Mumbling actors and loud musc
 

"the dog from that film you saw"
wrote in message ...
On 19/07/2013 08:43, Brian Gaff wrote:
Its not just actors is it. On some recent Horizon episodes the
music was so
loud I could not hear the carefully chosen sound bytes from
scientists I'd
never heard of at all.
Brian




maybe you have (a) not very good speakers in your tv
or
(b) not very good ears.

just a thought :)



There's no doubt that speakers make a huge difference.

We changed out caravan late last year and the new one is fitted
with a JVC car radio that has a 3.5mm input socket on the front.
I built a simple preamp, ran cables around inside the cupboards
and left a tail to plug into the headphone socket of our Sharp
19" TV. The difference in quality and audibility was amazing -
plus there was/is no need to have it anything like so loud - and
the sound on the Sharp is pretty good anyway!

What was noticable was/is that the dynamic range is much less
than expected and there is no need to keep adjusting the volume
levels.

Thinking about a simple similar solution for our bedroom TV now!


--
Woody

harrogate three at ntlworld dot com

Mumbling actors and loud musc
 

Woody wrote:

We changed out caravan late last year and the new one is fitted
with a JVC car radio that has a 3.5mm input socket on the front.
I built a simple preamp, ran cables around inside the cupboards
and left a tail to plug into the headphone socket of our Sharp
19" TV.

I'm surprised you need a preamp. The 'aux in' on my motorhome radio
works fine straight from the telly.

Bill

Mumbling actors and loud musc
 

In article ,
Woody wrote:
maybe you have (a) not very good speakers in your tv
or
(b) not very good ears.

just a thought :)



There's no doubt that speakers make a huge difference.

As does how the voices are recorded - as I keep on saying. When last did
you have problem understanding voices on R4? Even when they are the same
actors you have problems with on TV.

FFS, even newsreaders on BBC TV - wearing an exposed personal mic - often
sound like they're speaking through layers of cloth. A combination of
(possibly) microphones which are out of spec and a sound mixer who either
doesn't know how to eq a mic properly, or doesn't care. That's assuming
there actually is still some human involvement.

--
*I don't work here. I'm a consultant

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Mumbling actors and loud musc
 

"Bill Wright" wrote in message
...
Woody wrote:

We changed out caravan late last year and the new one is
fitted with a JVC car radio that has a 3.5mm input socket on
the front. I built a simple preamp, ran cables around inside
the cupboards and left a tail to plug into the headphone
socket of our Sharp 19" TV.

I'm surprised you need a preamp. The 'aux in' on my motorhome
radio works fine straight from the telly.

Bill



The TV switches to headphone mode with a considerably reduced
output as soon as a plug is inserted. It surprised me as well -
given the amp needed 30dB of gain!


--
Woody

harrogate three at ntlworld dot com

Mumbling actors and loud musc
 

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
As does how the voices are recorded - as I keep on saying. When last did
you have problem understanding voices on R4? Even when they are the same
actors you have problems with on TV.

Close-miked radio presenters are fine. But Radio 4 are very bad at matching
the level of studio voices with those outside contributors, especially those
using inferior lines such as landline or mobile telephones, although even
high-quality live reports are often much louder or quieter than the studio.
BBC TV news doesn't seem to suffer from that problem, although I agree that
the quality of the newsreaders' personal mikes can sometimes be a bit
woolly.

One thing that R4 suffers badly from is excruciatingly annoying sibilant S
sounds, especially on female voices. Maybe for TV newsreaders, the mikes
have a poorer HF response so the sibilance of some voices is lessened.


Plays on R4 are completely different kettle of fish: they seem to suffer
from distant-mike syndrome which causes much more variation in the level of
an actor's voice from one word to another, making it quite difficult to
listen to for any time because you are alternately being deafened or having
to strain to hear some words, depending on whether they are on-mike or not
at that moment.

Mumbling actors and loud musc
 

"Bill Wright" wrote in message
...
Woody wrote:

We changed out caravan late last year and the new one is fitted with a
JVC car radio that has a 3.5mm input socket on the front. I built a
simple preamp, ran cables around inside the cupboards and left a tail to
plug into the headphone socket of our Sharp 19" TV.

I'm surprised you need a preamp. The 'aux in' on my motorhome radio works
fine straight from the telly.

Audio (line) inputs are usually low level high impedance, and headphone
outputs are medium level low impedance. The impedance mismatch compensates
for the level mismatch, avoiding overload. I always just plug the headphone
outputs of various MP3 players straight into various amplifier inputs
without trouble.

--
Max Demian

Mumbling actors and loud musc
 

On 19/07/2013 09:37, NY wrote:
"Derek F" wrote in message
...
On 19/07/2013 08:43, Brian Gaff wrote:
Its not just actors is it. On some recent Horizon episodes the music
was so
loud I could not hear the carefully chosen sound bytes from
scientists I'd
never heard of at all.
Brian

Its not just a TV problem as most Movies are just as bad.
British stage actors used to have voices that carried without the need
of electronics. We went to see Dame Judy in a play and sitting in the
rear of the circle it was a struggle to hear her.

I'd rather have actors and actresses speaking in normal (but audible,
intelligible) voices than have them straining to project their voices to
the back of a theatre without the aid of amplification. A projected
voice never sounds natural.
It has made stage acting the same as movie acting. How long before
someone starts making stage plays more dramatic by adding music:-)
Derek

Mumbling actors and loud musc
 

In article ,
NY wrote:
One thing that R4 suffers badly from is excruciatingly annoying sibilant
S sounds, especially on female voices.

What are you listening on?

Maybe for TV newsreaders, the
mikes have a poorer HF response so the sibilance of some voices is
lessened.

A personal mic is simply in the wrong place for decent audio quality.
Although this does vary from person to person. But the frequency response
of the individual mic (eq) should be adjusted for each and every
presenter, etc.



Plays on R4 are completely different kettle of fish: they seem to suffer
from distant-mike syndrome which causes much more variation in the level
of an actor's voice from one word to another, making it quite difficult
to listen to for any time because you are alternately being deafened or
having to strain to hear some words, depending on whether they are
on-mike or not at that moment.

Strange. I listen to the afternoon play most days and have never noticed
this. They can and do have a reasonable dynamic range, though, which is
how it should be done.

--
*Procrastinate now

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Mumbling actors and loud musc
 

On 19/07/2013 11:14, Martin wrote:
On Fri, 19 Jul 2013 10:46:17 +0100, "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:

Two different things. You can drown out any voice with too loud music and
or effects. Mumbling can be difficult to understand on its own.

It's definitely not helped by pretty well all TV drama these days using
personal mics buried beneath layers of ordinary clothing. Nothing much you
can do about poorly recorded sound. And than add in the poor sound systems
on most tellies.

The head of RADA complained about mumbling actors some weeks ago.

In 2011 we went to see Keira Knightley and Elizabeth Moss in Children's
Hour at the Comedy Theatre. Their idea of stage acting was to strut,
stamp, wave their arms about and shout with pained expressions on their
faces.
By contrast the two older more experienced stage actors (evidently not
allowed to call them actresses now) Bryony Hannah believably went
through a wide range of emotions playing the part of a schoolgirl. One
was inclined to watch her movements and expression even when the leading
ladies were were doing their stuff.
Ellen Burstyn gave a beautiful performance here as good as any she has
done in all of her years on screen.
As one reviewer said that is the difference between a celluloid
mannequin and a top-flight stage actress when praising Bryony Hannah.
Derek

Mumbling actors and loud musc
 

Max Demian wrote:
"Bill Wright" wrote in message
...
Woody wrote:

We changed out caravan late last year and the new one is fitted with a
JVC car radio that has a 3.5mm input socket on the front. I built a
simple preamp, ran cables around inside the cupboards and left a tail to
plug into the headphone socket of our Sharp 19" TV.
I'm surprised you need a preamp. The 'aux in' on my motorhome radio works
fine straight from the telly.

Audio (line) inputs are usually low level high impedance, and headphone
outputs are medium level low impedance. The impedance mismatch compensates
for the level mismatch, avoiding overload. I always just plug the headphone
outputs of various MP3 players straight into various amplifier inputs
without trouble.

I have two Sony tellys (both fairly new) with their headphone sockets
feeding audio amps. No problems.

In one case I went for ages with the audio to the amp coming from the TV
set's accompanying Humax box, aware of the slight lipsync issue but
couldn't be arsed to do anything about it. Then, inexplicably, the
lipsync error suddenly because gross, so I had to go find a 3.5mm stereo
jack to twin phone patch cord.

Bill