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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."
Umm... how about Root Mean Square calculation? I use it all the time. I have to master audio and the funny thing is unlike Creed & Nickelback, I care about not just peaks, but overall sound. It can be done.
From the general feel of the comments so far, it looks like my opinion will be pretty unpopular, which makes me a bit scared to post this, but I really don't like this law.
Things can sound like a good idea on paper, and often have positive intentions, but when you make a law out of every good idea it can create problems. Every law we make takes away just a little of our freedom (in many cases, a lot). Make murder against the law, I lose the freedom to murder you, and vice versa. That's well worth the cost. But all the little laws like this stack up.
I mean in this case, sure, having a commercial that's loud could inconvenience people, maybe annoy people. And I'm sure it'll make a lot of people happy to not have to deal with it. But as Americans, we don't have a right to not be inconvenienced, to not be annoyed. Of course quieter commercials isn't a really a big deal to us. Maybe it will be more "pleasant." But having a loud commercial be a crime? Really?
Usually when someone says, "You know, there oughta be a law," there shouldn't be.
This has always been a problem, but lately it seems to have gotten completely out of hand. To get decent mid-range sound on my HDTV channels (which have a broad dynamic range), I have to turn them up pretty high. When the commercials come on, they're so much louder than the shows that they come damn close to damaging my speakers. Even though I have a DVR and try to avoid them altogether, I still have to put up with these commercials on occasion, and I'm tired of jumping for the mute button before some McDonald's ad blows out my goddamned speakers.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
It can definitely be done. In fact, about 6 years ago I was tasked with designing and coding an automatic volume control based on ambient room noise. It was not easy, believe me, but using Root Mean Square, I was able to get it to work. This ensured that the device would either be louder than the ambient sound if you wanted to use it as a public announcement system, such as in a school, or provide background music that didn't drown out conversation. The hardest part was determining the sample buffer. Do you adjust the volume based on the last second of ambient sound? The last 10 seconds? The last minute? It took some tweaking, but an optimal sample buffer was found.
Now, for a TV show, that is a bit easier. Simply get an RMS of the show before airing it, as well as the peak volume, do the same for each commercial, and adjust the commercial volume accordingly. It's not a difficult problem at all. In fact, I could probably write an application to do it all automatically within a week or two, but no more than a month. It would take sound stream input, sample the entire stream from beginning to end, then determine a relative volume for each one.
The problem hasn't been a technical one for over a decade. It's been a political one.