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"Loud Commercial" Legislation Proposed In US Congress
Hackajar writes "Have you ever caught yourself running for the volume control when a TV commercial comes on? Congresswoman Anna Eshoo (D-CA) has, and is submitting legislation that would require TV commercials in the US to stay at volume levels similar to the programming they are associated with. From the article: 'Right now, the government doesn't have much say in the volume of TV ads. It's been getting complaints ever since televisions began proliferating in the 1950s. But the FCC concluded in 1984 there was no fair way to write regulations controlling the "apparent loudness" of commercials.'"
I hate loud commercials too, but this is just too much government IMHO. I'd much rather just have intelligent TVs or receivers that turned the volume down upon detecting a commercial...based on the settings *I* want, not what the government thinks is best for me.
I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
I believe new fangled TVs nowadays have a special feature that keep the decibals between any certain range you prefer, or some system similar to that to keep the loud bangs down while keeping the quiet dialogue up.
It'll only be another decade before it's standard, and this law (if it passes) is deprecated.
dvr
But the FCC concluded in 1984 there was no fair way to write regulations controlling the "apparent loudness" of commercials.'" ...every time my wife yells at me to "turn down that damned TV" because commercial suddenly starts blasting, the advertising executive for that commercial gets a 24 volt shock?
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
You take the average gain of the last 30 seconds of a program before it goes to commercial, and don't allow the commercials to be any louder than that.
If I can make karaoke and techno music automatically crossfade with my meager skills(link below)
http://www.facebook.com/v/203775860215
Then surely a TV station or broadcast network could make commercials stay at the same gain as the programming.
Many TVs have the ability to auto-level stuff.
But if you've got audio running to a receiver, the receiver has to do it (and likely doesn't).
At best, you've got dynamic range compression modes, which kill off the sound quality for normal programming.
Even if we have a magical loudness law that everyone magically decides to abide by, the latest tactic I've seen is far more annoying.
Commercials now exploit surround sound to the extreme. The soundstage is either panning back and forth and around, or the ad is done in such a way that billy is on my left and molly is on my right and mom is shaking and baking that chicken directly inside my fucking subwoofer.
There is an issue with Dynamic range compression use by broadcasters and advertisers to increase the apparent volume of sound while staying within legislated limits. That trick is not something that can be easily regulated, unless you do something silly like requiring all sound clips to be stored on records.
Ask me about repetitive DNA
I've seen this here in Oz, smarmy TV spokesdrones telling us that the volume is no higher during the ads, this is true, as they are discussing the peak value in decibels.
What they don't mention is the loudness (the amount of sound) has been cranked right up, which is why they are too "loud"
When we want to discuss loudness, they always come back with irrelevant facts about volume.
This is NOT a signature.
please mod up, first post to actually introduce the relevant information and not just 'MAKE THE VOLUME LOWER'. Volume is already legislated, its the issue of compression and headroom
I am by no means opposed to regulating advertising; if anything, there is not nearly enough regulation of advertising. That said, unlike intrusive junk mail in all its forms -- postal, spam, telemarketing -- television advertising isn't attached to anything vital and is therefore easy to avoid: turn off the TV. No one needs television, and its one practical use -- news -- is much better satisfied by literally every other medium by which news is available. It's just a source of entertainment, and it is almost completely paid for by advertising. If you want to watch TV, the terrible hardship you must endure is hitting the mute button when the ads come up, you poor thing.
This is nothing more than a politician looking to score some easy votes by attacking something that everyone dislikes but which, since it actually harms no one, won't matter much if the bill disappears in committee and is never seen again. Congress' time would be better spent doing something about unavoidable forms of advertising instead of making a fuss about one of the few entirely avoidable forms.
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Billy Mays didn't need no stinking dynamic range compression. Billy Mays was always at full volume in real life.
To be fair, what you're doing is almost a Godwin. The huge majority of what Congress does pales in comparison in many ways when put next to wars, and even health care. But many of those things need to be considered, even with bigger, more important things going on.
If you support or decry this proposed law, do so on its own merits. Otherwise, we may as well compare everything to the wars and to healthcare, and ignore a huge range of very real issues which need resolution.
The CB App. What's your 20?
Mod parent up. Here in Australia we already have this legislation and it's *completely* pointless. Same deal, some ninny in parliament with no real understanding of the technology involved wrote some *bs* legislation:
http://www.freetv.com.au/Content_Common/pg-Loudness-in-Advertisements.seo
The problem is coming up with an "objective" comparison of the loudness between two bits of programming. As the parent says it's more a question of compression and dynamic range than actual volume. (by compression I mean audio compression, not data compression). If you run a peak search on even the most mild mannered jane austen bbc tv program, you'll get the same reading as you do an a sham-wow commercial. It's just that the sham-wow tvc dude is trying to cram so much information in the 30 seconds that he'll run everything at -3db. Where as in the Jane Austen thing will only reach that point once or twice in 10 minute section.
But an even bigger problem is that the people making the ads have no idea what they're actually going to be screening with. How are you going to match the apparent loudness of your ad with the tv program, if you've got no idea what that program is anyway? It's retarded.
Consequently in Australia we have a vaguely written set of "guidelines" and a requirement that any tvc submitted to a network be "OP48" compliant and say as such on the slate. The result, everyone writes OP48 compliant on their slate and that's about it....
-Steve http://www.stevennicholson.com
Loud commercials are the perfect reminder that I've forgotten to fast forward the DVR. Commercials that employ this behavior are really just shooting themselves in the foot (not to mention the station's foot).
He's right you know, the volume IS the same. ...the trick they use however, is to speak at the maximum level before audio clipping occurs, and that's pretty darn loud.
Not only that, they also pump up the middle tones (The audible sound spectrum is ca. 100hz to 20 khz), and the frequencies at 500-3khz is where speech is located, you can make it sound like it's 10 times louder - and STILL keep the same volume. ;)
This is a well known "secret" in the business.
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
There should be 2 volumes you can set on the TV.
1. Existing TV volume
2. Decibel limit
The problem is that perceived loudness is not simply sound pressure level, but it is weighted spectrally, and often has temporal qualities (a loud noise in the middle of quiet may be perceived as louder than a continuous high loudness) as well as semantic qualities (a loud gunshot is not perceived as loud as equivalently "loud" talking).
ITU-R BS.1770 is the best non-temporal/non-semantic measure we have for use right now.
I used to work at a TV station and we never did anything to alter the sound of any of the programming or commercials. I am sure that almost all other broadcasters have the same policy. In fact the sound Can't be louder because of the technology, if the audio is too loud the audio will become distorted or unlistionable.
The problem actually occurs when the commercial is edited down during filming and production. This is where the sound is Compressed which essentially brings all of the Lower volume portions of the sound Up to much higher volumes often equaling the the Higher volume portions of the sound. This is not really any louder. The highest levels are not affected so it's not actually louder, but since the lower volumes have been pumped up, it appears to be louder.
The summery here is that, it's not a problem with the Broadcasters, the problem is with the Advertisers. The ability for a broadcaster to detect and correct this problem would be huge if not impossible. I can understand why the FCC gave up on it the first time.
We are Dead Stars looking back Up at the Sky
Take the average of the audio energy in the base program (divided into 32-64 frequency bands across the ten octaves above 20Hz). Weight the energy using the Fletcher-Munson curve for the overall average energy level. If the time-average of the audio in the commercial sums to more than the time-average energy in the base program by more than 10%, auto-file a violation report. Fine as needed. You can do it automatically.
In fact, by expanding (if you need to, look up "compression") the audio range and decreasing the volume, you can automatically adjust the volume to within a comfortable range. It's really not much of a trick to do either.
I tend to think the legislation would be better because it would be a global solution to a global annoyance with very little downside. If you have to depend on your commercial being LOUD to get people to notice, you have something wrong. Really, all you need to do is make the people in your commercial more naked.
That is all.
..ah, they must be what you poor devils who don't have TiVo or some other DVR have to sit through.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
How about banning radio stations from broadcasting commercials with car crash sounds, police sirens, and screeching tires during the morning and afternoon drive times? That nonsense has made me jump out of my damn seat a couple times, now.
Also, on a less serious note, ban commercials from using that one blaring alarm clock stock sound that they all love to use. You know, the one that sounds exactly like the alarm clock I had for years, and always makes me feel miserable and pissed off.
Having worked in audio production for many years I can say that in my experience ignorant people from ad agencies judge how good a studio is by how loud they can mix the commercials. Its nothing to do with the TV stations.
The problem is commercials are mixed with LOTS of compression (which limits the dynamic range) and recorded to the master tape at the maximum level it can handle. Movies and TV shows are mixed with a lot more dynamic range to allow for example, a gunshot to sound louder than a voice.
If the TV stations consistently lowered the level of commercials when they transferred them into their systems (by 3-6db), then they would sit better after programs and wouldn't send us all grabbing for the remote to mute them. It's not going to stop me from muting them, but then I hardly ever watch TV as I find it mind numbingly boring and retarded.
Also in response to some sort of volume limiter that kicks in when the level gets loud, its only going to ruin your movie soundtrack and make those huge explosions small... so IMHO its a bad idea.
My idea was to scan the picture for the TV station ID which they impose over the programs but not commercials and detect which is which by this method or link the TV to a internet based service which can tell you when commercials are playing on your channel and auto-mute and dim the picture. Probably people would pay for a service like this.
Stop watching TV.
POKE 36879,8
Years ago I got an Alesis Nanocompressor for my parents and installed it inline between the audio outputs of the cable box and the TV. Now the blasted commercials bother them no more.
Cost: $50 used plus some audio adapter cables.
Yes I know some TVs have built in compressors. Guess what, they don't work worth a damn.
Commercials are what drove me to dump cable/broadcast TV forever... not just the volume but the increasing ratio of ads to program per hour. Way too many commercials and they're even showing them in sidebars during the program. I ceased watching TV since 2000 and I do not miss it.
If the government wants to help, they can mandate decent quality compressors in new TVs that are enabled by default. It won't cost any more than those V-chips or the digital TV receivers.
The FCC has been hearing for DECADES about obnoxiously loud commercials, and now they want to help...?
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28694
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Dolby have an ~$4 dollar solution for this problem. "Dolby Volume" processors are currently fielded in about 12 to 14 Consumer devices - High end A/V receivers, a few laptops and 4 Toshiba LCD Television receivers. Look forward to the day when Dolby Volume is incorporated into a great many more devices, to include built in audio in PC motherboards. Not only will our viewing be more pleasant but surfing the net at a fixed volume will actually be possible. Support Dolby by visiting their web site for the demo and asking your equipment suppliers for this essential feature in an increasingly louder world. . . http://www.dolby.com/consumer/understand/volume/dolby-volume.html
No, there is no "fair" way to write the text when you already know that those subject to the rules will hire very expensive law firms to find any and all loopholes.
I have rules in my online game (battlemaster.org) - and one of them is roughly "attempts to exploit the rules and violating their spirit while formally abiding by the words double the punishment". It's time the legal system adds a rule like that, especially for corporations who willfully and intentionally choose that route.
We have "contempt of court" already. It's time to add "contempt of the meaning of the law" to it.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Its not so much "black and white", its just stupid people acting stupid saying stupid things.
I love how American's have such a constructed view of who or what the are and what makes them this way. The amount of fictional works of literature that support this is astounding. However if some people took 5 seconds to look around at what is reality, or 10 seconds to actually look into how thing actually operate in the real world, they might be able to remove themselves from this fantasy that has been constructed over the years, that so many seem to adhere to and actually cherish as the American way. They may perhaps be the ideals, however it doesn't reflect reality in the slightest, and typically is a super over simplification of real world processes.
I can't read one more book about a rugged, individualist industrialist, who is for open markets and no regulation, who is fighting against the government and the freedom they are trying to suppress, while at the same time making billions, and sleeping with beautiful women, while toting guns, and getting into fist fights with commies.
Aryn Rand wants here pound of flesh America!
Ben Bova also wants a cut.
Heinlein also called and will arm wrestle you for his IP fee.
Anyway that just off the top of my head I am sure there are more. It might make for good fiction (even if the same principles are expounded over, and over, and over again), but it doesn't have a shred of reality in it.
Except maybe Richard Branson (even his name is right for it!), but he, is , er, British....whoops!
Who is the closest in the US? Donald Trump? Your Fired!
I'm not talking about money spent in elections. The vast majority of high office candidates are preselected by the parties, so it doesn't matter who is elected -- they'll still vote in the corporations favor on any issue where the corporations have an interest, or else the party won't support them. Ventura's a good example of what happens to exceptions: The environment is intolerable for them. The only successful exception one can point to is Ron Paul, and there, "success" is defined by not getting his way except once in a blue moon... he just manages to hang on in an environment where his outlook is steadfastly ignored.
This is what I mean when I imply that the dollar controls the system. For example, you'll never be able to put up your own FM station, because corporations control access to the airwaves through the congress and the FCC. You'll never be able to set up a private Internet, because the telecomms control your ability to do so though congress; they'll tie you up with legislation about being responsible for what others move through your network, licenses, and so forth until you're right out of the game. You want to make toys in your garage? Welcome to a brand new web of regulations that blows your profit margin off the face of the planet. It goes on and on. Corporations have the edge, and they'lol keep the edge, because why? Because they have the money.
If you think voters have any control, you're completely naive. "Loser's lament", my eye. If anything, it's a patriot's lament.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.