Commercial Volume

[jpfieber]

Watching SNL tonight on 504 TWC the local commercials were unbarrably loud!  I know stations want to get their commercials notice, but this is rediculous. Anyone else notice this?  Anything us common people can do besides not watch (no, I'm not gonna pay money for technology to overcome the stations overzelousness)?

[TPK]

I don't think it was that the commercials were loud..

I think it was that the SNL broadcast was just muted....

I had to turn up the volumne on my reciever quite a bit, then when the commercials came on they blasted me outta my chair...

[kjnorman]

I have TiVo, what is a commercial?  

Actually in the old days, my wife would always mute the commercials because they are too loud.  So rather than get their advertisements noticed we were less inclined to watch.  Kind of self defeating if you ask me.

I think the rules are that the commercials can be as loud as the loudest sound in a program.  Of course the issue is that the loudest sound in a program may last for < 1% of the time (a gun shot for example), whereas is a commercial it is 100% of the time.

All good reasons to get a TiVo!

[oflaherty]

The relative loudness of material is set by a metadata value called "dialnorm" (for dialogue normalization.)
Properly used, the home viewer should never have to turn the volume up or down.
The loudness should be the same for one show to the next, between programs and commercials, and from channel to channel.

Dialnorm is part of Dolby's AC-3 system, also called "Dolby Digital." It is required by FCC rule.

Of course, for dialnorm to work, the dialnorm value has to accurately reflect the average dialogue level in that program.

NBC includes that data in its HD feed, which we just pass on through.
Local commercials and local programs are sent with a default value, as suggested by Dolby Labs, which invented the system.

If viewers need to keep turning the volume up and down then one, or both, of the dialnorm values are wrong.
 
For more info:
http://etvcookbook.org/audio/dialnorm.html
http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volume_7_2/feature-article-dialog-normalization-6-2000.html
http://www.dolby.com/assets/pdf/tech_library/18_Metadata.Guide.pdf

-Sean at TMJ

[kjnorman]

Sean, I have a slightly off topic question.

One thing I have noticed since getting OTA HD is that the OTA channel volume is a lot lower than the volumn of all my Directv channels (including the local analog channels).  

Is the volume being increased by the Directv feed, or is the OTA digital channels simply being broadcast at a lower volume?  This seems to be consistent across all OTA channels.

Thanks,
Kerry

[Doug Mohr]

Watching SNL tonight on 504 TWC the local commercials were unbarrably loud!  I know stations want to get their commercials notice, but this is rediculous. Anyone else notice this?  Anything us common people can do besides not watch (no, I'm not gonna pay money for technology to overcome the stations overzelousness)?

From a different angle, I see most commercials are in Dolby Surround and the programming is in Dolby Digital. At least that's what my receiver switches in and out of. Anything in Dolby Surround is substantially louder than Dolby Digital. I almost always grab the remote to turn it down at commercial time and back up at program time.

I thought all this time it was just a gian problem on my particular receiver  :confused:

Doug