good news: no more extra-loud ads

[wellington1869]

i dont know about where you live, but in new york this is a real problem! Been driving a lot of people bonkers. I'm talking about how the ads on TV are extra loud. Like twice as loud as the program you're watching. You have to constantly adjust the volume as you watch a show. If you're watching late night basically the ads are loud enough to wake the neighbors while the program itself is whisper quiet and you can barely hear it.

Well, our beloved federal government is about to put at stop to it. I'm actually really glad to see them do something useful for a change.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100930/ap_on_en_tv/us_congress_loud_commercials

Legislation to turn down the volume on those loud TV commercials that send couch potatoes diving for their remote controls looks like it'll soon become law.
The Senate unanimously passed a bill late Wednesday to require television stations and cable companies to keep commercials at the same volume as the programs they interrupt.

The House has passed similar legislation.
...
Ever since television caught on in the 1950s, the Federal Communication Commission has been getting complaints about blaring commercials. But the FCC concluded in 1984 there was no fair way to write regulations controlling the "apparent loudness" of commercials. So it hasn't been regulating them.
...
Its title is the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act, or CALM
...
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., a co-sponsor, said 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," he said.

[keyboardlover]

Well, our beloved federal government is about to put at stop to it. I'm actually really glad to see them do something useful for a change.

I can't believe I'm agreeing with you - I couldn't agree more. Those ads drive me bat**** (and unfortunately in the USA we have a lot more commercials than most countries).

[wellington1869]

I can't believe I'm agreeing with you - I couldn't agree more.

pleasantly surprised  I was expecting a "how dare big guv'ment regulate my television volume!"

[keyboardlover]

pleasantly surprised  I was expecting a "how dare big guv'ment regulate my television volume!"

Nah it's more like 'I wish Obama was doing more to correct annoying things like this.'

[Rajagra]

The sickening thing is the TV companies claim the adverts aren't excessively loud. They base this on the fact that advert loudness does not exceed the maximum program content (by much) and there are already laws limiting advert loudness which are not being broken. What they neglect to say is the adverts are not only at the volume of the loudest part of the programs (like explosions!!!) but advert makers go to great pains normalising their sound, that is to say their volume is adjusted dynamically so everything is at max volume and unignorable.

I've noticed the problem getting worse in recent months. When I have the volume low so the programs are quiet, the adverts are still painfully loud. I mean literally painful.

The people behind it are scum, as bad as Internet spammers. And they are too stupid to realise they are prompting people to fast forward or mute the adverts!!

[Lanx]

i thought tv's had a sound limiter built in? (idk really just haven't had this problem, but maybe it really is region based).
(and if they don't they should... i mean my soundblaster xfi has one and thats a 5 year old soundcard)
but this is just like marketers calling after 8pm, my fiance had this problem on her cell, i'm like whose that? (after and she's like oh the stupid marketers again, they want my opinion on voting, she hung up real fast, so i just waited next day, and sure enough they called again.
I'm like who are! why! take me off the list! "no problem sir"

which is sad cuz my fiance and i used to work for our college alumni association calling old alums for donations 12years back!

[wellington1869]

i thought tv's had a sound limiter built in?

I bought a volume regulator from amazon specifically for this problem, it helped a bit. Not too much but a bit.

[wellington1869]

DVRMStoolbox just gets around this by deleting the commercials for you in Windows Media Center.  Getting it going is a b**** but once you do it's amazingly accurate.

sadly the tivo i have is a model where they got rid of the 'ad skipping' button

[instantkamera]

I thought the argument of the TV companies and advertisers was that the ADS are at the normal volume and the broadcasters actually lower the volume for the actual programs. It accomplishes the same thing, of course.

[frvrngn]

They have Tivos where you cant skip the commercials?  I have not used one in a long time, but that was one of the best parts of owning one!

[Co-Op]

I forget which Tivo-like service I had back in the day, but it USED to let you skip the ads which was actually freaking awesome since it worked. But, they changed that later so you had to fast forward through them, proving all good things must come to and end. (Maybe the cable providers complained or something?) Verizon FiOS' DVR has a +30s skip option, but that's it. Back to the subject at hand, I hate when you are trying to stealthily watch TV, and then a LOUD DEBT CONSOLIDATION commercial comes on.

[firestorm]

FWIW, and AFAIK, commercials are not technically louder.  My understanding is that they compress the dynamics at of it.  The dynamic range is the range from the quiet to the loud; whispers to explosions.  The peak value remains the same, but with that range compressed upwards, whispers are the same loudness as explosions.  I believe this is why the typical methods of "normalizing" don't work so well.  The same method is used for "Night Mode" on many receivers, but to the opposite effect; downward to bring down the explosions to more whisper like volume.  It is also the reason some music is perceptibly louder at the same volume setting.

[firestorm]

Also FWIW, I don't think there are any DVR's that feature commercial auto-skip anymore, except for open source solutions like MythTV.

[keyboardlover]

Well they sound louder to my ears. That's all I care about.

[WhiteRice]

Does this apply to online content?

[Co-Op]

Any online ad with audio is too loud.

[ricercar]

FWIW, and AFAIK, commercials are not technically louder.  My understanding is that they compress the dynamics at of it.

Compression is used for broadcast TV commercials and FM radio. Since commercial radio is optimized for an automobile listening experience, dynamic range falls by the wayside to ensure every recording plays at the same level, and the whispers are as loud as the drums.

Same for TV commercials. Welly's pointed out a compressor to make whispers as loud as the explosions. Night mode in contemporary amps is either a compressor, OR the same fletcher-munsen eq found on the loudness controls of yore.

[wellington1869]

i like compression a lot for tv/movies. makes the experience much more stress-free.  audio-levels is a constant source of stress in the new digital multimedia world.  i used to constantly fiddle with my laptop audio controls (nothing like ads blaring out loud in the library cuz you forgot to turn down the volume at home).

I finally fixed the laptop volume woes with an AHK script that resets my volume to 5% on every boot/resume, and with AHK volume hotkeys within easy reach at all times.  Plus I added a software solution to simultaneously boost output and increase compression, the DFX plugin for winamp which really works pretty well on laptops.

The only thing about the compressor/regulator from amazon for my tv, I wish it had a knob where you could fine-tune the compression level.  It doesnt, its at a set level. If I could I'd boost the compression a bit more on that.

I've considered getting a compression pedal that guitarists use and putting it in the chain between my tivo and my tv.  Lots of knobs to tweak there and i'm sure it would compress as much as i want.

I wish compression was a standard built-in feature on televisions, with a compression knob right next to the volume controls.

[ricercar]

Ug, there's no tweaking knob on the Amazon compressor? Utility FAIL!

You can get a real compressor for under $80.

[wellington1869]

OR the same fletcher-munsen eq found on the loudness controls of yore.

remember that hokey 80's japanese heavy metal band called 'Loudness'?
they were really popular for a while, but i always thought that was a pretty crappy name.

[wellington1869]

Ug, there's no tweaking knob on the Amazon compressor? Utility FAIL!

i know, it was disappointing.  
Its better than nothing tho.

You can get a real compressor for under $80.

ya, thats basically what i need. I'm holding off until I buy an lcd tv. (I still have a CRT that just wont die already)

[instantkamera]

(I still have a CRT that just wont die already)

Pee into the back of it while it is on. Just sayin'.

[microsoft windows]

That ought to kill it.

[TexasFlood]

That ought to kill it.

And you in the process if you're grounded.  I'm just sayin'. :shocked: