Bob Shell wrote: > On Dec 20, 2006, at 11:28 PM, ann sanfedele wrote: >> >> I like to fall asleep with the TV on but even when I'm not planning on >> going to sleep >> and I'm watching something late at night in the bedroom, a sudden >> surge of >> comemrcial volume could get my neighbors in a snit, not to mention >> suddenly jarring me awake. >> >> If there is not something like that in existence, someone should make >> it. >> >> sudden loudness is very stressful for me, and I think many of us who are >> getting on in >> years and have slight hearing problems. > > I don't know of such a thing, but I agree that it ought to exist. For > years TV broadcasters claimed that the volume was not louder during > commercials. They were shown proof in the form of dB readings. They > still denied it. Only recently have they admitted to this foul > practice. I heard one executive defend it recently by saying that > people often leave the room during commercials, so they needed to be > louder so they could be heard in other rooms. Amazing! > > Bob
There's a limit to how loud a signal they can broadcast. 100% modulation is the max, anything over just distorts. The commercials aren't actually any louder than the programming, but there's a trick that can be done with compression to make them *seem* louder. Most TV audio has a dynamic range that includes both loud and quiet sound. But with compression the quiet sounds are boosted so that dynamic range is eliminated. The quiet sounds are boosted up to near 100% modulation and it's that sustained high modulation that makes them sound louder. You could do the same to all of the programming sound, compress it to make all of the modulation near 100% and then just turn the volume down on the whole thing, but it'd take a lot of work. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
