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Senate Votes To Turn Down Volume On TV Commercials
Hugh Pickens writes "Ever since television caught on in the 1950s, the FCC has been getting complaints about blaring commercials but concluded in 1984 there was no fair way to write regulations controlling the 'apparent loudness' of commercials. Now the AP reports that the Senate has unanimously passed a bill to require television stations and cable companies to keep commercials at the same volume as the programs they interrupt using industry guidelines on how to process, measure and transmit audio in a uniform way. Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY), a co-sponsor, says 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.' The House has already passed similar legislation, so before the new measure becomes law, minor differences between the two versions have to be worked out when Congress returns to Washington after the November 2 election."
And note: they *are* at the same volume: measured by *peak level*. The peak levels of the commercial never get any louder than the peak level of the program, cause both are about 95% deviation
See also: audio compression.
Set the value of Pi? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Pi_Bill
I have an old Magnavox TV with smart sound. Loud commercials are not a problem for me.
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
IIRC, our Phillips Magnavox large screen CRT TV had a "Smart Sound" feature that basically just normalized the volume all the time. I have to say it worked pretty well. I'd always notice watching TV at someone elses house that some ads played REALLY loud compared to the program. We had that TV from about the mid 90's I think.
Why don't more TVs have it? (rather, I know "cost" is probably the main reason, but it should be a good enough feature to be fairly standard today, you'd think)
How is that a problem? If I'm watching violent action movie I will have adjusted the volume to the level that is comfortable to me. If I'm watching a drama with no loud noises whatsoever, I will have... adjusted the volume to the level that is comfortable to me. See, that's the point; I don't want to be pitched Oxyclean at levels that cause permanent hearing damage just because I have the volume turned up hear a quiet show. It isn't that hard to take the average level from the past five minutes, and make the average level of the commercial be the same, you could easily make some software to do it and I refuse to believe TV stations don't have software that manages their commercials already.
The point is that now it will be the same volume measured by *average level*. So one big explosion in CSI doesn't give the advertisers card blanche to blast their ads at you.
Duh. The commercials must obviously be operating at near to peak levels with little dynamic range, whereas the TV shows are save a little range for swelling dramatic music, explosions etc.
I have the same problem with BBC Radio 1, the presenters are far too loud in comparison with the music. If I ever listen to the radio these days I tend to be fiddle with the volume a lot.
which is totally what she said
Surprise surprise, things that don't really matter are easier to come to agreement on than things that are considered important and on which very different opinions are held.
Amazing!
You mean, just like the Democrats?
They are two sides of the same coin, dude.
Scum, the whole sorry lot of them. Schumer, while not evil, is wholly corrupted by vote-whoring.
I know. But PBS and NPR are commercial free. At least, that's what they always say during their pledge drives.
The funniest part to me is that BILLY MAYS WAS KNOWN FOR HIS BIG VOICE AND HIS LOUD COMMERCIALS.
Rest in peace, oh perfectly bearded one.
It's funny you should mention him. I was watching Casino Jack and The United States of Money (a documentary about the Abramoff scandal) just last night and Schumer was one of the Democrats cited on the DVD as being a complete Wall Street whore. Most of the scumbags in that documentary are Republicans (let's face it, that's just in their nature), but a few are Demo's too (most notably Harry Reid, Schumer, and Patrick Kennedy).
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Makes no sense. DSL comes into the home on the same copper pair that POTS does.
In C++, your friends can see your privates.
Your setup would also reduce dynamic range to almost nothing. You'd find that listening to something like that gets fatiguing very quickly, plus it'll probably sound like crap. Even speech needs some dynamic range.
A much better solution would be a compressor, which would reduce the impact of very loud sounds and leave quieter sections untouched. Yes, the limiter would also have this effect to a degree, but the usage that you describe is much better suited to the more detailed controls of a compressor. Tweaking the compressor curve and combining that with a slow acting AGC can leave you with quite a bit of dynamic range while still keeping perceived volume to a non ear splitting level.
It works fairly good with MythTV, but only for recorded content (it looks for blank frames at 30/60 second intervals).
Level compression != data compression. MP3 does not effect loudness, it's applied in the mastering process. And the reason CDs sound like MP3s is because MP3s are ripped from CDs. Indeed, if they fix CDs, our MP3s will sound better too.
The networks should have started doing this a decade ago before people got DVRs. Commercials are so loud you *have* to turn down the volume, so why not just fast forward past it instead? Marketing jerks preferred to annoy customers and claim they got more attention out of it, now DVRs are killing them. So much for self-regulation. This bill is a bit late, but it will still be nice to have if it happens.
The right to protest the State is more sacred than the State.
Tivo has no automatic commercial detection system.
ReplayTV did and they got sued (and eventually went bankrupt over it despite winning the lawsuit). ReplayTV looks for the blank frames in 30 second intervals +/-2 seconds. Sometimes it would mistakenly jump past content though (Law & Order has noticeable fade to blacks which mess up ReplayTV).
Tivo has no automatic commercial detection/skip system however it does have the next best thing.
You can jump ahead exactly 30 seconds. So commercials come on. Jump jump jump jump jump. Back to content. Sometimes if the first commercial in the block is a good one I will watch that. Makes me wonder if the first commercial spot is worth more.