- cross-posted to:
- mrlovenstein@sh.itjust.works
- cross-posted to:
- mrlovenstein@sh.itjust.works
Source/secret panel: https://m.tapas.io/episode/3005249
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I feel like the real issue, is that we only get one volume bar. If it was normal to define both the minimal and maximal volume setting and have the players stretch the given dynamic range into that then it would all be good.
I have dabbled in video editing and it is SO easy to manipulate and level the audio track so that dialogue is louder than music and sound effects. This has led me to believe that movies where this is a major problem like Tenet are absolutely mixed this way on purpose, and the only reasonable conclusion to draw from that is that Christopher Nolan is insane.
Mostly, it’s a downmixing issue.
The movie is mixed to have Music, Speech, SFX spread out through 5.1 or 7.1 The speech and primary important sounds come through center. General music is a mix of L,R and Surround. When you feed that audio track to a dumb tv, it does a horrible job at turning it into L and R sound only.
If you feed it through a good 5.1 or 7.1 receiver or soundbar, you get options for Speech and surround and you can mess with levels individually. But the speech is front and loud.
If I just plug my roku into my tv, the center channel is almost at, all I get is the light intermixing of center in L and R so speech is horrible. you jack up the volume to hear the speech, then all the other sound is way too loud
Likewise, in most cases just taking an AAC and convert it to mp3 without adjusting the levels, it ends up sounding like trash.
How can we set volume of music, SFX and voice separately, in games but not in movies?
In games these categories of audio are calculated and mixed locally in real time, for movies they are mixed down to a single track and compressed ahead of time.
These days having three audio tracks would not be a significant problem, compared to the high resolution video track. But I guess the industry never changed.
I could already hear the forums filling with desync complaints
You could on laserdisk, but dvd got more popular
Because a video game is a program that can change it’s behavior as it’s running.
A video is a recording. It’s already been recorded.
incorrect. movies are streams of multiple layers of content.
- video
- environment audio
- effects audio
- vocal audio
environment audio are things in the background like cars, birds, children playing.
effects audio are sound effects like breaking glass, car crashes, explosions.
vocal audio is just that, the dialog between characters.
streams MUX these together into a playable movie on the fly and is how it’s possible for them to use the same movie with different language dubs.
it’s completely in the realm of possibility for them to create a control to manage the volume of each of these layers before muxing. that would break their caching strategy though.
physical media like Bluray should be able to do it though. BD players never implemented such a feature that I am aware of.
You can record multiple channels, you already have left and right recorded separately. Other channels could exist for different things, it would just need a standard to follow to be useful
It’s called compression, and most players have it in the settings somewhere. Quick and dirty is to up the volume in vlc to like 120% and lower it in system.
Commercial: DO YOU OR A LOVED ONE HAVE MESOTHELIOMA!!!
Alot of it is… pretentiousness?
Like, there’s a lot of high-brow thinking in the movie industry where stuff is mixed for movie theaters. You know, theaters that have good surround speaker setups, but also turn the volume way too loud. It’s “as its meant to be experienced” if you ask the Hollywood producers. I think Netflix and more small-screen oriented producers are better about this, where even surround mixes are much more reasonable.
I’ve made similar experiences in movie theatres. And streaming services continuously disappoint on that front too.
#High Dynamic Range™
Watching a Christopher Nolan movie I see.
Or films from Spain. They whisper in a mumbled accent, then all of a sudden they start SCREAMING at each other.
¿que?
¡Mis oídos están muertos!
Exactly why I use subtitles.
Adjust the audio stream settings. It’s probably on 5.1 surround sound if you have this issue, and that means terrible audio on stereo speakers.
Sure, modern stereo mixes are still awful, but in a lot of cases, switching to an audio stream appropriate for your setup fixed a lot of ambiguity.
It is why I enable “Loudness Equalization” on every audio device in Windows.
It makes soft sounds louder and loud sounds softer.
Can’t stand it otherwise either.
You can get an audio compressor extension on most browsers too. It functions by reducing volume above a threshold and increasing overall output to compensate.
On the flip side, if a poor audio mixer overly does this to make their track sound louder, services such as YouTube penalize the volume of the entire audio track.
Human ears are more sensitive to certain sounds, so boosting certain frequencies can make something sound louder without necessarily increasing the overall amplitude of the sound waves (air pressure).
Sometimes there’s also a random high pitched buzz in the background that’s louder than anything else for one whole scene. How heard would it be to just remove that frequency range or maybe see that it is louder than every other scene?
Solve guy went to music school instead of law to add that in there. He’s keeping it in there if it’s the last thing he does
This could be because your TV sucks, or at least the audio, a lot of companies push for big Bass like would be in an explosion because it sells TVs which would be fine if they didn’t skimp on the highs and mids making speech suck.
Lol, no, it’s not because your TV sucks, but because almost none of us are watching on a 5.1 or higher channel system and the audio mix was never changed from their cinema release
Anything I watch in my TV that sounds awful sounds just fine out of my 5.1 PC because I suddenly have access to more channels where the audio is actually out (dialogue looooves to get mixed to center only for some reason)
This may be for some cases. But I’ve also had the exact same experience in the theater except I can’t change the volume. All the fun of not understanding mixed with the thrill of losing your hearing.
I’m pretty sure a lot of it is simply because that sort of mixing style is pretty fashionable at the moment. If you mix movies like they were mixed in the 90s and 2000’s (i.e. very clear and distinct dialog) then they don’t ‘sound’ modern.
Even in cinemas the mix is awful and almost inaudible half the time. Extreme example but I saw Tenet at the cinema and had to guess at half of the dialog because Christopher Nolan is especially and increasingly fond of this.
It’s not like the audio mix isn’t shit in theatres anyways.
Been there the hard way. I got Tubular Bells II, and listened to it via headphones (I had no speakers).
There is one passage where the music ends, and a child speaks. It was hard to understand, so I turned the volume to 11, and heard the end of the sentence like “and nothing was ever heard of him again but the sound of tu-bu-lar bells.” The next sound was the BANG of the tubular bells, making my eardrums meet somewhere in the middle. somewhere…
As someone who played EVE a lot back in the day, all I can hear is “get that interdictor!”
This is perfect lol. Now we need one for absurdly loud motorcycles ruining an evening’s cool.
Just run the audio through a dynamic range compressor. Then everything will be just as loud as the commercials.
TENET has entered the chat
For me Star Trek is one of the worst offenders of this.
Which series? All of them? Serious question.
Right now TNG. I’m re-watching it with my fiancé. The sound of the ship whooshing past is deafening.
It’s been a minute since I’ve seen the rest of the shows. So I don’t remember how good their mixing is.
Lol, I was actually thinking of using TNG as a positive example! Patrick Stewart is trained in Shakespearean drama and enunciates as such. Very pleasant to listen to.
The actual dialogue is good, I agree. But even the best talented actors in the world can’t undo the mixing of a space ship transmitting sound as if there is air while going faster than light.
My guess is the newest movie trilogy. Maybe the newest shows? Picard and/or that Netflix one? Discovery?
![Volume [Mr Lovenstein]](https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/579/944/976/646/219/original/e93a9a49d1ddc0df.png){kind=link}