"It's called dynamic range, you philistines!" quoth the audio engineer who hasn't consumed his own work on consumer-grade hardware since his early teens.

Mr. Lovenstein version

Nah, Christopher Nolan says it’s our fault that we don’t have IMAX theater setups at home.

Dynamic ads in podcasts are absolutely terrible for this.

I am driving along listening to a podcast, and suddenly the ads appear at 50% higher volume, with zero warning.

I wonder if you could sue a podcast provider for dammages if you are hard of hearing and need the podcast playing loud, and the ads come on and blow your speakers out...

I thought it was quite bad already in the EU but we at least have standards for it. I'm currently in the US and watching TV I have to turn on closed captions for everything because voices are just so damm silent, while Ads and stuff just blast your face off.

Yeah I can't hear the dialogue, but when those two characters kissed I could hear everything happening in their mouthes and that's what's really important.

Two characters kiss in deep space 9 and it sounds like a kiss irl. Two characters kiss in superman (2025) (or almost any modern media) and I'm listening to a 30+ second close-up of the actors trying to wetly suck the other's lips into their mouth. Why??

Can someone tell me why I'm an idiot: streaming services have access to the entire video you're about to watch. They know the max and the min volume of that video. Why is there no setting to shrink that range? Is it going to degrade the audio really bad and they don't want to be blamed?

This goes double for home theater software like Jellyfin, Kodi, and Plex. They have 10,000 customizations and settings, so why can't I define my own custom audio range in them?

Even if you can hear them, you'll still need captions because actors today mumble so much.

What you need is dynamic range compression. You can get a browser extension to apply it to everything you watch in a browser. VLC also has a setting for it, but I think they call it something else.

If you're using an app or a smart tv, then sucks to be you I guess.

It's not the broadcasters fault you don't have a 7.1 audio setup and they refuse to allow channel selection. That would involve remastering, dammit!

TRY OUR NEW ULTRA SOFT CHARMIN BATH TISSUE

Yes it’s dynamic range but the most common cause is listening to a source that’s been mixed for a centre vocal speaker.

It will play on a stereo (Left and right speakers only) but you will have very little vocals and lots of special fx.

This is also completely ignoring the us lack of lufs standards for advertising (apparent loudness.)

Not necessarily the end users fault. If the wrong audio source is selected/streamed then you are stuck. There are workarounds but no real solution

Fuck your dynamic range, it doesn't enhance the media what so ever.

enables loudness equalization

This is good for the source audio itself for complicated reasons, but why tf isn't stable sound more standardized?? It's just a compressor!! Just send the values for the compressor in the metadata!!

Breakaway audio volume leveler (if you're on a Windows device).

Same issue with white balance settings in cameras - the setting should be non-linear to give the same perceived change per step.

Very good explainer from Tom Scott.

https://youtu.be/Is_wu0VRIqQ

French dubs have intentionally higher speech volume

Do what you want with that info

What about video players with no volume control? Or video that starts off at 140dB SPL right off the bat with 250% THD as well?

DNR

Hadn't it happen to me in a while and the last week we watched KPop Demon Hunters and that was annoying. Holy shit it was so bad.

I listen to The Archers while driving sometimes. And it's annoying because some characters in it speak quietly and the others loudly so I cannot hear the quiet one over the engine

It's funny how for the mainstream things only get better and better for video, but audio gets the shaft. And I am guilty of this too. I am admittedly kind of a videophile but not an audiophile. Like I have decent headphones and I play FLAC music from my Jellyfin server, but if I am watching something on a TV that's only using TV speakers it doesn't bother me.

But the good audio setups are available, of course. So I also get that it would be a shame to master the audio to target crappy little TV and phone speakers. Maybe a range of good dynamic range compression settings needs to be standard on everything.

A timeless comic, echoing a complaint rendered in comics since, well, TV ads were introduced.

It's gotten worse wiþin shows, for sure. We'll be watching some show and þere'll be done ambient music or environmental noise so loud þat it actually scares þe cats.

WTF, audio mixers? Do you not know your jobs? Nobody needs þat shit.