they mix audio for cinemas with 5.1 or 7.1 speaker systems. And then they take that version and smoosh it into stereo :) which then comes out sounding absolutely terrible because the mix was simply not made for stereo
I think the issue is with volume levelling; your statement implies the issue is channel separation. Listening in surround sound won’t mitigate the issue, unless you intentionally boost the center speaker
Someone sharing a solution for one platform doesn’t obligate them to support every platform.
That said, this kind of functionality is sometimes called “noise compression” or “volume normalization”. Guitar compressor pedals do this. So look for those in your TV audio settings or audio system settings, but I wouldn’t hold my breath that it will be there on most TV models.
Also, sometimes it can be due to the way the sound is mixed to however many audio channels the media uses and then how your setup remixes them for how many audio channels you have available. Check your settings to see if the speaker setup matches what you have. Also make sure they are all properly plugged in and actually driving audio through them.
@MrLovenstein The boom could also be a commercial. I wish AV receiver manufacturers would make a volume leveller to deal with this. My Yamaha has such a feature but its affects are minimal.
Yeah, Nolan decided dialouge is important enough to include but not important enough to be able to hear. Pick a damn lane. Either let me hear it or don’t include it
Subtitle size should vary based on audibility of the current line. The irony is, during those scenes with boats and face masks? The CC box is so big it can only fit a couple of letters at a time, making it ALSO impossible to understand.
@MrLovenstein the origin of this was the terrible but critically acclaimed sound mixing on a batman movie i believe the dark knight one, they tried to make it all edgy and kaboom-y and then everything went to the hellish sound rabbithole we're on now
@MrLovenstein easyeffects and clamp the volume :D It's life changing, no longer constantly turning it up or down because of terrible mixing on the remote end.
Or… they can make a theater mix of the audio (full dynamic range) and a streaming/dvd mix (normalized volume levels) so that everyone gets the best experience.
Both me and my wife were both complaining about how loud the sound was last time we went to the movies (Dune part 2), so yes. I prefer immersion without shattered ear drums.
What you’re saying is like, “You complain about being sweaty??? So what, do you complain at the gym too?”
I’m not in a theater. I’m at home. I don’t want the TV crazy loud for a number of reasons which can include the fact that I’m not a terrible neighbor, the time of day, my partner may be asleep, etc.
If I wanted to go to the theater, then I go to the theater where I have certain expectations which includes well-mixed, loud sound. That’s fine, and I will hear both things that way.
The most notorious example for me is Spanish cinema, it’s like they’re rapid-fire whispering, then suddenly they burst out screaming. No middle ground. And just what the hell are film sound editors and mixers in Spain smoking, to think that this is the proper way to mix a film’s audio?
For anyone wondering why it is like that: I’ve read that movies nowadays are the same on disc and streaming service as they are in the theaters, meaning the voices are sitting on the central speaker. I’ve hat this a long time too and after I read that fact I went and bought a soundbar with center speaker and that solved this issue for me.
That seems like the only solid solution. I got a budget 5.1 with rear satellites because not only did I want a dedicated center channel for dialog but I wanted to avoid the 5.1 to stereo downmixing issues (such as in Plex) where the center channel gets incorrectly divided with a volume decrease (jellyfin didn’t seem to have the issue), but this way I can just sidestep those issues by being able to directly play 5.1.
This has helped a ton but there are still some movies that don’t cooperate, like dune part 1 during the Paul and his mother breakfast scene at the beginning. Even though I have the truehd 7.1 atmos and DD 5.1 (which direct plays without conversion), the only way to make that scene audible without blowing out the speakers the rest of the movie is to crank up the voice boost EQ which ruins the balance.
It’s not just psychological. You’re expecting a loud experience in a theater. Everyone around you is, too. And the building is designed for it. Versus at home, where I have neighbors, potentially other housemates who aren’t watching, etc.
Sometimes, idk if dune is one…. Shows/movies have scenes with intentionally difficult to hear dialog. It’s like, sure, they’re talking… but we want you to just watch and don’t worry you’ll get everything from visuals
Tenet is the ultimate example of this. Lots of dialogue is drowned out by other sounds. Couldn’t hear fuck all of what the actors were saying. Wish I’d known before going in that Nolan was going for vibes over dialogue. I probably wouldn’t have bothered.
Why Include the dialogue if it’s not meant to be there? Why have the subtitles written out instead of [unintelligible speaking]? Why waste my mental energy on trying to parse which pieces of the talking are important, and which are just, what? Vibe checks? You put those words in your movie for a REASON Christopher, and damnit, I’m going to uncover it.
Absolutely. I spent the film straining to hear the actors unsure if I was missing anything important. I was so distracted that the only ‘vibe’ I got was frustration
Then maybe shut up a bit? Let the vibes just go, why you gotta keep talking over em? If you put words in a movie, I’m going to try to interpret those words. If they’re not important, I dare say they can be removed.
If the problem is bad 5.1 to stereo downmix, then you’d be trying to use software tricks to separate out dialog that has already been merged with the other audio tracks, which won’t do a great job.
That software needs to run on some kind of hardware, so if you’re playing your media from a streaming box that doesn’t run custom software (Chromecast for example) then you will need to add an additional piece of hardware in the chain to do this processing, such as a DSP.
This essentially amounts to trying to fix it with EQ when you can just not merge the center channel with the other channels in the first place. Having a dedicated center channel speaker lets you use the ultimate software regulation trick - simply turning up the volume on the center channel.
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