Channel 36 Audio problems

[PatM]

Yesterday and today we tried to watch movies on channel 36.
The audio level was so low you couldn't hear the dialog.
I'm not saying a little low - more like drastically low.
We normally have the audio set for a level of about 37 on our Toshiba TV, but had to increase it to 97 to hear anything.
As soon as the movie was over the volume increased to normal level, and blasted us out of the room.
It seems this is only when they are showing a movie.
I would think they would not let this drag on for 2 days without doing something to correct the problem.
It's not only on that one Tv, but 2 others in the house also.

[mrschimpf]

Yesterday and today we tried to watch movies on channel 36.
The audio level was so low you couldn't hear the dialog.
I'm not saying a little low - more like drastically low.
We normally have the audio set for a level of about 37 on our Toshiba TV, but had to increase it to 97 to hear anything.
As soon as the movie was over the volume increased to normal level, and blasted us out of the room.
It seems this is only when they are showing a movie.
I would think they would not let this drag on for 2 days without doing something to correct the problem.
It's not only on that one Tv, but 2 others in the house also.

The older source material really doesn't help on this one; the same problem exists for Offbeat Cinema on 6.2 on Saturday nights, whenever 6 airs their pre-1955 movies on either Saturday nights or Sunday afternoons, and quite a few of 18's 2am movies. It's the nature of the recording process back then.

There's just no way around this one beyond the film studio providing a better-tuned version of the film, but for these older movies it's either from a public domain provider (aka no quality control), or a distributor who puts more effort into post-1980's releases than their library titles. Volume boosting is possible but you turn it up too high and it ends up distorted.

[PatM]

The older source material really doesn't help on this one; the same problem exists for Offbeat Cinema on 6.2 on Saturday nights, whenever 6 airs their pre-1955 movies on either Saturday nights or Sunday afternoons, and quite a few of 18's 2am movies. It's the nature of the recording process back then.
.

We watch many older movies, some going back to the early 1930's without having this problem.
If the sound track is so degraded, the stations should not broadcast that movie.
The same Western Electric type sound track was used for many decades without this problem.
This is definitely the problem of the Tv station not being selective when choosing what to broadcast and has nothing to do with the nature of the recording process.

[bschlafer]

I've seen that problem too.  

Typically late night movies that require the volume jacked up just to hear them - only to be boomed out of the room when over-amped commercials come on.

The local stations should hire some audio engineers to monitor the volume levels, or come up with some better technology to deal with this issue.


*Bill

[techguy1975]

Any movie a station airs has to be "Broadcast Quality"  They do not simply run out to Blockbuster and pick a movie off the shelf, the films are sold through a distributor.  Said distributor is responsible for the quality of that material.  The video and audio are usually processed and touched up during any duplication phase of the source material.  

It is possible for stations to have issues sometimes, because the levels on their playback machine with the movie may not be set right, but it is not because of bad material IN the machine.

Monitoring the quality of the audio and video going out is the responsibility of the MCO (Master Control Operator).