Too much NOISE in films!

[Tulin]

It's been going on for some years now and steadily gotten worse. I've got a big grievance with films: They've gotten too damned noisy!

I was just about to come in here and do the whole, "If the music's too loud, you're too old....." schtick when I read this,

The byproduct is having to constantly play with the volume control while watching the film. You turn it up to hear characters talking and then next thing your ears are ringing from a BLAST of too fucking loud action and/or music, and so you quickly reduce the volume.

and I realized I do this too.

I am not one of those home theatre/shake the walls wankers. I just want a pleasant viewing experience and to be able to hear what is being said.

I hear ya!

 

[Tulin]

I haven't had any trouble.

Neither have I. Sometimes when I watch live TV the music is too loud and you can't hear the dialogue but that's relatively rare as well.

Uuuummmm...........so you HAVE had that problem.

Which kinda negates your "neither have I" comment.

 

[zakkrusz]

You damn kids get off of my lawn!

Kind of what I was thinking of saying.

Except that it's not just older people complaining about this issue.

Well, bad hearing or improperly tuned devices are also not restricted to age either, to be fair.

I do lots of DVD watching. I keep the volume on the DVD player set to 30 which is just perfect to hear everything in surround sound mixes (not too low not too high). I never ever have to change it ever unless the fan in the room is on. That's my comfortable level and it doesn't even carry over to the next room. I could still understand it at half that too.

 

[Brandonv]

The byproduct is having to constantly play with the volume control while watching the film. You turn it up to hear characters talking and then next thing your ears are ringing from a BLAST of too fucking loud action and/or music, and so you quickly reduce the volume.

I have this problem sometimes. I watch DVD's on my computer, and have found a setting in my Realtek sound cards control panel called "loudness equalization" that helps reduce the problem. I think home theaters have something similar called "night mode".

 

[Warped9]

I will say that I've encountered an oddity regarding this issue. I have a 32" Samsung LCD and a Samsung DVD recorder. I don't often have the noise problem with my TV and dvd player. But on my father's TV and DVD player he has the noise issues often. He has a Samsung 40" LCD TV (connected to an HD cable box) and RCA DVD player.

 

[jefferiestubes8]

mono / noise & dynamic level

I was replying to Jefferies who made a remark about all sound channels competing with 2-channel stereo, in that it sounds even worse when all you have is Mono.

Sorry Owain Taggart it's been 10 years since I've had 5.1 surround sound with DVDs at home.
I've been to many friends & family & work location homes and do know many people just use the stock speaker(s) in their television. Most people put more priotrity in visuals and that usually means a larger tv (HDTV) screen.
Dynamic range (what is wrongly being referred to as 'noise') has increased greatly with digital storage and playback of media. DVDs and Blu-ray near-field mixes are made for home theaters and made for that quality level. DVD players do their own "fold-down mix" to play back over stereo 2-channel speakers.

i can't stress enough how much better experience it can be with 5.1 surround even if you have a 19" television. Upgrade from mono before you get an HDTV when you can afford to.

Wide dynamic range and dialogue being too low is more of an issue with a near field stereo mix not translating to mono very well.
As far as wide dynamic range and movies being 'too loud' it is not just a movie issue.
rock & pop music has much too little dynamic range and is "too loud" which is really distortion (noise) and has gone on for over a decade. do a google search for "loudness war" and music to understand more.

 

[Owain Taggart]

All very good advice. Problem though is that our current 21" CRT doesn't have any of the modern conveniences that would allow for such a thing, even if I wanted to. It's old enough to not have any modern connection types that were made available after it was bought, which was in 1994. To be able to use the DVR, for example, we have to run it through the VCR, with the DVR going to the VCR and the VCR going to the TV. All that won't matter much anymore though, as like I said before, we got a new TV which will allow us to make leaps.

Yeah, I'm aware of the Loudness War. Wondered if it was applicable to TV.

 

[thumbtack]

This is a perfectly natural result of aging. The human eardrum actually thickens with age, reducing it's ability to vibrate. This, in turn, results in greater difficulty responding to sudden changes in volume and frequency. So...

"You damn kids get off of my lawn."

... is pretty much the appropriate response.

 

[Warped9]

This is a perfectly natural result of aging. The human eardrum actually thickens with age, reducing it's ability to vibrate. This, in turn, results in greater difficulty responding to sudden changes in volume and frequency. So...

"You damn kids get off of my lawn."

... is pretty much the appropriate response.

Except, again, people of all ages, young and old, have complained about this issue. Fact is when I was younger I didn't like overloud music or television or film then either.

 

[BolianAuthor]

I'm far more annoyed with loud commercials.

 

[A beaker full of death]

I think two things are happening:
1. The music is definitely drowning out the dialogue.
2. Actors don't know how to speak any more. Hollywood actors used to have stage - or at least some form of enunciation - training. Now, when they're whispering in someone's ear, they really whisper -- and they don't have the diction to make it intelligible.
Actors need training, damnit!

 

[Bishbot]

This is a perfectly natural result of aging. The human eardrum actually thickens with age, reducing it's ability to vibrate. This, in turn, results in greater difficulty responding to sudden changes in volume and frequency. So...

"You damn kids get off of my lawn."

... is pretty much the appropriate response.

Except, again, people of all ages, young and old, have complained about this issue. Fact is when I was younger I didn't like overloud music or television or film then either.

I am only 23 and I certainly have this problem. The Dark Knight is definitely one I noticed it in, Iron Man as well, and Star Trek, so I guess pretty much every modern film. I am perfectly happy watching them with a loud volume for my own pleasure. On headphones they are fine, but on TV the jumps in volume are really annoying unless you live like a hermit in the middle of the countryside.

Edit: Actors should not be trained to speak for the stage. If the character is whispering, the actor should whisper, we have the technology to deal with this, we just don't do it properly.

 

[thumbtack]

^ If you're having this problem at 23, turn the headphones way down. Permanent damage is possible with headphone abuse.

 

[Trekker4747]

RE: Music/Effects drowning out dialogue. This may depend on how your particular theater/home soundsytem/tv is set-up.

Dialogue is usually on the center speaker channel and if this channel is at a lower level than the other speakers, the surround sound, then, yeah the dialogue is going to be harder to hear than the music and effects. There's nothing about the movie or its audio itself that is louder but how it's being transmitted is.

So you need to check the settings on your TV (if it has something like simulated surround sound) to either increase the center channel or decrease the others. If your TV or surround system, or even player, doesn't have this capability then you're SOL and need to get with the times.

If your theatger has this problem, complain to the manager or the theater's owners that their surround system is calibrated properly as it should be to give the ceneter channel more clarity and audibility.