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A rant about hollywood surround volume dynamics…
you know what i’ve found increasingly obnoxious the past few years. anytime i stick in a movie from the past few years the dynamics are just maddening. i live in an Apartment, and my preferred movie watching time i usually 10pm-4am… and it never fails, no matter what movies i watch… i have to have my hand glued to the the receiver remote. the whole movie its up-down-up-down-up-down-up-down. their talking, so i put the thing on 55, then a bad guy comes in with a machine gun, and i have to put the thing on 25, then the good guy is shot, and is muttering his last words to the girl, and i have to turn it back up to 55 to hear it, then BOOM! dynamite, turn the thing back down, then a scene in a hotel, back up, then a high speed chase, down again….
i know this is audio blasphemy… but i wonder at time why can’t everything just be normalized to a specific decibel so whispers are the same volume as a machine gun shooting a tanker truck, or why can’t there be an option for that. is this usually a concern with home dvd/BD viewers? or are we supposed to all live in houses on 3 acre properties, and watch movies at 3 pm with it sitting on 60 and look like the old Maxell guy 🙂
my SS receiver has no options for normalizing, and neither does the BR Player. i just wish i could hit a switch for “normalize audio amplitude” so i could just set the volume on 40, and leave it.
end rant.
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7 Replies
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That’s really more a function of living in a communal dwelling and wanting to crank your movies- isn’t it? have you considered a set of wireless surround headphones? We use those when we watch movies late at night. Zero impact to neighbors and you get the perfect surround field image from wherever you’re sitting. Sennheiser and Sony make some nice ones…
Noah
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I got to put in my word here. First, Normalizing would not help you. Audio normalization is “the process of increasing (or decreasing) the amplitude of an entire audio signal so that the resulting peak amplitude matches a desired target”. What you want is compression. Brining the loudest points down and the quieter points up. Also, what you are asking for is exactly whats wrong with the music industry these days. There is no more dynamic range and everything just becomes a loudness war. Appreciate dynamic range. It really helps tell the story.
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that’s what it was! compression. i was going to say “adding a limiter” but went with normalizing instead. but i do enjoy dynamics, don’t get me wrong. at 3 pm, when i don’t have to worry about idiots banging on my door (which has happened) i crank it up and just let it ride, and let the sound envelope me. but at night, it’s another issue. (i bought Tron: Legacy this weekend, and in DTS-MA 7.1 it was pretty insane how much i was owning the volume remote. i had already seen it, so i knew what was going on. but the wife hadn’t yet, so i was trying to make sure she heard the dialogue and could follow, and not getting us evicted.)
basically just a tongue in cheek rant, but it would be cool if the players or receivers had a built in filter for that if you so chose, depending on your environment. just flip the switch.
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I agree on the apartment thing. I feel I listen to stuff reasonably low but I go out in the hallway and I feel like the whole floor can hear what we’re watching! Guess im lucky I havn’t got the “knock” from the neighbors yet. Best of luck to you with your neighbors.
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Hello Keith and welcome to the Cow Audio Forum.
Two words: Head Phones.
(I would have gone with “One word…Headphones”, but it’s not as funny for some reason.
Actually, there is a box made by Linear Acoustic in Lancaster, Pennsylvania that more and more broadcasters are using to rid themselves of the OBNOXIOUSLY LOUD COMMERCIALS.
https://www.linearacoustic.com/aeroair.htmPerhaps something like their QC will work on your end:https://www.linearacoustic.com/aeroqc.htm
Regards,
Ty Ford
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Psst, Tony,
Um, it’s a little LOUD over in your place. 🙂
Regards,
Ty
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There are definitely DVD players and Receivers that have compression.
My Denon receiver has a button labeled “Night Mode” for this purpose.
And Several of my DVD players have compression settings. You just have to go into the menus.
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