Well, if you can sunbathe in UV, you can sunbathe in IR. Remember how much the old sunlamp and heatlamp bulbs looked alike?
Besides, I, for one, am glad to see that our brave little satellite will be out there in the dark unknown, striving mightily to undo the cosmos's perfectly scandalous infrared light shortage.
Actually it sort of does, or at least implies a certain leaning towards and sharing of points of view. (An apologist for Microsoft, for example, would think that there were good things to be said for and about them, or that those who dislike it don't properly understand it)
Perhaps I have not fully understood to whom you were referring.
Since you seem to know enough to be able to understand the cause of the problem, unlike those who think compression can be undone by a gain riding monkey on the mixer board, can you think of a way (electronically) to undo the assault on our ears without the stations and the networks catching hell from clients who paid good money to get their spots loud enough to peel paint? (and without whose money broadcast TV would be just PeopleBeggingSemi-annually, and cable/satellite nothing but HBO style subscription services)
You're talking about how they can fiddle the commercials to make them seem louder.
Exactly. Loudness is subjective. If you're going to try to come up with a law that controls the subjective by limits on what can be measured objectively, you need to start by understanding what goes into making that subjective judgement of "loudness". One of the things is how much compression is used. That can't be measured instantaneously the way that level or "amplitude" can, so comparing levels will mislead you.
Explaining ain't apologizing, and the problem we're discussing is a subjective psychoacoustic phenomenon. Obviously the client who paid the production house to squeeze the spot's audio into a dynamic range of plus or minus 1 dB doesn't think it's too loud or they wouldn't have paid, whereas those of us watching television would love to pick up a Louisville Slugger and explain our objections to them. : - )
I worked as a master control operator and it was one of my jobs to screen commercials and turn them up/down based on a set db the head master control operator had determined.
Which didn't undo compression. Nobody's hands are that fast. If you think they are, you don't understand how compression works.
Audio can be compressed going onto one of those just like it can be going onto a tape or into an Analog/Digital Converter.
Back in the mid '70s promo copies of 45s sent to radio stations had one side that was monaural and EQ'ed and compressed and limited for play on AM stations and typical AM radios, and the other side was stereo and not as "hot" and intended for FM stations.
Master control can change volume with the twist of a knob, but that's not the problem. If you've got somebody sitting there "riding gain" trying to undo the compression the client paid to have applied before the recording of the spot ever got duplicated and a copy sent to "master control", the client is not going to be happy, and you don't stay in business by making your clients unhappy. Also, nobody's hand is fast enough or accurate enough to make those adjustments that precisely several dozen to several hundred times per second. You'd need an actual expander circuit (opposite of a compressor) to undo the compression which was done electronically also, rather than manually. And again, the client would be unhappy that you undid what they paid to have put in there.
Commercial television broadcasting has been around longer than that, and I've seen old tube type compressors and limiters that were nearly that old, so I'm betting guys on TV yelling at you have been around at least 6 decades.
I see someone who was fooled into thinking that you knew what you were talking about modded you up.
It is theoretically possible to receive a 24kV shock that produces a non-lethal amount of current, depending upon the resistance of the external current path (and its impedence, since a near instantaneous jump from 0 V to 24KV looks an awful lot like a very high frequency AC) and the internal resistance of the source of difference of potential.
I wasn't trying to explain it so that an engineer can understand it. They can already understand it.
To me, level is an instantaneous measurement that you can see on a dB or Vu meter. Loudness is a perception, or, to quote Wikipedia, "...the quality of a sound that is the primary psychological correlate of physical strength (amplitude)." (emphasis mine)
That's why they can say that the commercials aren't "louder" than the program, because they mean that neither exceeds a certain level, but it's obvious to anyone with ears that they are, because the compression causes us to perceive them as "louder".
It's not how high the needle jumps, it's how long it stays pegged there that makes the spots seem louder than the program material, although the frequency distribution has some effect as well.
Judging by the name calling and the general tone of your post I suspect that most of my career in audio and radio occurred prior to your birth.
With analog broadcasting, the FCC can legitimately prohibit and penalize overmodulation, because it interferes with reception of other stations.
Except that this isn't, and wasn't, about overmodulation. Limiting keeps the audio below the level that cause overmodulation. Compression keeps it jammed up to that level all the time.
They do not "rent" the airwaves, or spectrum, or whatever you care to call it. They are licensed to use them at a certain geographical location, at a certain frequency, at a certain power level and coverage area and pattern, at a certain time, "in the public interest".
They do pay certain fees, and they can be fined for "breaking the rules", but they don't pay rent, and their license can be revoked for cause at any time.
It is the networks changing the volume levels of commercials...
I believe that you are mistaken. The commercial audio is limited and compressed during production, which creates the impression of a higher volume level. It's already that way when copies are made to send out to networks and others, because that's what the client wants or has been convinced that they want. So blame the clients and the ad agencies.
The networks are walking the line between pleasing the viewers and pleasing their real customers, the advertisers.
It would be really nice if they'd just said, "ok, hey, we're going to normalize our content so that typical conversation will play at 50dB. Commercials will be compressed to have a maximum volume of 55dB."
Actually, that's kind of how it is now. But compression means that the commercials that have a maximum volume of 55dB also have a *minimum* volume of 55dB.
It's really not a question of how loud the commercials are.
It's how much "compression" and "limiting" are used on the audio. This affects how loud it "seems", even though the needle on the meter never goes higher than the highest peak reached by the show. It's just that the needle seems stuck on that peak.
Compression and limiting are why listening to radio wears you out--it's called "listener fatigue". Your brain has to do extra work to process unnatural sound.
Radio stations do it so that they're the loudest thing on the dial as you scan across. Advertisers do it so that their commercial gets your attention.
Without legislators capable of learning about and understanding compression and limiting, don't look for any legislation that actually solves the problem.
Somewhat off-topic, but as long as we're talking about TV sound, I'm way behind on sending a letter to the people who make "Burn Notice" to thank them for the high quality of the show's audio. The actors don't mumble or get drowned out by sound effects or added music, which is more than I can say for a lot of other shows these days.
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Well, certainly happier than poor chilly Kelvin.
Well, if you can sunbathe in UV, you can sunbathe in IR. Remember how much the old sunlamp and heatlamp bulbs looked alike?
Besides, I, for one, am glad to see that our brave little satellite will be out there in the dark unknown, striving mightily to undo the cosmos's perfectly scandalous infrared light shortage.
Actually it sort of does, or at least implies a certain leaning towards and sharing of points of view. (An apologist for Microsoft, for example, would think that there were good things to be said for and about them, or that those who dislike it don't properly understand it)
Perhaps I have not fully understood to whom you were referring.
Since you seem to know enough to be able to understand the cause of the problem, unlike those who think compression can be undone by a gain riding monkey on the mixer board, can you think of a way (electronically) to undo the assault on our ears without the stations and the networks catching hell from clients who paid good money to get their spots loud enough to peel paint? (and without whose money broadcast TV would be just PeopleBeggingSemi-annually, and cable/satellite nothing but HBO style subscription services)
Careful, you're coming dangerously close to something that makes sense.
Except, perhaps, for the whole technically feasible thing, but at least you seem to have some grasp of the problem, and that's encouraging.
You're talking about how they can fiddle the commercials to make them seem louder.
Exactly. Loudness is subjective. If you're going to try to come up with a law that controls the subjective by limits on what can be measured objectively, you need to start by understanding what goes into making that subjective judgement of "loudness". One of the things is how much compression is used. That can't be measured instantaneously the way that level or "amplitude" can, so comparing levels will mislead you.
Explaining ain't apologizing, and the problem we're discussing is a subjective psychoacoustic phenomenon. Obviously the client who paid the production house to squeeze the spot's audio into a dynamic range of plus or minus 1 dB doesn't think it's too loud or they wouldn't have paid, whereas those of us watching television would love to pick up a Louisville Slugger and explain our objections to them. : - )
Its very simple. The FCC just requires that commercials be broadcast with the same sound levels as the programming.
Define "sound levels". If you think it's simple, you don't understand the problem.
I worked as a master control operator and it was one of my jobs to screen commercials and turn them up/down based on a set db the head master control operator had determined.
Which didn't undo compression. Nobody's hands are that fast. If you think they are, you don't understand how compression works.
I have no problem hearing police sirens in rap music...
...as long as that was the actual police come to arrest them for recording that song in the first place. : - )
Depending on your definition of "volume". The maximum level is the same. Compressed material hovers at that level much more of the time.
You don't mean phonograph records, do you?
Audio can be compressed going onto one of those just like it can be going onto a tape or into an Analog/Digital Converter.
Back in the mid '70s promo copies of 45s sent to radio stations had one side that was monaural and EQ'ed and compressed and limited for play on AM stations and typical AM radios, and the other side was stereo and not as "hot" and intended for FM stations.
Master control can change volume with the twist of a knob, but that's not the problem. If you've got somebody sitting there "riding gain" trying to undo the compression the client paid to have applied before the recording of the spot ever got duplicated and a copy sent to "master control", the client is not going to be happy, and you don't stay in business by making your clients unhappy. Also, nobody's hand is fast enough or accurate enough to make those adjustments that precisely several dozen to several hundred times per second. You'd need an actual expander circuit (opposite of a compressor) to undo the compression which was done electronically also, rather than manually. And again, the client would be unhappy that you undid what they paid to have put in there.
Volume may be objective, depending upon one's definition of volume, but loudness is part psychological, and depends on a bunch of stuff.
If the automation is well done you decrease some classes of errors, but there is seldom a trained ear paying attention any more.
Or, for that matter, an untrained one.
...and the issue hasn't existed for 60 years.
Commercial television broadcasting has been around longer than that, and I've seen old tube type compressors and limiters that were nearly that old, so I'm betting guys on TV yelling at you have been around at least 6 decades.
I see someone who was fooled into thinking that you knew what you were talking about modded you up.
It is theoretically possible to receive a 24kV shock that produces a non-lethal amount of current, depending upon the resistance of the external current path (and its impedence, since a near instantaneous jump from 0 V to 24KV looks an awful lot like a very high frequency AC) and the internal resistance of the source of difference of potential.
I wasn't trying to explain it so that an engineer can understand it. They can already understand it.
To me, level is an instantaneous measurement that you can see on a dB or Vu meter. Loudness is a perception, or, to quote Wikipedia, "...the quality of a sound that is the primary psychological correlate of physical strength (amplitude)." (emphasis mine)
That's why they can say that the commercials aren't "louder" than the program, because they mean that neither exceeds a certain level, but it's obvious to anyone with ears that they are, because the compression causes us to perceive them as "louder".
Define "loud".
It's not how high the needle jumps, it's how long it stays pegged there that makes the spots seem louder than the program material, although the frequency distribution has some effect as well.
Judging by the name calling and the general tone of your post I suspect that most of my career in audio and radio occurred prior to your birth.
With analog broadcasting, the FCC can legitimately prohibit and penalize overmodulation, because it interferes with reception of other stations.
Except that this isn't, and wasn't, about overmodulation. Limiting keeps the audio below the level that cause overmodulation. Compression keeps it jammed up to that level all the time.
They do not "rent" the airwaves, or spectrum, or whatever you care to call it. They are licensed to use them at a certain geographical location, at a certain frequency, at a certain power level and coverage area and pattern, at a certain time, "in the public interest".
They do pay certain fees, and they can be fined for "breaking the rules", but they don't pay rent, and their license can be revoked for cause at any time.
Thanks to limiting they don't peak above X level now. Thanks to compression they don't drop below X level, either.
The needle on the meter goes up to just about the maximum allowed and stays there, quivering at the rate of the audio.
It is the networks changing the volume levels of commercials...
I believe that you are mistaken. The commercial audio is limited and compressed during production, which creates the impression of a higher volume level. It's already that way when copies are made to send out to networks and others, because that's what the client wants or has been convinced that they want. So blame the clients and the ad agencies.
The networks are walking the line between pleasing the viewers and pleasing their real customers, the advertisers.
It would be really nice if they'd just said, "ok, hey, we're going to normalize our content so that typical conversation will play at 50dB. Commercials will be compressed to have a maximum volume of 55dB."
Actually, that's kind of how it is now. But compression means that the commercials that have a maximum volume of 55dB also have a *minimum* volume of 55dB.
It's really not a question of how loud the commercials are.
It's how much "compression" and "limiting" are used on the audio. This affects how loud it "seems", even though the needle on the meter never goes higher than the highest peak reached by the show. It's just that the needle seems stuck on that peak.
Compression and limiting are why listening to radio wears you out--it's called "listener fatigue". Your brain has to do extra work to process unnatural sound.
Radio stations do it so that they're the loudest thing on the dial as you scan across. Advertisers do it so that their commercial gets your attention.
Without legislators capable of learning about and understanding compression and limiting, don't look for any legislation that actually solves the problem.
Somewhat off-topic, but as long as we're talking about TV sound, I'm way behind on sending a letter to the people who make "Burn Notice" to thank them for the high quality of the show's audio. The actors don't mumble or get drowned out by sound effects or added music, which is more than I can say for a lot of other shows these days.
If you name something the nookie book, of course people are going to try to open it!