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Proms last night.
BBC4. The history of Swing.
Seemed to me that it was quite a good effort audio wise considering the acoustics of the RAH. However the dynamic of the music was much greater in the second half than the first, but I still found the drums and cymbals wer a bit down in the mix and compressed compared to the rest. Of course in such a life situation it can get very difficult to balance things and they did definitly have somebody twiddling knobs, as you could hear it in some places. So maybe they do have some decent engineers? Shame they cannot afford to use them on Radio 2's concerts instead of a gain riding compressor.. Brian -- Brian Gaff....Note, this account does not accept Bcc: email. graphics are great, but the blind can't hear them Email: __________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ __________ |
Proms last night.
In article , Brian Gaff
wrote: BBC4. The history of Swing. Seemed to me that it was quite a good effort audio wise considering the acoustics of the RAH. However the dynamic of the music was much greater in the second half than the first, but I still found the drums and cymbals wer a bit down in the mix and compressed compared to the rest. Of course in such a life situation it can get very difficult to balance things and they did definitly have somebody twiddling knobs, as you could hear it in some places. So maybe they do have some decent engineers? Shame they cannot afford to use them on Radio 2's concerts instead of a gain riding compressor.. Brian I didn't listen/watch all of the broadcast last night so can't comment at this point. However I did record it and get the iplayer versions and do plan to do comparision analysis of proms. So I've noted the above as something to check at some point. In general, BBC4 tend to pick up the R3 sound for Proms in my experience. But I guess this is down to the TV producer, etc, so may vary. Again, plan to check this for the 2015 Proms once they are ended. Jim -- Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me. Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html |
Proms last night.
Jim Lesurf wrote:
In article , Brian Gaff wrote: BBC4. The history of Swing. Seemed to me that it was quite a good effort audio wise considering the acoustics of the RAH. However the dynamic of the music was much greater in the second half than the first, but I still found the drums and cymbals wer a bit down in the mix and compressed compared to the rest. Of course in such a life situation it can get very difficult to balance things and they did definitly have somebody twiddling knobs, as you could hear it in some places. So maybe they do have some decent engineers? Shame they cannot afford to use them on Radio 2's concerts instead of a gain riding compressor.. Brian I didn't listen/watch all of the broadcast last night so can't comment at this point. However I did record it and get the iplayer versions and do plan to do comparision analysis of proms. So I've noted the above as something to check at some point. In general, BBC4 tend to pick up the R3 sound for Proms in my experience. But I guess this is down to the TV producer, etc, so may vary. Again, plan to check this for the 2015 Proms once they are ended. I've only got round to recording one - B9th. I got the R3 HD stream and BBC4HD which was 5.1 - so not the R3 mix. I noticed the TV sound mixed down was "more choir less instruments" than the R3 mix. It's quite distant if you just listen to Ls/Rs - I wonder if it's really like being at the back :-) |
Proms last night.
"Andy Furniss" [email protected] wrote in message o.uk... Jim Lesurf wrote: In article , Brian Gaff wrote: BBC4. The history of Swing. Seemed to me that it was quite a good effort audio wise considering the acoustics of the RAH. However the dynamic of the music was much greater in the second half than the first, but I still found the drums and cymbals wer a bit down in the mix and compressed compared to the rest. Of course in such a life situation it can get very difficult to balance things and they did definitly have somebody twiddling knobs, as you could hear it in some places. So maybe they do have some decent engineers? Shame they cannot afford to use them on Radio 2's concerts instead of a gain riding compressor.. Brian I didn't listen/watch all of the broadcast last night so can't comment at this point. However I did record it and get the iplayer versions and do plan to do comparision analysis of proms. So I've noted the above as something to check at some point. In general, BBC4 tend to pick up the R3 sound for Proms in my experience. But I guess this is down to the TV producer, etc, so may vary. Again, plan to check this for the 2015 Proms once they are ended. I've only got round to recording one - B9th. I got the R3 HD stream and BBC4HD which was 5.1 - so not the R3 mix. I noticed the TV sound mixed down was "more choir less instruments" than the R3 mix. It's quite distant if you just listen to Ls/Rs - I wonder if it's really like being at the back :-) "In the old days" The BBC used to mix all of this themselves. There again, in days gone by they only had to produce a stereo mix and that was it. Maybe a bit of creative pan pot setting, but so long as all the levels were balanced, and you could hear everything you were supposed to, everything was good. Then came Dolby 5.1, Auntie sold off her resources department and no-one had a f.clue what to do with it. the sound for 'big' concerts like this is now usually handled by a specialist company, such as 'Red Tx'. (Although I do not know if they are actually doing The Proms, I only named them as an example.) Now there's these purists who want to hear everything in the correct place on their 7.2 system, its got a heap load more complicated. No longer the case of 'a mic here, a mic there', now everyone, every instrument, and the audience have to be mic'ed up. The number of individual microphones on a job like that is phenominal. EACH of them has to be tested and eq'd. EACH of them has to go on a sound desk somewhere so that it can go in to the mix..... each of those mic's occupies one fader. The sound desks required for such jobs are immense! Then you have to group them all appropriately according to where abouts you want them to physically appear in the mix. And then again for the stereo fold down. Then push it all through a surround processor for some electronic cleverness. And out the other end comes three AES streams, containing six discrete surround channels. And there's Lt Rt somewhere too. It is _'usually'_ the case the facilities provider (NEP Visions in this case, who supply all neccesary vision equipment) then takes those two mixes and feeds them down the line to the broadcaster. i.e. They have everything they need. Whether the persons unknown in Tx know what on earth they're doing with the eight audio streams or not is a different matter. See also 'Jamaica Inn' for classic example. Some clot transmitted FL + FR on the stereo pair, resulting in the nation hearing little dialogue! Brian saying the mix was much better in the second half, this could have been something so trivial as a sound supervisor forgetting to fade up a whole group of mic's correctly, to an audio break out box going dead (with up to eight mics plugged in to it), or a Dolby processor crashing! The interval gave engineering the opportunity to fix it. The 'fix' _could_ have occurred as a result of production/engineer sat at home noticing it was crap, and texting/calling relevant persons. |
Proms last night.
On Mon, 31 Aug 2015 13:59:35 +0100, "_Unknown_Freelancer_" /dev/null
wrote: "Andy Furniss" [email protected] wrote in message news:[email protected] co.uk... Jim Lesurf wrote: In article , Brian Gaff wrote: BBC4. The history of Swing. Seemed to me that it was quite a good effort audio wise considering the acoustics of the RAH. However the dynamic of the music was much greater in the second half than the first, but I still found the drums and cymbals wer a bit down in the mix and compressed compared to the rest. Of course in such a life situation it can get very difficult to balance things and they did definitly have somebody twiddling knobs, as you could hear it in some places. So maybe they do have some decent engineers? Shame they cannot afford to use them on Radio 2's concerts instead of a gain riding compressor.. Brian I didn't listen/watch all of the broadcast last night so can't comment at this point. However I did record it and get the iplayer versions and do plan to do comparision analysis of proms. So I've noted the above as something to check at some point. In general, BBC4 tend to pick up the R3 sound for Proms in my experience. But I guess this is down to the TV producer, etc, so may vary. Again, plan to check this for the 2015 Proms once they are ended. I've only got round to recording one - B9th. I got the R3 HD stream and BBC4HD which was 5.1 - so not the R3 mix. I noticed the TV sound mixed down was "more choir less instruments" than the R3 mix. It's quite distant if you just listen to Ls/Rs - I wonder if it's really like being at the back :-) "In the old days" The BBC used to mix all of this themselves. There again, in days gone by they only had to produce a stereo mix and that was it. Maybe a bit of creative pan pot setting, but so long as all the levels were balanced, and you could hear everything you were supposed to, everything was good. Then came Dolby 5.1, Auntie sold off her resources department and no-one had a f.clue what to do with it. the sound for 'big' concerts like this is now usually handled by a specialist company, such as 'Red Tx'. (Although I do not know if they are actually doing The Proms, I only named them as an example.) For an interesting article on how the proms are done you could look at http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/nov1...cles/proms.htm |
Proms last night.
In article ,
_Unknown_Freelancer_ /dev/null wrote: [snip] It is _'usually'_ the case the facilities provider (NEP Visions in this case, who supply all neccesary vision equipment) then takes those two mixes and feeds them down the line to the broadcaster. i.e. They have everything they need. I can't yet comment on this year. But from what I was told and measured at the time, comparisons I did in previous years indicated that the norm tended to be that BBC4 tended to follow the Radio3 output for stereo audio in terms of levels, etc, whereas BBC1/2 'did their own thing'. Hence the first/last nights on BBC1/2 tended to have a lot more level twiddling to avoid 'quiet bits' than for R3/BBC4 Proms. Not that the last night is famed for 'quiet bits' anyway! 8-] I was also told that the surround was always actually 4.0, so no center or LFE. However despite that, analysis of some Proms duly showed that LFE and center did get used at times. So I have the impression that in practice, things can vary and that those in the hall don't always do what I'd been told! From my end of the chain, hard to know who is responsible, or why. Brian saying the mix was much better in the second half, this could have been something so trivial as a sound supervisor forgetting to fade up a whole group of mic's correctly, to an audio break out box going dead (with up to eight mics plugged in to it), or a Dolby processor crashing! The interval gave engineering the opportunity to fix it. The 'fix' _could_ have occurred as a result of production/engineer sat at home noticing it was crap, and texting/calling relevant persons. FWIW I'm not sure what Brian was using to decode the audio. It wouldn't surprtise me to find that some TV RXs muck up handling aspects like gain scaling in the audio streams or get the changes from strereo - surround wrong when it comes to the result being always mixed up/down to whatever audio setup they have. So it might be an RX problem. Again, in past Proms I've noticed that the audio stream switches between stereo and surround at times. For obvious reasons this can happen (more than once!) during the start/end credits. But I've also found it at times when they switch between announcers and music. Our TV tends to drop a stitch when this happens, and when I capture and analyse received streams such points show up. Something we've discussed here in the past I think. Can also confuse some versions/settings of VLC, etc. The audio can suddenly go AWOL! Jim -- Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me. Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html |
Proms last night.
In article , Bill Taylor
wrote: For an interesting article on how the proms are done you could look at http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/nov1...cles/proms.htm Thanks for that! I really should buy SOS more often! Jim -- Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me. Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html |
Proms last night.
"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message
... In article , _Unknown_Freelancer_ /dev/null wrote: [snip] It is _'usually'_ the case the facilities provider (NEP Visions in this case, who supply all neccesary vision equipment) then takes those two mixes and feeds them down the line to the broadcaster. i.e. They have everything they need. I can't yet comment on this year. But from what I was told and measured at the time, comparisons I did in previous years indicated that the norm tended to be that BBC4 tended to follow the Radio3 output for stereo audio in terms of levels, etc, whereas BBC1/2 'did their own thing'. Hence the first/last nights on BBC1/2 tended to have a lot more level twiddling to avoid 'quiet bits' than for R3/BBC4 Proms. Not that the last night is famed for 'quiet bits' anyway! 8-] I was also told that the surround was always actually 4.0, so no center or LFE. However despite that, analysis of some Proms duly showed that LFE and center did get used at times. So I have the impression that in practice, things can vary and that those in the hall don't always do what I'd been told! From my end of the chain, hard to know who is responsible, or why. Neither do I, but.... I guess 4.0 would solve the Jamaica Inn problem. If you remove the thought of three speakers at the front (with all dialogue having to go down the centre), then this enables you to work to a stereo pair. So in working in 4.0 you dont need to produce a stereo fold down mix, you just send FL + FR as stereo. Thus preventing the J.I. f.up! ......a crappy solution! FWIW, most sports OBs that DO provide 5.1 sound, also produce a stereo fold down correctly. .....once you've got the clever desk and the surround processors, its not much harder to produce the stereo pair. The sound supervisor just needs to monitor both though. Brian saying the mix was much better in the second half, this could have been something so trivial as a sound supervisor forgetting to fade up a whole group of mic's correctly, to an audio break out box going dead (with up to eight mics plugged in to it), or a Dolby processor crashing! The interval gave engineering the opportunity to fix it. The 'fix' _could_ have occurred as a result of production/engineer sat at home noticing it was crap, and texting/calling relevant persons. FWIW I'm not sure what Brian was using to decode the audio. It wouldn't surprtise me to find that some TV RXs muck up handling aspects like gain scaling in the audio streams or get the changes from strereo - surround wrong when it comes to the result being always mixed up/down to whatever audio setup they have. So it might be an RX problem. True..... "clever" tellys might bugger up everything we set out to do in the first place.... IF TX get it right! Again, in past Proms I've noticed that the audio stream switches between stereo and surround at times. For obvious reasons this can happen (more than once!) during the start/end credits. But I've also found it at times when they switch between announcers and music. Probably something rediculous like 'presentation' dont have the means to mix 5.1 (its still transported around as 5.1 even if it is 4.0), so for any v/o inserts ("and now we move on to the next concerto.....") it may very well be Tx switching from one audio stream (5.1) to stereo to add the v/o, and then back to 5.1 for your aural pleasure. All comes down to costs..... to mix 5.1 you need a better sound desk and a better sound supervisor. Both of which cost more to hire! Our TV tends to drop a stitch when this happens, and when I capture and analyse received streams such points show up. Something we've discussed here in the past I think. Can also confuse some versions/settings of VLC, etc. The audio can suddenly go AWOL! Jim -- Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me. Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html |
Proms last night.
On Tue, 1 Sep 2015 12:55:33 +0100, "_Unknown_Freelancer_" /dev/null
wrote: So I have the impression that in practice, things can vary and that those in the hall don't always do what I'd been told! From my end of the chain, hard to know who is responsible, or why. Neither do I, but.... I guess 4.0 would solve the Jamaica Inn problem. If you remove the thought of three speakers at the front (with all dialogue having to go down the centre), then this enables you to work to a stereo pair. So in working in 4.0 you dont need to produce a stereo fold down mix, you just send FL + FR as stereo. Thus preventing the J.I. f.up! .....a crappy solution! My recollection of the Jamaica Inn broadcast is that chunks of it were incomprehensible as a result of some of the leading actors mumbling their lines. I don't think making the dialogue louder in relation to ambient effects would have made it any clearer. In fact, some of the scenes for which I had to switch on the subtitles were indoor scenes with hardly any sound except dialogue. Some of the actors were clearer than others too, so it definitely seems to have been down to them, not the sound mix. Perhaps the director thought that mumbling would be more realistic, but then the director would have known the script, so may not have realised that there was a problem with intelligibility. Rod. |
Proms last night.
Bill Taylor wrote:
On Mon, 31 Aug 2015 13:59:35 +0100, "_Unknown_Freelancer_" /dev/null wrote: snip thanks _U_F_ interesting. For an interesting article on how the proms are done you could look at http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/nov1...cles/proms.htm and thanks Bill for the link. |
Proms last night.
Jim Lesurf wrote:
In article , _Unknown_Freelancer_ /dev/null wrote: I was also told that the surround was always actually 4.0, so no center or LFE. However despite that, analysis of some Proms duly showed that LFE and center did get used at times. So I have the impression that in practice, things can vary and that those in the hall don't always do what I'd been told! From my end of the chain, hard to know who is responsible, or why. Real 5.1 is what I've "seen" this and previous year(s). FWIW I'm not sure what Brian was using to decode the audio. It wouldn't surprtise me to find that some TV RXs muck up handling aspects like gain scaling in the audio streams or get the changes from strereo - surround wrong when it comes to the result being always mixed up/down to whatever audio setup they have. So it might be an RX problem. Looking at B9ths Ode it seems unlike previous years, there was no DRC meta in the "normal" aac place. There was some (up to 5dB cut) in the DVB/DSE extension. Mixdown meta in the same extension was as normal for proms = -3dB surround and -6dB C and Programme reference level was -23dBFS. Of course I have no idea what FreeviewHD TVs do/are supposed to do with this WRT target levels etc. as the DTG spec is members only, I don't know how different it is to the open DVB/AAC specs. More Generally on the few films I've looked at, the BBC seem to use "normal" AAC DRC far less now than a couple of years ago, though I don't look that much so could be wrong. The proms were always very light touch anyway, but films were once going +/- 10dB, in fact much the same as the Dolby DVD version in one case. |
Proms last night.
In article , Andy
Furniss [email protected] wrote: Bill Taylor wrote: On Mon, 31 Aug 2015 13:59:35 +0100, "_Unknown_Freelancer_" /dev/null wrote: snip thanks _U_F_ interesting. For an interesting article on how the proms are done you could look at http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/nov1...cles/proms.htm and thanks Bill for the link. FWIW I bought a copy of 'Hi Fi World' yesterday and it also has an article on the arrangements for this year's Proms. Issue cover-dated October 2015. Jim -- Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me. Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html |
Proms last night.
"Roderick Stewart" wrote in message
... On Tue, 1 Sep 2015 12:55:33 +0100, "_Unknown_Freelancer_" /dev/null wrote: So I have the impression that in practice, things can vary and that those in the hall don't always do what I'd been told! From my end of the chain, hard to know who is responsible, or why. Neither do I, but.... I guess 4.0 would solve the Jamaica Inn problem. If you remove the thought of three speakers at the front (with all dialogue having to go down the centre), then this enables you to work to a stereo pair. So in working in 4.0 you dont need to produce a stereo fold down mix, you just send FL + FR as stereo. Thus preventing the J.I. f.up! .....a crappy solution! My recollection of the Jamaica Inn broadcast is that chunks of it were incomprehensible as a result of some of the leading actors mumbling their lines. I don't think making the dialogue louder in relation to ambient effects would have made it any clearer. In fact, some of the scenes for which I had to switch on the subtitles were indoor scenes with hardly any sound except dialogue. Some of the actors were clearer than others too, so it definitely seems to have been down to them, not the sound mix. Perhaps the director thought that mumbling would be more realistic, but then the director would have known the script, so may not have realised that there was a problem with intelligibility. Your recolection is correct..... as a viewer. Behind the scenes, everyone in telly (who was not a sound tech.) was blaming the actors, for mumbling. The actors blamed the sound recorders, for doing a crap job. The sound recorders did their job perfectly. The press, meanwhile, had a goldfish memory. But, as is always the way, why let that get in the way of a good story? J.I. was edited in a f.expensive suite in Soho. 7.2. sound system, unblowable speakers, massive screens, money no object, VERY experienced editors. (This is privately owned. i.e. Not at our cost, via BBC) During the edit process everything was precisely as it should be. Dialogue was perfectly clear. The finished item was rendered to 5.1 surround sound, with all dialogue on the front centre channel. The press, ALL of them, were present at a preview screening. At that screening many were impressed, and all dialogue was perfectly audible. No mumbling, nothing 'too' quiet or inaudible. Then came transmission day. Somewhere, someone, did not provide a stereo fold down track for transmission. i.e. Just Lt + Rt A further faux-pas came when the 5.1 audio was sent to air...... as stereo. i.e. FL + FR FL + FR contain little or no dialogue, that goes down the centre channel. Unless youre adding C to FL or FR, then the only dialogue in the speakers will be the small amount the surround processor added at the edit stage. Thus, it 'appeared' that actors mumbled their lines, when in actual fact, they delivered perfectly. The sound recorders delivered perfectly too. As did the editors. ................As was demonstrated at the press screening..... which was presented in a 5.1 equipped auditorium!! But no-one in the press could remember that once all the smelly brown stuff entered the air pump! Compounded schoolboy errors at late stages. Afterward the BBC carried out an internal investigation, which appears to have been buried! Yet, this was not the first time this occured. IIRC, the previous year a Brian Cox series (poss. Human Universe) suffered the same problem, viewers complaining the effects were downing out the dialogue. http://dpp-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/w...andardsBBC.pdf Rod. |
Proms last night.
On Wed, 2 Sep 2015 09:46:50 +0100, "_Unknown_Freelancer_" /dev/null
wrote: My recollection of the Jamaica Inn broadcast is that chunks of it were incomprehensible as a result of some of the leading actors mumbling their lines. I don't think making the dialogue louder in relation to ambient effects would have made it any clearer. In fact, some of the scenes for which I had to switch on the subtitles were indoor scenes with hardly any sound except dialogue. Some of the actors were clearer than others too, so it definitely seems to have been down to them, not the sound mix. Perhaps the director thought that mumbling would be more realistic, but then the director would have known the script, so may not have realised that there was a problem with intelligibility. Your recolection is correct..... as a viewer. Behind the scenes, everyone in telly (who was not a sound tech.) was blaming the actors, for mumbling. The actors blamed the sound recorders, for doing a crap job. The sound recorders did their job perfectly. The press, meanwhile, had a goldfish memory. But, as is always the way, why let that get in the way of a good story? J.I. was edited in a f.expensive suite in Soho. 7.2. sound system, unblowable speakers, massive screens, money no object, VERY experienced editors. (This is privately owned. i.e. Not at our cost, via BBC) During the edit process everything was precisely as it should be. Dialogue was perfectly clear. The finished item was rendered to 5.1 surround sound, with all dialogue on the front centre channel. The press, ALL of them, were present at a preview screening. At that screening many were impressed, and all dialogue was perfectly audible. No mumbling, nothing 'too' quiet or inaudible. Then came transmission day. Somewhere, someone, did not provide a stereo fold down track for transmission. i.e. Just Lt + Rt A further faux-pas came when the 5.1 audio was sent to air...... as stereo. i.e. FL + FR FL + FR contain little or no dialogue, that goes down the centre channel. Unless youre adding C to FL or FR, then the only dialogue in the speakers will be the small amount the surround processor added at the edit stage. Thus, it 'appeared' that actors mumbled their lines, when in actual fact, they delivered perfectly. The sound recorders delivered perfectly too. As did the editors. ...............As was demonstrated at the press screening..... which was presented in a 5.1 equipped auditorium!! But no-one in the press could remember that once all the smelly brown stuff entered the air pump! Compounded schoolboy errors at late stages. Afterward the BBC carried out an internal investigation, which appears to have been buried! Yet, this was not the first time this occured. IIRC, the previous year a Brian Cox series (poss. Human Universe) suffered the same problem, viewers complaining the effects were downing out the dialogue. http://dpp-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/w...andardsBBC.pdf I hope I'm allowed to disagree. Yes, in modern TV programmes dialogue is frequently drowned out by loud effects or music, but not in the case of Jamaica Inn. Much of the uninteligible dialogue was adequately loud and not accompanied by any spurious effects. Also, the fact that some *actors* were perfectly clear while some weren't suggests to me that intelligibility was a function of their diction and not the technology. Not only that but the complaints began to roll in after the first episode, and there were so many that the BBC had to respond, saying they would nmake some technical adjustment (which I assume to mean a remix) that would improve it, but subsequent episodes were no better. I think I ended up leaving the subtitles on all the time. It's too easy to blame the technology or the engineers, or just to describe the cause of something as "technical problems", in the hope that the finger of blame won't embarrass any individual who might otherwise have to answer for it. I've been present on many a TV shoot where the sound recordist has been overruled by the director when asking for another take on account of diction, or when advising against the use of radio mics, or that some electrical appliance needs to be switched off or a window closed. I think the problem really is that directors have read the script, they can hear the dialogue live on set, and they know the words by heart, and many of them are unable to be objective about how it will sound to somebody hearing it for the first time. Also, like all people who get to be in charge of things, some of them are not very good at taking advice from others, even those who are experienced specialists at their own tasks. Rod. |
Proms last night.
"Roderick Stewart" wrote in message
... On Wed, 2 Sep 2015 09:46:50 +0100, "_Unknown_Freelancer_" /dev/null wrote: My recollection of the Jamaica Inn broadcast is that chunks of it were incomprehensible as a result of some of the leading actors mumbling their lines. I don't think making the dialogue louder in relation to ambient effects would have made it any clearer. In fact, some of the scenes for which I had to switch on the subtitles were indoor scenes with hardly any sound except dialogue. Some of the actors were clearer than others too, so it definitely seems to have been down to them, not the sound mix. Perhaps the director thought that mumbling would be more realistic, but then the director would have known the script, so may not have realised that there was a problem with intelligibility. Your recolection is correct..... as a viewer. Behind the scenes, everyone in telly (who was not a sound tech.) was blaming the actors, for mumbling. The actors blamed the sound recorders, for doing a crap job. The sound recorders did their job perfectly. The press, meanwhile, had a goldfish memory. But, as is always the way, why let that get in the way of a good story? J.I. was edited in a f.expensive suite in Soho. 7.2. sound system, unblowable speakers, massive screens, money no object, VERY experienced editors. (This is privately owned. i.e. Not at our cost, via BBC) During the edit process everything was precisely as it should be. Dialogue was perfectly clear. The finished item was rendered to 5.1 surround sound, with all dialogue on the front centre channel. The press, ALL of them, were present at a preview screening. At that screening many were impressed, and all dialogue was perfectly audible. No mumbling, nothing 'too' quiet or inaudible. Then came transmission day. Somewhere, someone, did not provide a stereo fold down track for transmission. i.e. Just Lt + Rt A further faux-pas came when the 5.1 audio was sent to air...... as stereo. i.e. FL + FR FL + FR contain little or no dialogue, that goes down the centre channel. Unless youre adding C to FL or FR, then the only dialogue in the speakers will be the small amount the surround processor added at the edit stage. Thus, it 'appeared' that actors mumbled their lines, when in actual fact, they delivered perfectly. The sound recorders delivered perfectly too. As did the editors. ...............As was demonstrated at the press screening..... which was presented in a 5.1 equipped auditorium!! But no-one in the press could remember that once all the smelly brown stuff entered the air pump! Compounded schoolboy errors at late stages. Afterward the BBC carried out an internal investigation, which appears to have been buried! Yet, this was not the first time this occured. IIRC, the previous year a Brian Cox series (poss. Human Universe) suffered the same problem, viewers complaining the effects were downing out the dialogue. http://dpp-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/w...andardsBBC.pdf I hope I'm allowed to disagree. Yes, in modern TV programmes dialogue is frequently drowned out by loud effects or music, but not in the case of Jamaica Inn. Much of the uninteligible dialogue was adequately loud and not accompanied by any spurious effects. Also, the fact that some *actors* were perfectly clear while some weren't suggests to me that intelligibility was a function of their diction and not the technology. Not only that but the complaints began to roll in after the first episode, and there were so many that the BBC had to respond, saying they would nmake some technical adjustment (which I assume to mean a remix) that would improve it, but subsequent episodes were no better. I think I ended up leaving the subtitles on all the time. It's too easy to blame the technology or the engineers, or just to describe the cause of something as "technical problems", in the hope that the finger of blame won't embarrass any individual who might otherwise have to answer for it. I've been present on many a TV shoot where the sound recordist has been overruled by the director when asking for another take on account of diction, or when advising against the use of radio mics, or that some electrical appliance needs to be switched off or a window closed. I think the problem really is that directors have read the script, they can hear the dialogue live on set, and they know the words by heart, and many of them are unable to be objective about how it will sound to somebody hearing it for the first time. Also, like all people who get to be in charge of things, some of them are not very good at taking advice from others, even those who are experienced specialists at their own tasks. In that, youve epitymised precisely what was written in the industry press...... by everyone who did not work in sound. i.e. Everyone who didnt really know. IF episode 1 was so bad for the public, then why did NO-ONE complain at the press screening?????? Because it was presented in a 5.1 auditorium. Dialogue down the centre speaker, perfectly inteligable. Thus, the finished product was perfect..... in 5.1 Fact remains, FL + FR were transmitted as a stereo pair (as heard by the masses).... which just does not work. The 'technical adjustment' required to render the situation was to go back to the suite and redo the audio mix in to produce a correct stereo fold down. That is, you cant just add C to FL, and C to FR, and call it Lt Rt. It just doesnt work like that. You have to actually 'produce' a stereo mix separately. BUT, to do so would take longer than to the next episode, because you would require all the masters again. But you cant do that, because the post-production house has moved on to the next project. That suite is busy again. So some other compromise was arrived at, sadly, too late, and not good enough. There ARE two fingers of blame. Delivery from the post house, and Tx. Rod. |
Proms last night.
In article ,
_Unknown_Freelancer_ /dev/null wrote: IF episode 1 was so bad for the public, then why did NO-ONE complain at the press screening?????? Because it was presented in a 5.1 auditorium. Dialogue down the centre speaker, perfectly inteligable. Thus, the finished product was perfect..... in 5.1 That may be so. But an alternative possibilities that occur to me a That the sound level in the - presumably large presentation room / theatre used for a large 'press screening' was BLOODY LOUD. Thus exploiting the level compression in human hearing to make things audible which would be missed when the sound was being played at a lower level. Alternatively, that the sound setup and room acoustic were far better than in most home TV systems/rooms. Thus making the speech clearer and far less muddled into other sounds. The sad reality is that many home TV/cinema systems have lousy sound. No idea which of the above may or may not be a 'reason'. But any of them could be. I recall the complaints people made when the BBC News tended to start with loud deep 'drumming' as the announcer gave the headline topics. This drumming tended to 'boom out' in some TV systems, and people with poor hearing and poor equipment couldn't hear what was said. Yet it sounded fine to producers listening on decent monitors. Jim -- Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me. Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html |
Proms last night.
[snip stuff about Jamaica Inn]
Yet, this was not the first time this occured. IIRC, the previous year a Brian Cox series (poss. Human Universe) suffered the same problem, viewers complaining the effects were downing out the dialogue. http://dpp-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/w...andardsBBC.pdf I hope I'm allowed to disagree. Yes, in modern TV programmes dialogue is frequently drowned out by loud effects or music, but not in the case of Jamaica Inn. Much of the uninteligible dialogue was adequately loud and not accompanied by any spurious effects. Also, the fact that some *actors* were perfectly clear while some weren't suggests to me that intelligibility was a function of their diction and not the technology. Not only that but the complaints began to roll in after the first episode, and there were so many that the BBC had to respond, saying they would nmake some technical adjustment (which I assume to mean a remix) that would improve it, but subsequent episodes were no better. I think I ended up leaving the subtitles on all the time. It's too easy to blame the technology or the engineers, or just to describe the cause of something as "technical problems", in the hope that the finger of blame won't embarrass any individual who might otherwise have to answer for it. I've been present on many a TV shoot where the sound recordist has been overruled by the director when asking for another take on account of diction, or when advising against the use of radio mics, or that some electrical appliance needs to be switched off or a window closed. I think the problem really is that directors have read the script, they can hear the dialogue live on set, and they know the words by heart, and many of them are unable to be objective about how it will sound to somebody hearing it for the first time. Also, like all people who get to be in charge of things, some of them are not very good at taking advice from others, even those who are experienced specialists at their own tasks. In that, youve epitymised precisely what was written in the industry press...... by everyone who did not work in sound. i.e. Everyone who didnt really know. I do really know what I really heard with my own ears - some actors as clear as anything and others so unintelligble I had to spool back and switch on the subtitles to discover what they'd said. If some actors can make themselves understood and some can't, how can that be a function of the technology? I only listen through high quality external loudspeakers and not the built-in ones of the TV set, so programmes have every chance to present themselves properly, and yet occasionally somebody says something I can't make out at all. I remember this particular programme as being so bad I just left the subtitles on. IF episode 1 was so bad for the public, then why did NO-ONE complain at the press screening?????? Because it was presented in a 5.1 auditorium. Dialogue down the centre speaker, perfectly inteligable. Thus, the finished product was perfect..... in 5.1 I don't know the etiquette of a press screening, never having been to one. Is it permissible to complain? Would anyone feel free to do this in front of a crowd? Might a journalist not simply assume that what was being presented was a work in progress and that any imperfections would be ironed out for the actual broadcast? That's the way it usually is in theatre - "It'll be all right on the night". Fact remains, FL + FR were transmitted as a stereo pair (as heard by the masses).... which just does not work. The 'technical adjustment' required to render the situation was to go back to the suite and redo the audio mix in to produce a correct stereo fold down. That is, you cant just add C to FL, and C to FR, and call it Lt Rt. It just doesnt work like that. You have to actually 'produce' a stereo mix separately. BUT, to do so would take longer than to the next episode, because you would require all the masters again. But you cant do that, because the post-production house has moved on to the next project. That suite is busy again. So some other compromise was arrived at, sadly, too late, and not good enough. There ARE two fingers of blame. Delivery from the post house, and Tx. I'm sure they did what they could, but in the end you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear (or you can't polish a turd, to use a popular variant). I'm old enough to remember listening regularly to medium wave radio in the evening, with a useful bandwidth of about 5kHz and a dynamic range probably around 30dB on a good day, with hiss, crackles, adjacent channel splatter, telephone dialing clicks and TV 405 line scan harmonics all over it, but still it was possible for professional actors and presenters to make themselves understood, without any fancy studio mixing to improve it, if that's what it does. Rod. |
Proms last night.
On 03/09/2015 09:58, Roderick Stewart wrote:
[snip stuff about Jamaica Inn] I do really know what I really heard with my own ears - some actors as clear as anything and others so unintelligble I had to spool back and switch on the subtitles to discover what they'd said. If some actors can make themselves understood and some can't, how can that be a function of the technology? I didn't watch the programme, so can only take a theoretical viewpoint. If the assumption made is that this was a 5.1 recording with just two channels broadcast, some actors would by chance be standing in the place which was broadcast and some would be peripheral to it. That would give a mix of speech clarity depending on where the actor was placed in a scene. Jim |
Proms last night.
"Roderick Stewart" wrote in message
... [snip stuff about Jamaica Inn] Yet, this was not the first time this occured. IIRC, the previous year a Brian Cox series (poss. Human Universe) suffered the same problem, viewers complaining the effects were downing out the dialogue. http://dpp-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/w...andardsBBC.pdf I hope I'm allowed to disagree. Yes, in modern TV programmes dialogue is frequently drowned out by loud effects or music, but not in the case of Jamaica Inn. Much of the uninteligible dialogue was adequately loud and not accompanied by any spurious effects. Also, the fact that some *actors* were perfectly clear while some weren't suggests to me that intelligibility was a function of their diction and not the technology. Not only that but the complaints began to roll in after the first episode, and there were so many that the BBC had to respond, saying they would nmake some technical adjustment (which I assume to mean a remix) that would improve it, but subsequent episodes were no better. I think I ended up leaving the subtitles on all the time. It's too easy to blame the technology or the engineers, or just to describe the cause of something as "technical problems", in the hope that the finger of blame won't embarrass any individual who might otherwise have to answer for it. I've been present on many a TV shoot where the sound recordist has been overruled by the director when asking for another take on account of diction, or when advising against the use of radio mics, or that some electrical appliance needs to be switched off or a window closed. I think the problem really is that directors have read the script, they can hear the dialogue live on set, and they know the words by heart, and many of them are unable to be objective about how it will sound to somebody hearing it for the first time. Also, like all people who get to be in charge of things, some of them are not very good at taking advice from others, even those who are experienced specialists at their own tasks. In that, youve epitymised precisely what was written in the industry press...... by everyone who did not work in sound. i.e. Everyone who didnt really know. I do really know what I really heard with my own ears - some actors as clear as anything and others so unintelligble I had to spool back and switch on the subtitles to discover what they'd said. If some actors can make themselves understood and some can't, how can that be a function of the technology? Because the one thing everyone forgot, yourself included: the recorded sound is not transmitted as it was recorded. i.e. post production processing. Just like the pictures were rendered and graded, the sound was eq'd and processed. Unlike 'the old days', sound is not merely 'dubbed' any longer. A soundscape is created. Dialogue was recorded perfectly. Then in the edit process the decision may have been to add bias to various characters depending on where they are in the scene. That is, placing their voice somewhere on the 2D plane created by surround sound. Through a 5.1 system, this would produce perfect audibility, and physically put them somewhere. In the electronic domain, it may have been the case that one there was less of one characters voice down the centre channel, with more of it down (perhaps) FR. Again, with a 5.1 system this would push them to the right. With just FL + FR they would be more inteligable than someone who was not. Thus, _some_ characters may have been more inteligable than others. Leap back a few years before J.I., we had the invasion of big budget american series, Heroes, Flash Forward, Mad Men. These made BIG money for the producers. ITV had proved it could strike back, with Downton. (Now they're scratching their arse for a replacement!) So Auntie wanted a crack at the whip, and do you blame her? J.I. had HIGH production values all the way through, and world wide interest (no thanks to Daphne du Maurier). It was produced in 5.1, so it could be sold all over the world, and shown in cinemas even. Except there was a faux pas at the point of delivery to the BBC! I only listen through high quality external loudspeakers and not the built-in ones of the TV set, so programmes have every chance to present themselves properly, and yet occasionally somebody says something I can't make out at all. I remember this particular programme as being so bad I just left the subtitles on. So did the whole nation!! IF episode 1 was so bad for the public, then why did NO-ONE complain at the press screening?????? Because it was presented in a 5.1 auditorium. Dialogue down the centre speaker, perfectly inteligable. Thus, the finished product was perfect..... in 5.1 I don't know the etiquette of a press screening, never having been to one. Is it permissible to complain? Would anyone feel free to do this in front of a crowd? Might a journalist not simply assume that what was being presented was a work in progress and that any imperfections would be ironed out for the actual broadcast? That's the way it usually is in theatre - "It'll be all right on the night". No. A press screening is a press screening. It is never a 'w.i.p.' And come one, you know the British press, they never take prisoners. If it sounded dreadful they would have shredded the BBC for wasting our money! Fact remains, FL + FR were transmitted as a stereo pair (as heard by the masses).... which just does not work. The 'technical adjustment' required to render the situation was to go back to the suite and redo the audio mix in to produce a correct stereo fold down. That is, you cant just add C to FL, and C to FR, and call it Lt Rt. It just doesnt work like that. You have to actually 'produce' a stereo mix separately. BUT, to do so would take longer than to the next episode, because you would require all the masters again. But you cant do that, because the post-production house has moved on to the next project. That suite is busy again. So some other compromise was arrived at, sadly, too late, and not good enough. There ARE two fingers of blame. Delivery from the post house, and Tx. I'm sure they did what they could, but in the end you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear (or you can't polish a turd, to use a popular variant). I'm old enough to remember listening regularly to medium wave radio in the evening, with a useful bandwidth of about 5kHz and a dynamic range probably around 30dB on a good day, with hiss, crackles, adjacent channel splatter, telephone dialing clicks and TV 405 line scan harmonics all over it, but still it was possible for professional actors and presenters to make themselves understood, They DID make themselves understood. It was NOT the actors. It WAS recorded perfectly. It was NOT the sound recorders. without any fancy studio mixing to improve it, if that's what it does. A sound scape was created, because thats what you do on big budget projects, to make it really good. Its not just like the BBC were showing off here, ALL big budget productions do. Perfectly recorded dialogue is processed in the edit, so as to give it presence, resonance relevant to the surroundings, and a physical space amongst five speakers. The soundscape only works correctly when you have all five (or six) components to contruct it. FL + FR just will not do the job, theres three parts missing. Similarly, the stereo soundscape has to be contrsucted too. Result is that it might sound like someone in the next hotel room on one speaker, but perfect on the other. Then what if you disconnect that one speaker? Suddenly it sounds like the transmission! Had the programme been transmitted in 5.1, and every viewer listened to that mix, I sincerely doubt there would have been any complaints regarding the sound quality. Pity. Could have made Auntie some serious money! And going back to an even earlier point, mixing the proms down to 4.0 would prevent ALL of this stupidity. Rod. |
Proms last night.
On Thu, 03 Sep 2015 10:28:02 +0100, Indy Jess John
wrote: I do really know what I really heard with my own ears - some actors as clear as anything and others so unintelligble I had to spool back and switch on the subtitles to discover what they'd said. If some actors can make themselves understood and some can't, how can that be a function of the technology? I didn't watch the programme, so can only take a theoretical viewpoint. If the assumption made is that this was a 5.1 recording with just two channels broadcast, some actors would by chance be standing in the place which was broadcast and some would be peripheral to it. That would give a mix of speech clarity depending on where the actor was placed in a scene. I didn't make any assumptions. I just listened. Some actors were as clear as anything and some of them mumbled. I also listened to the episodes that were broadcast *after* the complaints, and presumably after whatever adjustments had been made. Nobody sounded as if they were off-mic or badly recorded, but some of them sounded as if they weren't saying the words clearly. Maybe it was a misguided attempt at a local accent in the name of "authenticity" or something, but if so, I could hear it well enough but could only make out what was being said by means of the subtitles. Jamaica Inn is not the only programme I've seen that had this problem, just one of the worst examples I can recall. When I find myself reaching for the remote control to switch on the subtitles, yet again, when a particular actor starts talking, I don't suspect the technology. Logic says it's something to do with that actor. Rod. |
Proms last night.
"_Unknown_Freelancer_" /dev/null wrote in message
o.uk... I hope I'm allowed to disagree. Yes, in modern TV programmes dialogue is frequently drowned out by loud effects or music, but not in the case of Jamaica Inn. Much of the uninteligible dialogue was adequately loud and not accompanied by any spurious effects. Also, the fact that some *actors* were perfectly clear while some weren't suggests to me that intelligibility was a function of their diction and not the technology. Agreed. There have been plenty of cases of music and effects being mixed too loud for the level of the dialogue. But Jamaica Inn was not one of them. I got the impression that some of the actors were just mumbling, pure and simple. You could have been stood right next to them, in a quiet room, and still struggled to work out what they were saying. Strong regional accents and archaic speech patterns and sentence structure didn't help, but poor enunciation and nasal all-vowels-and-no-consonants diction was the killer. I remember when Inspector Lewis first started filming and I went to watch them filming, I happened to get chatting to Kevin Whately and Laurence Fox between takes. And while Whately was perfectly easy to understand, Fox mumbled and swallowed his words - exactly as his character Hathaway did in the first series of Lewis, before (I imagine) his father, uncle and cousin (James, Edward and Emilia) had a quiet word with him! |
Proms last night.
"Roderick Stewart" wrote in message ... On Thu, 03 Sep 2015 10:28:02 +0100, Indy Jess John wrote: I do really know what I really heard with my own ears - some actors as clear as anything and others so unintelligble I had to spool back and switch on the subtitles to discover what they'd said. If some actors can make themselves understood and some can't, how can that be a function of the technology? I didn't watch the programme, so can only take a theoretical viewpoint. If the assumption made is that this was a 5.1 recording with just two channels broadcast, some actors would by chance be standing in the place which was broadcast and some would be peripheral to it. That would give a mix of speech clarity depending on where the actor was placed in a scene. I didn't make any assumptions. I just listened. Some actors were as clear as anything and some of them mumbled. I also listened to the episodes that were broadcast *after* the complaints, and presumably after whatever adjustments had been made. Nobody sounded as if they were off-mic or badly recorded, but some of them sounded as if they weren't saying the words clearly. Maybe it was a misguided attempt at a local accent in the name of "authenticity" or something, but if so, I could hear it well enough but could only make out what was being said by means of the subtitles. Jamaica Inn is not the only programme I've seen that had this problem, just one of the worst examples I can recall. When I find myself reaching for the remote control to switch on the subtitles, yet again, when a particular actor starts talking, I don't suspect the technology. Logic says it's something to do with that actor. Another example is New Tricks. We normally need our TV volume at 35 or 40, but for NT we need to be around 55 - not far off full volume. What is the (TV) world coming to? -- Woody harrogate3 at ntlworld dot com |
Proms last night.
On Thu, 3 Sep 2015 14:08:55 +0100
"Woody" wrote: Another example is New Tricks. We normally need our TV volume at 35 or 40, but for NT we need to be around 55 - not far off full volume. Until they suddenly turn the background music up to 11 and you have to turn the volume down again so the neighbours arn't banging on the walls. -- Spud |
Proms last night.
In message , Woody
writes "Roderick Stewart" wrote in message .. . On Thu, 03 Sep 2015 10:28:02 +0100, Indy Jess John wrote: I do really know what I really heard with my own ears - some actors as clear as anything and others so unintelligble I had to spool back and switch on the subtitles to discover what they'd said. If some actors can make themselves understood and some can't, how can that be a function of the technology? I didn't watch the programme, so can only take a theoretical viewpoint. If the assumption made is that this was a 5.1 recording with just two channels broadcast, some actors would by chance be standing in the place which was broadcast and some would be peripheral to it. That would give a mix of speech clarity depending on where the actor was placed in a scene. I didn't make any assumptions. I just listened. Some actors were as clear as anything and some of them mumbled. I also listened to the episodes that were broadcast *after* the complaints, and presumably after whatever adjustments had been made. Nobody sounded as if they were off-mic or badly recorded, but some of them sounded as if they weren't saying the words clearly. Maybe it was a misguided attempt at a local accent in the name of "authenticity" or something, but if so, I could hear it well enough but could only make out what was being said by means of the subtitles. Jamaica Inn is not the only programme I've seen that had this problem, just one of the worst examples I can recall. When I find myself reaching for the remote control to switch on the subtitles, yet again, when a particular actor starts talking, I don't suspect the technology. Logic says it's something to do with that actor. Another example is New Tricks. We normally need our TV volume at 35 or 40, but for NT we need to be around 55 - not far off full volume. What is the (TV) world coming to? It's nothing new. ITV's "Hill Street Blues" (at least 25 years ago?) always used to have unbelievably low sound. It needed the volume to be set just short of maximum. Our TV was pre-remote control, and it was an absolute pain having to leap up in time to turn the sound down before the frequent adverts started - and, of course, to turn it up again when the programme resumed. -- Ian |
Proms last night.
"Roderick Stewart" wrote in message
... On Thu, 03 Sep 2015 10:28:02 +0100, Indy Jess John wrote: I do really know what I really heard with my own ears - some actors as clear as anything and others so unintelligble I had to spool back and switch on the subtitles to discover what they'd said. If some actors can make themselves understood and some can't, how can that be a function of the technology? I didn't watch the programme, so can only take a theoretical viewpoint. If the assumption made is that this was a 5.1 recording with just two channels broadcast, some actors would by chance be standing in the place which was broadcast and some would be peripheral to it. That would give a mix of speech clarity depending on where the actor was placed in a scene. I didn't make any assumptions. I just listened. Some actors were as clear as anything and some of them mumbled. Depends where they were intended to be in the 2D soundscape. Again, it may have been the case that actor A was meant to be prevalent in the centre ground. Whilst actor B somewhere to the left. Result would be that actor A would be quite lost in the 'atmos' on both left and right, and sound muffled. The 'next hotel room' even. Whilst actor B would be prevalent on left, and inteligable. I also listened to the episodes that were broadcast *after* the complaints, and presumably after whatever adjustments had been made. Nobody sounded as if they were off-mic or badly recorded, but some of them sounded as if they weren't saying the words clearly. Maybe it was a misguided attempt at a local accent in the name of "authenticity" or something, but if so, I could hear it well enough but could only make out what was being said by means of the subtitles. Jamaica Inn is not the only programme I've seen that had this problem, just one of the worst examples I can recall. When I find myself reaching for the remote control to switch on the subtitles, yet again, when a particular actor starts talking, I don't suspect the technology. Logic says it's something to do with that actor. Viewers logic that is. Look, no matter how inconceivable you find it that this was a technical cock up caused by humans, it was. The BBC transmitted FL + FR components of a 5.1 soundscape. Without the presence of the (minimum) other three components, it WILL sound dreaful. End of. Just look at all the other discussions that go on in here, whereby end users complain about the way something has been produced. Yet if the end user knew why it was produced in such a way, and how it should be recreated in the home, then they would not complain. You're the end user here. And, you're doing exactly that. It was produced for 5.1 presentation. Unfortunately the public were given the worst part of 5.1, rather than a produced Lt Rt fold down mix. Rod. |
Proms last night.
wrote in message ...
On Thu, 3 Sep 2015 14:08:55 +0100 "Woody" wrote: Another example is New Tricks. We normally need our TV volume at 35 or 40, but for NT we need to be around 55 - not far off full volume. Until they suddenly turn the background music up to 11 and you have to turn the volume down again so the neighbours arn't banging on the walls. -- Spud Have you (complaining about NT) all checked the audio settings on your telly? Any processing going on? Such as 'ambience'? In _some_ situations this can actually make things sound worse. ......all it does is amplify any stereo difference. Dialogue being purely mono is unaffected. Produced/stereo music.... suddenly gets louder.... because the stereo difference is amplified. |
Proms last night.
On Fri, 4 Sep 2015 00:37:17 +0100, _Unknown_Freelancer_ wrote:
inteligable. FFS, get a dictionary will you. It's "intelligible". I let it go the first 5 times I read it, but enough's enough. |
Proms last night.
On Fri, 4 Sep 2015 00:43:23 +0100
"_Unknown_Freelancer_" /dev/null wrote: wrote in message ... On Thu, 3 Sep 2015 14:08:55 +0100 "Woody" wrote: Another example is New Tricks. We normally need our TV volume at 35 or 40, but for NT we need to be around 55 - not far off full volume. Until they suddenly turn the background music up to 11 and you have to turn the volume down again so the neighbours arn't banging on the walls. -- Spud Have you (complaining about NT) all checked the audio settings on your telly? Any processing going on? Such as 'ambience'? In _some_ situations this can actually make things sound worse. ......all it does is amplify any stereo difference. Dialogue being purely mono is unaffected. Produced/stereo music.... suddenly gets louder.... because the stereo difference is amplified. The only thing ambient about my TV is the view out the window nearby. It doesn't have any of that sort of thing built in. -- Spud |
Proms last night.
wrote in message ...
On Fri, 4 Sep 2015 00:43:23 +0100 "_Unknown_Freelancer_" /dev/null wrote: wrote in message ... On Thu, 3 Sep 2015 14:08:55 +0100 "Woody" wrote: Another example is New Tricks. We normally need our TV volume at 35 or 40, but for NT we need to be around 55 - not far off full volume. Until they suddenly turn the background music up to 11 and you have to turn the volume down again so the neighbours arn't banging on the walls. -- Spud Have you (complaining about NT) all checked the audio settings on your telly? Any processing going on? Such as 'ambience'? In _some_ situations this can actually make things sound worse. ......all it does is amplify any stereo difference. Dialogue being purely mono is unaffected. Produced/stereo music.... suddenly gets louder.... because the stereo difference is amplified. The only thing ambient about my TV is the view out the window nearby. It doesn't have any of that sort of thing built in. Furry muff. _Most_ tellys do (but not all). Its like 17 years back when we were moving from 4:3 to 16:9. You'd go round someones house who's boasted they've got a 28" wide screen telly. Only to find theyre watching a 4:3 programme.... spread full width!!! It was either: -"Didnt notice" (Yes, genuinely) -"Don't know how to stop it doing that" -"Fiddled with it, cant get it back" -"Cant be arsed" Still the same with many other settings now. -- Spud |
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"Paul Ratcliffe" wrote in message
... On Fri, 4 Sep 2015 00:37:17 +0100, _Unknown_Freelancer_ wrote: inteligable. FFS, get a dictionary will you. It's "intelligible". I let it go the first 5 times I read it, but enough's enough. You failed to mention the complete lack of apostrophes. Please do accept my sincerest of apologies. Only completed a twelve hour day at work before writing that, and had the privilege of driving eighty miles to do so. Hope everyone else takes note: ALL items posted to this newsgroup should have no spelling mistakes, at all. For added benefit, please ensure your spell checker is set to UK English. |
Proms last night.
On Fri, 4 Sep 2015 10:49:15 +0100, "_Unknown_Freelancer_" /dev/null
wrote: Its like 17 years back when we were moving from 4:3 to 16:9. You'd go round someones house who's boasted they've got a 28" wide screen telly. Only to find theyre watching a 4:3 programme.... spread full width!!! It was either: -"Didnt notice" (Yes, genuinely) -"Don't know how to stop it doing that" -"Fiddled with it, cant get it back" -"Cant be arsed" Still the same with many other settings now. Even more years further back, I recall some people with new VHF/MW radio sets listening to MW because they preferred the sound of it, and some with stereo setups who would put one of the loudspeakers in another room as an extension. Human nature doesn't really change. Rod. |
Proms last night.
On Fri, 4 Sep 2015 00:37:17 +0100, "_Unknown_Freelancer_" /dev/null
wrote: Jamaica Inn is not the only programme I've seen that had this problem, just one of the worst examples I can recall. When I find myself reaching for the remote control to switch on the subtitles, yet again, when a particular actor starts talking, I don't suspect the technology. Logic says it's something to do with that actor. Viewers logic that is. Look, no matter how inconceivable you find it that this was a technical cock up caused by humans, it was. The BBC transmitted FL + FR components of a 5.1 soundscape. Without the presence of the (minimum) other three components, it WILL sound dreaful. End of. End of what? How can the poor diction of an actor, but not other actors in the same production, be blamed on anything other than the poor diction of that actor? How can this selective unintelligbility be explained any other way? I've listened to enough stuff over the years to know the difference between something I can't hear properly because the sound quality is bad, and something I can't understand properly because the words are not spoken clearly even though I can hear them perfectly well. If a technical issue of some sort really can apply to only some actors and not others, making some of them sound as if they're mumbling their words, but leaving others perfectly understandable, then please explain how you think this happens. Rod. |
Proms last night.
On Fri, 4 Sep 2015 10:57:04 +0100
"_Unknown_Freelancer_" /dev/null wrote: Hope everyone else takes note: ALL items posted to this newsgroup should have no spelling mistakes, at all. For added benefit, please ensure your spell checker is set to UK English. The sort of people who pick up on typos and spelling mistakes are the usually the ones who have really nothing to add to a debate but and are so deperate to score some points over someone else due to an oversized ego, that they'll pick up on anything remotely incorrect. They're best just ignored. -- Spud |
Proms last night.
In article , Roderick Stewart
wrote: On Fri, 4 Sep 2015 00:37:17 +0100, "_Unknown_Freelancer_" /dev/null wrote: Jamaica Inn is not the only programme I've seen that had this problem, just one of the worst examples I can recall. When I find myself reaching for the remote control to switch on the subtitles, yet again, when a particular actor starts talking, I don't suspect the technology. Logic says it's something to do with that actor. Viewers logic that is. Look, no matter how inconceivable you find it that this was a technical cock up caused by humans, it was. The BBC transmitted FL + FR components of a 5.1 soundscape. Without the presence of the (minimum) other three components, it WILL sound dreaful. End of. End of what? How can the poor diction of an actor, but not other actors in the same production, be blamed on anything other than the poor diction of that actor? How can this selective unintelligbility be explained any other way? I've listened to enough stuff over the years to know the difference between something I can't hear properly because the sound quality is bad, and something I can't understand properly because the words are not spoken clearly even though I can hear them perfectly well. If a technical issue of some sort really can apply to only some actors and not others, making some of them sound as if they're mumbling their words, but leaving others perfectly understandable, then please explain how you think this happens. The explanation given would mean that on parts of the sound stage voices became unintelligible. |
Proms last night.
On 04/09/2015 10:49, _Unknown_Freelancer_ wrote:
Its like 17 years back when we were moving from 4:3 to 16:9. You'd go round someones house who's boasted they've got a 28" wide screen telly. Only to find theyre watching a 4:3 programme.... spread full width!!! That was me -"Cant be arsed" That was also me. The TV had various settings - widwscreen, letterbox, and about 4 others. There was a button on the remote which cycled through them one at a time. I just selected widescreen and left it. Jim |
Proms last night.
wrote in message ...
On Fri, 4 Sep 2015 10:57:04 +0100 "_Unknown_Freelancer_" /dev/null wrote: Hope everyone else takes note: ALL items posted to this newsgroup should have no spelling mistakes, at all. For added benefit, please ensure your spell checker is set to UK English. The sort of people who pick up on typos and spelling mistakes are the usually the ones who have really nothing to add to a debate but and are so deperate to score some points over someone else due to an oversized ego, that they'll pick up on anything remotely incorrect. They're best just ignored. "are the usually the ones", "deperate"? What on earth are you on about? |
Proms last night.
On Fri, 04 Sep 2015 11:13:12 +0000, spuddy wrote:
On Fri, 4 Sep 2015 10:57:04 +0100 "_Unknown_Freelancer_" /dev/null wrote: Hope everyone else takes note: ALL items posted to this newsgroup should have no spelling mistakes, at all. For added benefit, please ensure your spell checker is set to UK English. The sort of people who pick up on typos and spelling mistakes are the usually the ones who have really nothing to add to a debate but and are so deperate to score some points over someone else due to an oversized ego, that they'll pick up on anything remotely incorrect. They're best just ignored. There may be an element of truth in that statement but, tbh, I think it's more down to our being used to seeing such 'errors' in a typed 'publication' as an indication of either slapdash preparation or English not being the author's first language. The nature of such textual communication forms as usenet, bear a more than passing resemblance to what we see in the pages of a book where such errors would normally be virtually non existent, courtesy of the usual editing and proof reading work involved in publishing such works. The result being that such errors leap out at the reader, especially when consistently repeated. However, I think the complaint should have been presented in a less aggressive manner, possibly with a 'smiley' thrown in for good measure. :-) -- Johnny B Good |
Proms last night.
"Roderick Stewart" wrote in message
... On Fri, 4 Sep 2015 00:37:17 +0100, "_Unknown_Freelancer_" /dev/null wrote: Jamaica Inn is not the only programme I've seen that had this problem, just one of the worst examples I can recall. When I find myself reaching for the remote control to switch on the subtitles, yet again, when a particular actor starts talking, I don't suspect the technology. Logic says it's something to do with that actor. Viewers logic that is. Look, no matter how inconceivable you find it that this was a technical cock up caused by humans, it was. The BBC transmitted FL + FR components of a 5.1 soundscape. Without the presence of the (minimum) other three components, it WILL sound dreaful. End of. End of what? 'Jamaica Inn discussion', I hoped. Because, since I raised J.I. as an example of why 4.0 is a good thing, no matter how many times I say its because you only got part of the 5.1 mix, you appear to find it inconceivable this is was what happened, and that it definately, must be, was, the actors. How can the poor diction of an actor, but not other actors in the same production, be blamed on anything other than the poor diction of that actor? How can this selective unintelligbility Oh look! There's that word! be explained any other way? "Soundscape" I've listened to enough stuff over the years to know the difference between something I can't hear properly because the sound quality is bad, and something I can't understand properly because the words are not spoken clearly even though I can hear them perfectly well. If a technical issue of some sort really can apply to only some actors and not others, making some of them sound as if they're mumbling their words, but leaving others perfectly understandable, then please explain how you think this happens. head in hands Just finished another twelve hour day, seven hours till I set off for work again. /head in hands Ok, in the 1970s, we were (mostly) capable of recording good sound, but the finished product only had one audio track. In any fancy drama, all the editor had to do was mix all the dialogue together, and balance it against any effects or incidental music. By the 1990s, we'd got NICAM. Now it was possible to add a little left or right bias to any actors. Any effects could be in stereo, as could music. Stereo effects meant a scene could actually have believable ambience, when in actual fact, at the time of recording, it was dead, no echoes, slap or reverberation. Cars could drive from left to right, AND sound like it too. BUT, against all of this, they still had to produce a mono mix, also for transmission. You couldnt just produce that mono mix by adding L and R. Levels would be way too high for a start, and any stereo music could eat itself. So already, even by then, things had begun to get complex. Boom! Post milenium you can have as many speakers as you desire for your own aural pleasure. Most popular acceptable system being 5.1, although 5.0 will still suffice. 5.0 gives the producer the ability to put a sound anywhere within a two dimensional plane within the bounds of the speakers (if they're placed correctly). Supposing you have actor A, whose dialogue (for some odd reason) you want to appear somewhere just over the left shoulder of the viewer. In the process of producing that 5.0 mix, you would not simply just send 100% of actor A's microphone straight to the rear left speaker. Nor would you send it mostly to the rear left, with a bit to the front left, and a tiny fracion to the centre. To achieve this properly you need a surround sound processor. Inside it is filled with smoke and mirrors. When it goes wrong some of the smoke leaks out. You give the processor information like the ambience of the scene youre setting (big concrete room, cliff top, country road, etc), and you need to tell it where abouts that audio source will appear. It then runs some clever processing over the source and produces six outputs. It may then be the case that listening to just Ls the actor will sound muffled. FL will sound like someone is there, but imperceivable. Centre might be same again, but 112 degrees out of phase with a 2ms delay. Apart, they all sound utter rubbish, yet when combined, the picture is complete and the human ear puts it all together. For 5.0 to work properly, you MUST have all of the components, otherwise, like colour telly, it just doesnt work. Building a soundscape is just like creating 'the look' of a show. e.g. The theme for The Apprentice is blue. Blue is picked out more in certain scenes, but not in a manner which is equivalent to just turning up the blue gain. The edit compositor picks out certain colours in certain areas of the image, and selectively amplifies them. i.e. a bit of clever processing Now imagine that with one colour component missing. Im sure you'll agree, it just would not work. You give your surround processor all the info it needs for the scene you are building. The environment, any effects, where abouts in 2D the effects are, dialogue, where abouts the dialogue is, any eq to that dialogue (e.g making an actors voice deeper), any music, where should the music be. It chews all this over and renders six discrete audio tracks. Voila, your completed 5.1 soundscape. But you cant understand why with the most sensative speakers on the planet, powered by the best ever valve amp, it may be possible to understand actor A, but not ator B. Clever surround processing. The computer running the numbers knows/expects the end user to have all speakers present, and so works to that end point. It knows that a hint of something down Ls with just the high frequencies of it down FL might result in the end user thinking they're hearing something perfectly. Yet listen to the two channels separately sound nothing like it. Then you have to do the your mix again, to produce a stereo fold down. Except no 2D stuff this time. All dialogue has to be equally present on L and R, with maybe a small amount of bias depending which side of the screen an actor may be on. But not too much though. Viewers just do not like it when you put too much bias in! Make no mistake, this stereo mix _can not_ be derived from the 5.1 soundscape produced earlier. It is a separate process. ......which is why they couldnt fix it completely in time for the next transmission. When Ive had spare time (and interest) on 5.1 jobs Ive grabbed a pair of cans and sat fiddling with a 5.1 decoder, flicking through all the discrete tracks. Indiviually, genuinely, they make little sense. Only when heard as a comlete set, do they make sense to the ear. Whilst listening to Lt and Rt..... perfectly coherent immediately. J.I. was produced with a 5.1 soundscape. Great. Sounds f.awesome. .....if you transmit that to the viewers, AND they all have a suitable system to reproduce it. But viewers (incorrectly) only got two of the five components required to recreate 5.1. No wonder it sounded like someone with a sock in their mouth. Again, a human faux pas somewhere left the BBC _without_ their requested _stereo mix_. The result was _the wrong audio pair_ was sent to air instead. Just what on earth were they supposed to do? Rod. |
Proms last night.
On Sat, 5 Sep 2015 01:11:08 +0100, "_Unknown_Freelancer_" /dev/null
wrote: [snip long technical explanation] But viewers (incorrectly) only got two of the five components required to recreate 5.1. No wonder it sounded like someone with a sock in their mouth. It didn't sound sock-in-mouth to me. Even if it had, how could a technical issue make it sound thus only when some actors were speaking? Again, a human faux pas somewhere left the BBC _without_ their requested _stereo mix_. The result was _the wrong audio pair_ was sent to air instead. If you say so, but I never would have guessed. Everything sounded very clear to me, except that when some of the actors were speaking, only some of them and one bloke in particular who affected a very strong accent, I had to spool back and switch on the subtitles to make out what they were supposed to be saying. This had nothing to do with where they were in the soundstage. It only depended on who was speaking. I'm truly baffled that you think this could have a technical cause. There may very well have been a mixup with the tracks *as well* as poor diction from a few of the actors, but the only effect I was aware of was the poor diction. Perhaps the mixup with the tracks only affected the multitudes who listened through the speakers in their TV sets. I guess it might affect mono listeners differently from stereo ones for instance, but whatever it was, it didn't stop me *hearing* the actors in perfect audio clarity, just *understanding* what some of them were trying to say. Rod. |
Proms last night.
"Roderick Stewart" wrote in message
... On Sat, 5 Sep 2015 01:11:08 +0100, "_Unknown_Freelancer_" /dev/null wrote: [snip long technical explanation] But viewers (incorrectly) only got two of the five components required to recreate 5.1. No wonder it sounded like someone with a sock in their mouth. It didn't sound sock-in-mouth to me. Even if it had, how could a technical issue make it sound thus only when some actors were speaking? Again, a human faux pas somewhere left the BBC _without_ their requested _stereo mix_. The result was _the wrong audio pair_ was sent to air instead. If you say so, but I never would have guessed. Everything sounded very clear to me, except that when some of the actors were speaking, only some of them and one bloke in particular who affected a very strong accent, I had to spool back and switch on the subtitles to make out what they were supposed to be saying. This had nothing to do with where they were in the soundstage. It only depended on who was speaking. I'm truly baffled that you think this could have a technical cause. There may very well have been a mixup with the tracks *as well* as poor diction from a few of the actors, but the only effect I was aware of was the poor diction. Perhaps the mixup with the tracks only affected the multitudes who listened through the speakers in their TV sets. I guess it might affect mono listeners differently from stereo ones for instance, but whatever it was, it didn't stop me *hearing* the actors in perfect audio clarity, just *understanding* what some of them were trying to say. Yes, from what I heard, I'd say that the problem was first and foremost with the diction of a certain actor (I'm sure he knows who he is!), which may have been exacerbated by a strange sound mix. He had a similar mumbling diction to Lester Piggot or Jack Ashley, MP (the latter was deaf). When they sorted out the problem for the subsequent episodes, was it simply providing the correct 5.1 - stereo conversion or was it a case of going back to the original dialogue and music/effects tracks and remixing from scratch to increase the level of one relative to the other (or at least centralising the dialogue more in the sound stage)? I got the impression that "there was a technical problem" was a euphemism for "some of the actors have poor diction" to avoid embarrassing those actors. As a matter of interest, is it generally the production company or the broadcaster who is responsible for the 5.1 - stereo conversion? What about HD - SD conversion - is the broadcaster provided with an HD and an SD master or do they do HD-SD conversion (and 5.1- stereo) on the fly? |
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