House OKs bill to lower the volume on loud TV commercials

This may have been mentioned, but the primary cause of complaints is that
commercial audio is heavily compressed so it can be heard. That is, there is
little difference between the peaks and the lower volume. Most of the audio is
near 0 VU, the peak. Programming is more dynamic with some very quiet segments
and then some at full volume. The commercials aren't really louder , but they
sound that way to viewers.

It's still annoying. When I was a master control op I would grab the master
volume control on the board and pull some commercials down. The computerized
systems of today don't take it into account. We would also monitor the transfer
of a commercial to the cart system that played back the commercial. Today
everything is an audio file and they just don't get monitored, they get stored
to the server.

What I really hate is that some stations are softer or louder than other
stations, requiring adjustment when you switch channels. That's just plain lazy
on the part of the station.

Then you have Billy Mays, RIP. I always said he would be the last person to take
along on a long road trip.

Per Grogan:
It's still annoying. When I was a master control op I would grab the master
volume control on the board and pull some commercials down. The computerized
systems of today don't take it into account.

Anybody now how commercials are identified?

For awhile, I dabbled in something called "MythTV" - sort of
Tivo-on-steroids.

Myth had a commercial skip feature that seemed tb very, very
accurate: one turns it on, and subsequent recordings contain zero
commercials.

The system I'm currently using lacks such a feature, and I miss
it.

--
PeteCresswell

Grogan wrote:
This may have been mentioned, but the primary cause of complaints is that
commercial audio is heavily compressed so it can be heard. That is, there is
little difference between the peaks and the lower volume. Most of the audio is
near 0 VU, the peak. Programming is more dynamic with some very quiet segments
and then some at full volume. The commercials aren't really louder , but they
sound that way to viewers.

In the most recent Dish Technical Forum, they had an extensive
discussion of this. He said something similar to what you said. It
isn't that the commercials are louder in the sense that the sound
pressure is higher than what is allowed. It is that most programming is
a mixture of soft and loud, but commercials are "all loud" (though not
louder than the loud parts of programs), so you perceive the commercials
as louder.


It's still annoying. When I was a master control op I would grab the master
volume control on the board and pull some commercials down. The computerized
systems of today don't take it into account. We would also monitor the transfer
of a commercial to the cart system that played back the commercial. Today
everything is an audio file and they just don't get monitored, they get stored
to the server.

What I really hate is that some stations are softer or louder than other
stations, requiring adjustment when you switch channels. That's just plain lazy
on the part of the station.

The discussion I mentioned above was in the context of some new software
that will run in the receiver that works to compensate for these
problems. They had, as a guest, a technical guy from the company that
developed the software. He explained how difficult it was. You don't
want to make everything the same loudness, or you would lose the impact
of say a gun shot in a police/detective show. They spent a lot of time
developing algorithms to "do the right thing". IIRC, Dish will begin
installing the software, first on 722Ks starting early next year.


--
- Stephen Fuld
(e-mail address disguised to prevent spam)

Taylor wrote:

House OKs bill to lower the volume on loud TV commercials

Well, I'd rather they waste time on this than screw up health care.

The House passed has passed Â*a bill that would bar TV commercials from
being louder than the programs in which they appear.

That will be interesting on scrolling channels that have
no sound except during commercials.

The Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act (CALM) passed
Tuesday on a voice vote, presumably expressed at a comfortable level.

Darn, I was expecting it to be called the
Billy Mays Moment of Silence Act

Rep. Anna Eshoo, the driving force behind the measure, said loud
commercials are a common complaint with the Federal Communication
Commission.

And have been since 1955 or so.
Switch to channel 0.
Works wonders.

But the FCC concluded in 1984 there was no fair way to write
regulations controlling the "apparent loudness" of commercials, the AP
says.

The bill probably also re-defined PI to be 3.0,
to make it easier for government schools to teach trig.

"You can say: 'Well, that's fine. Just turn it off,' " Stearns said.
"But it's constantly an irritant when you have to do it. And we've got
all the new bowl games coming up."

During its decline, the Roman Empire doubtless
had statesmen of this caliber. Entirely apart from being technically
impossible and/or loaded with unintended consequences, there
is no possible way that any law or regulation could get passed
and made effective in time to affect this year's bowl games.

--
Regards, Bob Niland
http://www.access-one.com/rjn email4rjn AT yahoo DOT com
NOT speaking for any employer, client or Internet Service Provider.

"(PeteCresswell)" wrote in message
...
| Per RichA:
| ANYTHING that would remove this
| annoyance would be welcome. The studio scum/networks might even find
| that fewer people download commercial-less programs because of it.
|
| Look into Tivo or the various PC-based applications that allow
| recording shows to hard drive and playing them back later.
|
| I have one of the latter and can't remember the last time I
| watched a show "live" - or sat through more than a second or so
| of a commercial.
|
| Fast forward or "skip" when watching a hard-drive-based recording
| are nearly instantaneous.
| --
| PeteCresswell


Even better....
I have a DVR that has a "time slip" feature.
It might start recording at, say 9PM
I turn on the TV at, say 9:15 and watch the show from the beginning.
When a commercial starts hitting a button instantaneously skips 1 minute
ahead.
3 quick presses (usually) and I'm back into the program.
All this time the DVR continues to record the remainder of the program.
There have been times when I started watching an hour long show 15 minutes
into it and finishing at the same time that the live show ended
--
Regards,
Richard Harison

On 19 Dec 2009 14:27:00 GMT, Bert Hyman wrote:

In RickMerrill
wrote:

They are a problem for relationships: commercial comes on, wife says
"turn it down", i say "ITSA ACOMMERCIL!" aFTER the commercial, wife
says "turn it up" ...


No "mute" button on your TV?

actually there's a "constant volume" feature on my teewee that's
supposed to help with this. it doesn't ... at least when the feed
comes from the cable box via component instead of antenna.

Of course it's absurd to have Congress waste time on stuff like this,
but it's also absurd that supposedly rational and competitive
suppliers keep doing it. Absurdity just seems to be a new station
stop in the cycle of life these days.

J.

Per LightByrd:


Even better....
I have a DVR that has a "time slip" feature.
It might start recording at, say 9PM
I turn on the TV at, say 9:15 and watch the show from the beginning.
When a commercial starts hitting a button instantaneously skips 1 minute
ahead.
3 quick presses (usually) and I'm back into the program.
All this time the DVR continues to record the remainder of the program.
There have been times when I started watching an hour long show 15 minutes
into it and finishing at the same time that the live show ended

My SageTV has that too - but in two programmable flavors.

I have one set to jump a minute and the other to jump ten
seconds.

After awhile I get a feel for commercial break lengths. Movies
on Ion TV, for instance, seem to have commercial breaks lasting
between 4 and five minutes. So I hit the first skip five times,
and then back up 10 seconds at a time until I get to the place
where the move resumes.

Seems to me like once the majority of people catch on to what we
have, commercials in their present form will become history -
like who is going to sit through them once they have an option?
--
PeteCresswell

(PeteCresswell) wrote:
Per RichA:
ANYTHING that would remove this
annoyance would be welcome. The studio scum/networks might even find
that fewer people download commercial-less programs because of it.

Look into Tivo or the various PC-based applications that allow
recording shows to hard drive and playing them back later.

I have one of the latter and can't remember the last time I
watched a show "live" - or sat through more than a second or so
of a commercial.

Fast forward or "skip" when watching a hard-drive-based recording
are nearly instantaneous.

Yes. I have a DVR for each TV in the house. When a commercial starts, I
hit the 30 second skip about 6 times, and the show continues. If a show
is live, I wait to start it a little later so I can skip commercials.
With a football game, I usually end up having to watch the last 30
minutes or so "live", but I skip most commercials and the interminably
long half time shows.
--
Jim

Alan wrote:
In article Taylor writes:

House OKs bill to lower the volume on loud TV commercials

The House passed has passed a bill that would bar TV commercials from
being louder than the programs in which they appear.

The Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act (CALM) passed
Tuesday on a voice vote, presumably expressed at a comfortable level.

It now goes to the Senate, which is considering an identical bill, the
Associated Press reports.

Rep. Anna Eshoo, the driving force behind the measure, said loud
commercials are a common complaint with the Federal Communication
Commission.

But the FCC concluded in 1984 there was no fair way to write
regulations controlling the "apparent loudness" of commercials, the AP
says.


Perhaps the FCC knew that there is no realistic way to measure "loudness".

You can measure maximum modulation level, or average modulation level over
a specified period of time, but neither of them really is loudness (at least
according to some folks who have a good deal of knowledge on the subject).

Alan

Crest factor s a reasonably good starting place, but it's not the be-all
and end-all.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crest_factor

--
Les Cargill

Stephen Fuld wrote:
Grogan wrote:
This may have been mentioned, but the primary cause of complaints is that
commercial audio is heavily compressed so it can be heard. That is,
there is
little difference between the peaks and the lower volume. Most of the
audio is
near 0 VU, the peak. Programming is more dynamic with some very quiet
segments
and then some at full volume. The commercials aren't really louder ,
but they
sound that way to viewers.

In the most recent Dish Technical Forum, they had an extensive
discussion of this. He said something similar to what you said. It
isn't that the commercials are louder in the sense that the sound
pressure is higher than what is allowed. It is that most programming is
a mixture of soft and loud, but commercials are "all loud" (though not
louder than the loud parts of programs), so you perceive the commercials
as louder.


It's still annoying. When I was a master control op I would grab the
master
volume control on the board and pull some commercials down. The
computerized
systems of today don't take it into account. We would also monitor the
transfer
of a commercial to the cart system that played back the commercial. Today
everything is an audio file and they just don't get monitored, they
get stored
to the server.

What I really hate is that some stations are softer or louder than other
stations, requiring adjustment when you switch channels. That's just
plain lazy
on the part of the station.


What Grogan is talking about is that there are a lot of stations that
just don't bother to calibrate overall audio levels *at all*. I've
gone from one station to the next, and had to drop from 3/4 to 1/2 on
the little slider ( it's a small TV, so 1/2 is about the limit of
audibility when fans are running in the room ). The slider isn't very
linear; it's probably from 6 to 10 dB difference. It's almost surely
*not* 20dB.

Never mind that "Sons of Anarchy" runs the plain DVD levels out,
which are much, much less than commercials, so I'm diving for the mute
button every time. Great show, but it's annoying. The DVDs themselves
are wonderful; it's the contrast between actual decent level plans and
COMMERCIAL SURREAL FLATLINE LEVEL PLANS that sucks.

Also also; Kurt Sutter has a blog, and it looks like NBC is slowly
getting out of scripted TV altogether. They've ceded 10:00 EST to
Leno. The rising stars are basic and pay cable, which has to be about
DVD sales. So I have to wonder if this won't just get worse.

The discussion I mentioned above was in the context of some new software
that will run in the receiver that works to compensate for these
problems. They had, as a guest, a technical guy from the company that
developed the software. He explained how difficult it was. You don't
want to make everything the same loudness, or you would lose the impact
of say a gun shot in a police/detective show.

What's weird is that gunshot foleys are usually highly processed. The
"cannon into a garbage can" they used for Eastwood's spaghetti westerns
was a lot the sound a mic overloading, the preamp it was driving
overloading and some really aggressive compression. Actual, ENG
audio of gunshots sound nothing like what they do on TV.

They spent a lot of time
developing algorithms to "do the right thing". IIRC, Dish will begin
installing the software, first on 722Ks starting early next year.



I am very skeptical that this can actually be done well. So it's
Dish proprietary?

--
Les Cargill