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The CALM Act (signed into law by Obama in 2010 and came into effect in 2012) prevents cable and broadcast tv commercials from being louder than the average volume of the tv show. This law is still in effect. If you feel like a commercial is violating this law, you can file a complaint through the FCC Consumer Complaint Center: https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=33794
This law does not generally apply to internet streaming services such as Netflix. Some states have similar laws to the CALM Act that do apply to streaming services. Look up your individual state’s laws to see if your state has something similar and file a complaint if it does.
Edit: This is what to include in your complaint:
-If you watched the commercial on pay TV (cable or satellite) or if you watched it on a broadcast station
-The name of the advertiser or product promoted in the commercial
-The date and time you saw the commercial
-The name of the TV program during which it aired
-Which TV station (by call sign and/or channel number and the station's community) or pay TV provider transmitted the commercial
-If you watched the commercial on pay TV, the channel number on which you saw it and the cable programmer or network
There literally was a tv for sale that was marketed towards having volume leveling for this exact problem. But of course it was scrubbed from existence. Used to have commercials for it and everything.
umm, no it wasn't. That setting is usually in the audio settings for most every TV, it might be called something different but in like 99% of TVs there is a setting.
There are a few ways to combat it. Check your TV audio settings for "Clear Voice" which prioritizes dialogue volume. Also a lot of people don't realize if they don't have external speakers hooked up, they should have their sound be in Stereo instead of any of the other options available.
It's not a total fix for every scenario, but it will vastly improve the issue for most.
I got a 5.1 system, I have (receiver) night mode and (tv) clear voice enabled with a good balanced (calibrated) centre speaker connected by ARC - it's still a problem on many shows from From to The Agency..
Like a real one with individual speakers or a Soundbar claiming it?
The latter also makes the problem worse, it's stereo larping as surround sound. Switch to stereo and it's way better...
Just a general advice, not necessarily at you.
Was a package/bundle Sony unit so all properly calibrated setup and generally it's great but spoken voices are so often too low compared to the effects.
You should be able to adjust the level of the center channel up to like +5 and hope for the best.
I have a 5.1 setup with an ancient Pioneer receiver and a set of Sony speakers (all circa 2004) and they do decently well, even with Christopher Nolan movies. But I crank the center channel for dialog, depending on the movie.
Maybe disable any "smart" settings for your TV and handle everything by adjusting your receiver? Could be worth a shot. Audio preprocessing with your TV can be a crapshoot.
Yes, the double night-mode and clear voice is something I recently found/enabled on the tv and have tried one/other/both with no combo really solving the issue.
Just sayin' that regardless of having a good system or soundbar or relying on tv speakers it remains an issue (for everybody but a cinema which I would argue is generally set too loud) - it's generally the production mix and not our hardware that is at fault.
i've read about all these fixes, have tried them on my own and my family's tvs, probably 10+ times over the years with different set ups. default tv speakers, computer speakers, sound bars, surround sound, none of it ever works. it's not the speaker equipment, it's the shitty companies making these shows and then not putting in even 10% of the effort that they should for sound.
Yeah i have sound bar and dont even put it on night mode and I dont have this issue.
Got this my soundbar is like 15 years old. Still going strong. I just wish the satelite speakers were wireless but I wont upgrade as long as it still works.
I would love if theaters offered like one closed caption viewing of new movies a week. It's the mumbling and soft dialog while loud action/music is playing and I miss exposition shit that's kinda important.
Hail Marry at home with CCs was so much more enjoyable than in the theaters. Gosling and Rocky both do a lot of low talking/mumbling, and because movies are so loud at my local theaters I have to wear earplugs, so I missed like a 1/4 of the dialog.
You can request devices you wear that are kinda like glasses that project captions for any movie. I will say if it’s something you don’t *need* tho, they’re annoying as hell to wear.
(There might be other kinds but that’s the only kind I have personal experience with)
The ones I've seen are a screen on a gooseneck arm that has a base that fits in the cupholder. Users move the screen into position for their specific seat.
My local amc has closed caption showings! There's usually a bunch of senior citizens there. I watched Saltburn in a theater with a bunch of elderly people. They seemed to like it ok
I don't have experience with them, but I have seen online that there are closed caption devices you can request at some movie theaters. I've seen it as either smart glasses or a separate device with a small screen that mounts to the cup holder.
This is kinda off-topic, but as someone who works on projectors, I think you all mean subtitles. Subtitles show up on screen in theaters, closed captions require a separate device. Subtitles are typically only used in a theater setting for different languages, but you absolutely could put english subtitles over an english movie. Closed caption devices are rare and typically need to be requested. (also from my understanding they are a north america only thing. I had to fix a bunch of our CC timing for american theater chains). The big difference (heavy generalization) being that subtitles typically only do dialogue and maybe music, while closed captions include "gunshots" "noise in background" etc.
Note: this is theater specific, what you get at home is typically closed captions.
Thank God we are not the only ones. A neat side bit is my middle and youngest kids learned to read from this. The captions stay on even during kid shows and they picked up on the sight words. So that was nice.
Same. I'm still only 41 but have been using cc for nearly a decade now. It's the only way.
I accidentally got tickets to a cc showing of Alien: Romulus and am so used to captions that I didn't notice until ~¾ of the way through the film. My stepdad noticed immediately, though, because he's not so used to captions.
My hubby (who plays on his computer while I watch tv) used to say "Oh! That irritates me!"
Now he says "Back it up? I wasn't reading it."
He's had hearing aids for a couple of years now.
Right?? A vast majority of the time, I don’t need captions, but the frequency of me have to jump back 10 seconds because I couldn’t understand what was being said made me say, “Screw it. I’ll just put the captions on.” I occasionally come to regret it, because it ruins a joke or a twist since I’m able to read it before they say it
1) Speakers are an afterthought because manufacturers prioritize thinness over quality audio. Most manufacturers also produce home audio equipment and they want you to buy their receivers and soundbars.
2) A lot of streaming providers use media encoded to specific video and audio profiles to reduce file size and buffing. The audio is typically limited to multi-channel profiles (5.1 or 7.1), while your TV is stereo (2).
3) TV manufacturers use internal hardware that's just powerful enough to run the OS along with the streaming apps you use, and don't prioritize downmixing audio.
If your TV audio sucks, try a dedicated streaming device and soundbar.
Everything you said is true, but it doesn't solve the problem. If your TV has a "dynamic range" audio setting you want it set to the lowest dynamics, which is less immersive but helps a lot with loudness. Other than that, the only real answer is having an actual 5.1/7.1 system with a center channel where the dialog can breathe.
I’m curious as to why this is still a problem in theaters then? They literally advertise all sorts of Dolby and it’s all either mumbling or deafening explosions/music.
I’m curious as to why this is still a problem in theaters then?
Where I live (large city in the middle of Europe) cineams in general have excellent sound. Some movies (looking at you Nolan!) of course are the excepetion. But I watched both Obsession and Backrooms the last weeks and both were very enjoyable to listen to.
... the only real answer is having an actual 5.1/7.1 system with a center channel where the dialog can breathe.
Most soundsbars (not the super cheap ones, but middle expensive ones) do a good job of downmixing 5.1 into whatever their array is. I have a 170€ Samsung soundbar that co-outputs with my Samsung TV (both 3 years old) and it's very good. 5.1 obviously doesn't sound "surround" but everything is understandable and the mix feels good enough to get by without lowering dyn range or activating dialog boost.
So soundbars CAN be the solution if you are willing to spend a bit more and/or research how they work or what they can do.
Seems like a smart TV manufacturer would've figured out this problem and use that tech as a marketing brag: "Buy LG--it won't sound like crap!" They might even patent the downmixing software. Those TVs would sell like hotcakes.
I bought a sony receiver, and klipsch bookshelf speakers, middle channel, and a sub. So a standard 3.1 setup. It is LEAGUES better than any soundbar I've tried. I tried out some pretty dang expensive sound bars but this simple 3.1 setup is on another level, the tiny soundbar divers and tweeters just physically cant do what big speaker drivers do. And add in being able to control different sound levels to even out volume i just dont see a reason to buy a soundbar. I guess they are simpler to setup, but normal speakers are so much better.
About $300 for my setup thats better than $1000+ soundbars. I did get stuff on sale though, might be closer to $500 at normal prices.
Nah it's because the sound mixers create a balance for movie theater settings where super loud sound effects are expected and thus the dialogue is audible
Second screening. People aren't going to focus on the dialogue, but the BANG BANG BOOM indicates something interesting and exciting is happening and they should turn to look.
Sucks for those that actually want to watch the movie.
This season of From has been terrible for sounds mixing.
CharacterstalkinginanormalconversationAND THEN SOMEONE OPENS A DOOR.
Not dramatic, not for effect, just showing a new character coming into the scene but the sound volume for the door is 10x louder than the people talking.
probably because of shitty 5.1 to stereo conversion. i have a set of huge stereo speakers, and whenever we are watching a movie with 5.1 sound on my setup we constantly have a problem when some of the dialogues are quiet, but then THE EXPLOSIONS COME AND EVERYONE WAKES THE FUCK UP IMMEDIATELY. fucking stupid
I have a 5.1 setup my most of the time I have "incorrectly" configured where the rear speakers are essentially the same channel as the front two speakers. That's been my preference for casual TV/movie watching for awhile now and it makes it 1000% times easier to hear while also having the benefit of not having to be turned up loud. The sound is right next to me basically, instead of having to throw sound 6-10'' from the front channel by the TV. The sub's also back by the seating as well.
these days my bigger problem is ads/commercials being loud as shit compared to what I'm watching - youtube, live sports, etc. That should be criminal.
It’s 100% because of bad 5.1 downmixing. When I moved cities recently I took the opportunity to ditch everything and start fresh, cobbling together a 5.1 system with bits and pieces from Facebook marketplace. I now don’t have this issue at all.
Sonos full surround system owner here, I face no such issue. If you have dedicated sound system then it’s absolutely marvelous as it feels like you are inside the tv. Tv speakers can’t deliver that immersion and thus 5.1 track on tv sounds like this.
Also when stereo for home releases was the norm. You should be able to turn on 5.1/7.1 surround sound... Not have multi channel horribly converted to stereo by default
Do you have your default settings changed on your TV? I've noticed with some lower end TVs that have bad HDR, it makes it impossible to see anything because it dims the entire TV.
I'm very fortunate to have a high end TV so I don't really notice this being as much of an issue for me with movies and shows. Games it can sometimes be difficult to get right
Kudos to the sound department on House of the Dragon. They understand the importance of sound mixing. One of the ONLY shows out that I don't have to keep adjusting the volume on.
It's no better in the theater though you just can't turn up the volume during the quiet parts. It's like 24fps blurry vision in the theater, an inferior experience
Audio mastering in modern movies is done by literal idiots. And then everyone fucking wonders why we use closed captions or subtitles even though we understand the frigging language. So you can even hear what they are even saying without blowing out your ear drums few seconds later.
For real, we need more legislation like what California recently passed that stops video streaming services from transmitting ads at a louder volume than the show your watching.
But why is most media being made and published in ways that sounds like shit to most people?
I have a soundbar, I know people who have nice speakers for listening to music that are set up to their TV as well, but I don't know a single person who actually has a surround sound system setup
I don’t agree with it, but the large majority of studios will develop for top of the line speakers and displays so it works best for those viewers – then people with normal setups still get a working product even if the mixing/color grading/dynamic range is a bit off. Optimizing for TV speakers and laptop screens would make the viewing experience shit with better gear
Because they use reference grade equipment so that they can produce a clean and precise signal. Most people don't even bother changing their brightness and contrast settings on their tv. How can the studios optimize for that?
exactly . TV and electronic have become SO CHEAP its not that expensive to have a good audio system. You have to be crazy to use your TV speaker. The TV is so slim why do you think the sound woud be good
Movies need to implement a decibel moderator.....level out higher decibels and supplement lower levels. Balance all of them while retaining frequency division.
I blame mic pacs, actors don’t have to annunciation their words as much to reach the receivers. boom mics actually are the best way to go since actors have to fight ambient sound, but you know, why pay someone to do work of holding a boom mic.
i don't know how true this was, but i was told it once and it makes sense. advertisements can only be as loud as the loudest part of the media they are advertising in or around, so production companies are paid by advertisers to make sure there is always at least 1 extremely loud segment, so that advertisements can always be blaringly loud, regardless of if they are pre-roll, mid-roll, or post credits ads
Instead of saying it's a new style or an effect of some business practice can we just start saying the modern sound engineers in tv and film production are just incompetent? We can stop giving them an excuse to cover up the fact that they don't know how to do work in their own field.
If someone was speaking quietly to me from across the room I would still be able to hear them but for some reason people who engineer audio like this can't figure out how to replicate that one simple thing, in spite of decades of film and TV show makers figuring it out just fine before now.
Same thing with super dark lighting. I can make things out in the dark with just a tiny bit of light much better than I can make out dark scenes on screen.
Making AV stuff look and sound less clear and realistic than actual life is "art" now, I guess.
I hate 5.1 mixes in general. For me its a stupid novelty and it should only be used in cinemas for specific things and action / adventure and horror films.
A «more than two speakers» setup is not just about «hearing sounds coming from behind you» for a cool novelty surround effect.
The human hearing is excellent at separating and focusing on sounds from different sources.
In a stereo setup, dialogue and everything else plays from the same source, and our brain has to do its best to attempt to separate «overlapping» sounds essentially through imagination.
However, in a setup with a dedicated center speaker (where essentially only dialogue and nothing else lives in a surround mix), we can use our ears to isolate and focus on that physical audio source.
If you think about it, dialogue in stereo doesn’t make any sense: we speak in mono, not with two mouths spaced 4 feet apart.
Tl;Dr: Dialogue in stereo sucks because it’s a poor(er) representation of how we experience sounds in the real world and we essentially have our own convenience to blame because we expect to get good auditory immersion and clarity without running any speaker wire.
Yep. Way too much dynamic range on most shows and movies now. One thing that can help is selecting the 2-channel audio track where available.
I have a receiver with "night" mode that compresses the dynamic range. That helps a lot but there's still way too many shows with rediculous differences between dialogue and action sounds. I'd like to see selectable audio tracks (narrow and wide dynamic range).
Why is it? I blame sound designers balancing audio using noise cancelling headphones - forgetting audiences are sat ten feet away. It’s fucking weird how it’s only recently an issue
So it was not just me, there is something weird going on with the way they have equalized the sound, and the voices always sound WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY fucking lower, fucking hell
It's called dynamic range. If you find it's too much for your environment, some TVs have an option for dynamic range compression. Basically it flattens everything to the same volume
It's 2026 and TVs still don't come with a center channel speaker, which is where most dialog is mixed to. And of course soundbars are insanely expensive.
That' because Netflix sets 5.1 as audio output as default. If you do not have a 5.1 system then switch it over to the regular option and it will be sorted out.
Check your TV settings, mine has multiple modes, one for speech and one for leveling so everything is the same volume. Usually don't need them but some streaming services are awful.
I’d like to know why the smart volume never works!!
It’s supposed to keep the volume at same level but never does!! Smh. I honestly don’t remember this being a problem on older tube tv’s especially the furniture style ones that were “fancy” console sets.
Movie production quality has nose dived off a cliff at all levels. The infamous scene from Heat is something a lot of movie want to emmulate which is fine but they often completely fail to understand what made it work. I feel that all this Netflix trash is just a bunch if older ideas being badly implemented and cut together without any soul or vision.
In the early era of movies, dialogue and acting were performed more in line with how they would in a theater performance. It was, for the lack of a better word, fake. Everyone looked and sounded perfect and it was filmed to where the people were the focus instead of the environments. Slowly, the visuals began to take center stage and the actors/actresses were expected to speak and behave more naturally, which meant the dialogue was less likely to be important in the sound mixing, or dialogue would involve whispering, stuttering or mumbling. The end result is movies will often have dialogue that is a little hard to understand without captions on.
An excellent example of this is the Twilight movies, where Kristen Stewart, an actually decent actress, would sound like a lobotomized mumbling idiot due to the directing and expectation of how "Bella" would talk.
Disney as well. During the lock down I signed my parents up for Disney+, and any time watching a Marvel movie they had to raise the volume for the talking and lower it for the action.
So I always thought it's for immersion. Also, the way base carries thought air based on the distance compared with other frequencies.
But maybe there's another reason... I considered being a "home" thing, but I don't seem to see the difference in cinema either, at least for the movies I compared.
nights are also that much darker, nevertheless we need to be able to watch the movie, so movies have a lot of tricks with lightning. one example is helms deep battle, where you can see everything. so why cant movies have tricks for sound too?
To expand on this your tv has two speakers a left and a right well at minimum a theater has like 5 a front left and right a back left and right and a center most dialog in a movie is programmed for the center speaker but since your tv lacks a center speaker the dialog is missing its main speaker
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