Well since nobody's invented what I will call "consumer-variable sound adjustment", I devised a different solution: I just mute everything (except scifi which has cool AFX) and read the subtitles to follow the dialogue, while listening to the commercial-free radio in the background.
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This also cuts out the laugh track, which might make some shows watchable.
Re:This is impractical (Score:5, Interesting)
It can definitely be done. In fact, about 6 years ago I was tasked with designing and coding an automatic volume control based on ambient room noise. It was not easy, believe me, but using Root Mean Square, I was able to get it to work. This ensured that the device would either be louder than the ambient sound if you wanted to use it as a public announcement system, such as in a school, or provide background music that didn't drown out conversation. The hardest part was determining the sample buffer. Do you adjust the volume based on the last second of ambient sound? The last 10 seconds? The last minute? It took some tweaking, but an optimal sample buffer was found.
Now, for a TV show, that is a bit easier. Simply get an RMS of the show before airing it, as well as the peak volume, do the same for each commercial, and adjust the commercial volume accordingly. It's not a difficult problem at all. In fact, I could probably write an application to do it all automatically within a week or two, but no more than a month. It would take sound stream input, sample the entire stream from beginning to end, then determine a relative volume for each one.
The problem hasn't been a technical one for over a decade. It's been a political one.
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How is that a problem? If I'm watching violent action movie I will have adjusted the volume to the level that is comfortable to me. If I'm watching a drama with no loud noises whatsoever, I will have... adjusted the volume to the level that is comfortable to me. See, that's the point; I don't want to be pitched Oxyclean at levels that cause permanent hearing damage just because I have the volume turned up hear a quiet show. It isn't that hard to take the average level from the past five minutes, and ma
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THIS!
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They are purposely increasing the volume in the commercial, which means they have the ability to decrease the volume.
The challenge as stated in TFA is to define the regulation in a practical way that actually results in solving the problem.
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While we're at it, could somebody tell MS that the error sound is way too loud and way too frequent. I can only imagine the amount of hearing damage they've caused with that. Hopefully they've turned down the volume in more recent releases from what it was
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Its pretty easy, everything I have in my home theaters run through a Creative x-fi sound card to get "cleaned" before it actually goes to any speakers/stereo head. I can muck with all of the settings to get exactly the sound levels I want and it prevents the commercials from suddenly deafening me.
It actually fixes the MS error sound too.
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>>>the same spot could play louder during Footday Night Monball than during CSI,
(1) So what?
(2) I think you might have that backwards. The music in CSI and other dramas is often louder than the sports games. Sure when a crowd cheers football gets loud, but the overall average volume is quieter. (IMHO)
.
>>>What will the Senate do next, vote to reduce gravity, so overweight people can get around more easily?
I thought they were planning to outlaw any car older than 2005, in order to stimula
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I got the idea from NPR in Georgia. This happens ALL THE TIME in my car.
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You make it sound like it's impractical. Well, I guess because you said so. I've had receivers which do audio normalization (or dynamic range control), which work very well in home theaters. You don't have to screw around with the volume so you can hear someone whispering in one scene, and then turn it down for the next loud scene. I was really spoiled after watching TV and movies exclusively in my home theater for about a year. I pretty much had two settings for the audio. One was for n
Re:This is impractical (Score:4, Funny)
You mean like when watching teevee at an old person's house?
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The compression *is the source of the problem*, AC.
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I'm guessing that the anonymous submitter meant for the subject to be "IDIOTS!" Irony for the win.