this post was submitted on 18 Dec 2023
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Secret i learned on my raspberry pi running stereo speakers on Kodi is you can set a seperate volume for the dialogue channel so i just bumped it up like 14 decibels and now it matches the action fairly well. You can set it from the audio settings inside the movie and its called something like center channel downmix i cant remember exactly
Center channel downmix boost or something is the name. Iirc the phenomenon with quiet dialogue is due to most streaming content being delivered with surround audio. The shitty cheap video players used by the streaming services will do a cheap flat downmix to stereo which results in the center channel being too low when split into two mono channels for playback on stereo speakers compared to if it would be played on a dedicated center speaker. This is due to maths or something.
Back in the day dvd and even vhs movies had proper stereo mixes where the center channel would be boosted to audible levels.
Tl;dr: just pirate shit and use a proper video player instead of the cheapass players used by netflix, disney, etc.
That's why subtitles became so popular in the recent times
Yeah it's bad... It's gotten to the point that I have unironically said "Wait! Where are my subtitles? I can't hear without my subtitles!"
You said that watching a video or in a real life conversation?
yes
As a HoH person I secretly love this trend and hope it never dies
Haha, I'm glad somebody can benefit
Christopher Nolan
BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH
The problem is that he masters his audio to top of the line theaters, so it sounds muddy on anything other than that. Very snobby.
I've read his sound mix is shit on top of the line IMAX too. Plenty of complaints since the days of The Dark Knight, He is just high on his own supply and can't admit that he is shit at sound mixing dialogue. That or some contractor lied to him when they built whatever he mixes on.
I genuinely think he's suffered hearing damage at some point during The Dark Knight Rises, and can no longer tell.
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Me and dad saw Oppenheimer in the cinema, the sound was almost unbearable at times...
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no , it's just that almost all streaming services think you have dolby atmos surround sound
I have it, still need subtitles because mumbling is cool yo
Classic schooled actors with theater experience are being replaced by young actors using basic conversational speech and volume. More natural but not that easy to understand.
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Atmos won't save you from shitty sound mixes, I have a pretty nice speaker setup and still have to turn on captions if I want to hear a conversation without my neighbors calling the cops during the next action sequence.
Not just that, they assume you have an IMAX Dolby system installed in your theater sized living room, that everyone obviously has. Bad mixes are inexcusable and sound mixing snobbism is a symptom of the pompous pretentiousness that is the rotten core of Hollywood. Yes, Hollywood, most foreign films with DTS have perfectly good and serviceable mixes that sound nice in both Stereo and Surround..
I do.
I still have subs on.
I hate it.
Windows has a great feature called Loudness Equalization, which you can enable on about every sound device in the properties.
It lowers the volume on loud sounds and increases on soft sounds.
Hell yeah PREACH brotha!
My partner and I use it for watching ANYTHING. Turn it off for music and games, and on for any possible watching thing. It’s MAGIC.
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I already fucking struggle with understanding English since it's my second language, and with this new shit sound, it's now fucking worse. I used to be able to do without subtitles most of the time, but now I can't watch shit without it.
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Ok it can't just be me. It feels like at a certain point sound levels got messed up. When I watch older stuff it's fine the new stuff I feel like I am skipping backwards to catch what they said.
This has driven me crazy for a long time too. It really feels like this picture and takes something away from any enjoyment.
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Every damn time! As someone who is not a video editor or sound engineer, isn’t it pretty easy to equalize all the sound?
On Windows, right click the sound icon, go into sound options, playback, double click on your default playback device, and go to the Enhancements tab.
LOUDNESS EQUALIZATION
is fucking awesome and more people should be aware of it. It’s baked into Windows 10!
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This should be illegal. I'm so tired of having to turn the TV up to hear the dialogue and then all the sudden the loudest noise you ever heard in your life. Then you turn it down .. But here's the next dialogue where you have to turn it back up again.
It really ruins the experience for me personally
This is why I turn on the audio normalization on my TV. It makes the explosions sound super weird but it's impossible to watch movies with kids sleeping otherwise. The mixing is so bad.
The mixing isn't for your home. Which it obviously should be.
Watching TV is also shit. When an ad break comes, I have to mute the sound or turn down the volume, regardless of normalization. That should be illegal in my opinion but it's the status quo.
That's why I love Star Trek. I never have trouble understanding dialogue.
Older TV shows generally have a more even audio mix, because they were mixed for clear dialogue on TV speakers. Nowadays even TV shows have movie theater mixes, despite the fact that no one will ever see these shows in the cinema. I think TV execs just assume way more people have a Dolby Atmos system in their living room than they do in reality. It's pretty stupid.
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I personally like high dynamic range. Most receivers, and I'm guessing most smart TVs, have some form of dynamic range compression if you don't. Bad quality, "realistic" voice recordings are a different issue. Having a center channel speaker also helps a lot.
Most TVs seem to default to playing the surround audio track, which is a terrible idea when you only have stereo speakers, but I guess the TVs do it in case you decide to hook up a multi speaker system mid movie?? Choosing the down mixed stereo audio instead, makes for a much better experience for most people.
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I am on a gnu+linux (it's an operating system like windows or iOS) and I use the pulseeffects app it has all sorts of soundeffects that you can use on your audio.
I just use the compressor to even out the volume throughout. Especially useful on youtube.
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I have tinnitus and I have a hard time hearing low volume audio .... so yes subtitles are a requirement now.
The funny part to that is if I decide to watch some dumb action flick ... I set the sound for the explosions and I really don't care if I can hear the dialogue because I know it will be stupid
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Yeah I have ‘em on by default now
Someone in my family calls this "whispering explosions" which I'm pretty sure comes from something, not sure what
There are ways around that, for example I watch my Plex server on an Apple TV and there is an option that will reduce loud sounds so I can hear dialogue without being blasted away at other parts
me trying to hear dialogue in Half-Life mods with shit audio mixing, while guns are super loud.
Oh god yeah. Some early video games are fucking horrendous for this. Thank GOD that it's almost essentially now to have sliders for individual tracks. Always end up lowering the music to 75, the sound effects to 85-90 and the dialogue stays at 100.
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