5 ms·
Ask HN: Are YouTube ads allowed to be louder than the video they appear on?
From what I understand, at least on TV, commercials are legally not allowed to be louder than the show they appear on.
I really hate the inconsistency of volume/loudness on Youtube. I'll be watching a video then boom, 2 or 3 times louder, a commercial pops up. I constantly have to lower the volume during commercials and then have to increase again for the video.
Does the law for TV not apply to Youtube? Is YouTube not an MVPD?
For reference, the CALM Act is the law governing this:
https://www.fcc.gov/media/policy/loud-commercials
- FridayoLeary 5y agoWhy would you think the content of YouTube is governed by any laws?
- chirau 5y agoBecause they are actually an MVPD and those are governed by laws.
- aww_dang 5y agoThe 'm' key will mute videos and commercials.
- arufrrole 5y agowow, now i'm intrigued.
- thedevindevops 5y agoAs an ASMR fan I can tell you categorically that ads are never volume matched to their videos.
- chirau 5y agoI didn't know what ASMR is, I looked it up, found a video of Gentle Whispering ASMR about a haircut. Watched it, ended up in a nap, super relaxed. This is crazy. Thank you!
- yesenadam 5y agoMainly I'm wondering why you aren't using an ad blocker? I guess there's some good reason.. But I wouldn't watch youtube for one second if I had to see ads popping up during what I was watching. Your mind deserves better.
- jolmg 5y agoTo support channels is one reason.
- errantmind 5y agoYouTube rolls ads now on channels regardless of whether or not the channels are receiving a share of the revenue
- jolmg 5y agoHow does that work? Do the creators now just chose whether or not to receive money? Or is the option to be paid from ads just completely gone? For channels that were receiving money for the ads prior to the change, did Google just decide to not pay them anymore?
- chirau 5y agoTo support creators.
- yesenadam 5y agoOk, fair enough. But I don't think I want to support a creator who wants me to watch ads. Sorry, I'm sure this discussion has been had a million times..but if you want to support them, why not give them money directly, and..then you get to not spend some sizable fraction of your life watching ads. Your mind deserves better. But I don't know—personally, I loathe ads, maybe you like watching them.
- chirau 5y ago
- zinekeller 5y agoTLDR: Ads do follow the limits - precisely. Long answer: most YouTubers are not properly mixing their audio so that it'll hit -14 LKFS (which is the de facto target loudness for online content. Most movies and television shows are de jure targeted to -24 LKFS/-23 LUFS. LKFS and LUFS are perceptual volume measurement scales, LKFS being predominant in America/SMTPE while LUFS are predominant in Europe/EBU.), either due to being intentional (ASMR content) or not knowing how to do it. On the other hand, most advertisers have the backing of professional mixers, and they will hit -14 LKFS constantly, period. Note that Youtube has a loudness normaliser - but only for videos that is significantly louder than -14 LKFS (you wouldn't want ASMR content to be NASMR). This is only done so that poor speakers won't be blown up and not get the ire of EU et al. due to popped ears.
- chirau 5y agoInteresting. But would it not be the onus of Youtube to determine this LKFS for videos and normalize the loudness of whatever ad they are showing in-stream to that loudness? I am not a sound guy, but i'd think if an ad is recorded at higher loudness, it can still be presented at lower loudness, no? I may be wrong, looking to learn.
- zinekeller 5y agoFair point, well unfortunately that question needs to be answered by YouTube.
- karmakaze 5y agoWhat is LKFS aka LUFS? Seems equivalent to dB. Couldn't find any info on weightings or perceptual models of loudness.
- zinekeller 5y agoSorry that this is a little late, and unfortunately most of these resources are paywalled. However, K-weight basically normalises the volume by frequency so that for a given LKFS (for example) 1,000 Hz tone, 100 Hz tone and 10,000 Hz tone sounds similarly loud perceptually (while if we set them to similar dB instead, 1,000 Hz is perceptually louder than 100 and 10,000 Hz tones). Of course, being perceptual, it's more accurate to say that it's what an average person would perceive so it can be off for some people (but like with colour this is a rabbithole of topic).
- potamic 5y agoThis is a huge problem in advertising. I don't know if there are any regulations in my country but this practice is rampant. It's unbelievably annoying and when you're watching something like a cricket match that plays all day with an ad break every 5 minutes, it can make you go insane. It's practices like these why I carry no qualms in using ad blockers or consuming pirated content. (Hey, I've already paid for a subscription, shouldn't matter where I watch it, right?). I for one, am absolutely outraged at content producers pushing down dark patterns and attempting to exploit me to the maximum every minute of our interaction.
- vagrantJin 5y agoI suppose advertisers and youchube think we'll buy more stuff if they scream "Your customers want...with twilio...sign up today" at 100 decibels. No Twilio.