4 ms·

The Apple TV has a setting called "reduce loud sounds" which helps with this problem. I'm sure you can find it on other devices too. My Sony TV also has a sound

by least 4y ago

The Apple TV has a setting called "reduce loud sounds" which helps with this problem. I'm sure you can find it on other devices too. My Sony TV also has a sound setting for enhanced dialogue which might help as well. Can't really help with the actors thing, though I think I'd rather characters that are truer to life than sound like they're acting on stage, personally.

bhj 4y ago
> The Apple TV has a setting called "reduce loud sounds" This does help, but at some point Apple increased the compressor’s release time so that it’s far too quiet even 10-15s after the loud transient. I wish they would make it behave more like a brickwall limiter.
- nicolas_t 4y ago
  I had noticed that it had changed but wasn't sure what exactly the change was. Yes, far too quiet 10-15s after the loud transient is exactly why I ended up having to disable it. Before that it worked perfectly and better than my Denon receiver :(
- ace2358 4y ago
  I’ve definitely noticed this change but couldn’t pick when exactly it happened. Super annoying because sometimes I start changing the volume then it starts changing the volume…
adastra22 4y ago
Cheap hack for most setups is to boost the center speaker. Usually that’s just used for dialogue.
ryandrake 4y ago
> I think I'd rather characters that are truer to life than sound like they're acting on stage, personally. You can have both though. A great example is Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation. He’s never mumbled a line in his life and you can understand everything he says during quiet dialog. You can be true to life, quiet AND understandable.
- kirbys-memeteam 4y ago
- vel0city 4y ago
  > He’s never mumbled a line in his life and you can understand everything he says during quiet dialog. You can be true to life, quiet AND understandable. Its almost all about projection. You can come across as a "quiet" speaker and still manage to be heard when you're projecting and enunciating properly. Projecting isn't about being loud, its about being heard. I have a tendency to mumble a lot when I'm not thinking about it. Thinking about projecting my voice brings things across better, and its not really all about being louder.
- least 4y ago
  Jean-Luc Picard is quite intelligible even when he is soft spoken like you said. There's quite a few reasons for this. One is obvious. Patrick Stewart is a shakespearean actor so he learned how to speak in such a way. The other thing is his accent. It's an accent that lends itself well to intelligibility. Pidgin or Mountain talk or bayou certainly do not if you want something credible or authentic, for example. Thirdly, the character Jean-Luc Picard is one who has always carried himself properly and with dignity, so a voice that is loud and properly enunciated matches him perfectly. I think that you can have both, but you can't always have both. Because it doesn't always make sense to.
- zh3 4y ago
  I recall an episode where it's all going to hell due to the holodeck, and Picard asks what happened. Geordie, I think, explains they asked the holodeck to create a character that could outsmart Data...at which point Picard lowers his head into his hands and mumbles "Merde!" (pretty clear, despite the mumble).
- marginalia_nu 4y ago
  I do think Stewart's stage training shines through quite a lot. He does dial it back, but his performance is hardly realistic. (I'd also note how important recurring locations are even set up like a stage -- open with a clear unobstructed focus point for action to happen in; the bridge, ten forward and engineering especially notable). On the other hand, I'm not sure what hyper-realism would contribute to something like Star Trek. The show confidently embraces the fact that it's basically a bunch of fairy tales for nerds. That's what allows it to be as great as it is. Not everything needs to be The Wire (even though that was great too, if you enabled subtitles).
ekianjo 4y ago
so you have people in real life that emit slurred intelligible sounds instead of speaking properly? that sounds terrible.
- least 4y ago
  I'm one of those people that mumble and/or struggle with speaking in real life, so I'm probably placing that burden more on other people than the other way around. I just find that stage acting sounds very unnatural. So do news anchors and you will find the same sort of unnatural voice in older classic films. No one talks like that in real life so of course it's something that is going to detach the tv show or movie I'm watching from reality if they speak like that. Does that make it impossible for me to enjoy the classics? No, but they pretty much never pull me into the story in a way that makes me forget for a second that they're actors doing a performance.
  - b112 4y ago
    When you are sitting at home, with perhaps a friend on your couch, do they constantly say "What?" Or, if standing with a few people you know outside, is every sentence you speak replied to with a request to repeat yourself? I bet not. Maybe it happens sometimes, but my point is, being able to understand what someone says, regardless of how they say it, is the key part here. Yet it sounds as if you believe most people are barely understandable? Including yourself? And for example, listening to much of the dialog out there, the Picard reference. The guy is in command of the flagship of a fleet, in the military, and would not be in command, in that position, if there was any inability to clearly issue orders, and to communicate fluently. Beyond that, many of the characters we watch in media, are top tier of their professions, even if that profession is 'thief'. A CEO? An ex-world class military retiree? Someone working in upper management of the NSA? These people will be heard. There are indeed roles featuring the "regular person", but if you mumble, if you define your speach style as mumbling, that means you employ the word "mumble" to differentiate you, from how most people speak. Otherwise you wouldn't be mumbling, you'd just be speakkng. So that all said, I think your assertion is unfair.
    - 4y ago
Too 4y ago
That option actually works great for resurrecting the speech in a movie, but makes all the music utterly flat and boring. With this option on you might as well throw out your expensive speaker setup and use the built in TV speaker. If only there was a hotkey to toggle it on and off, instead of hidden 4 levels down the touch-and-swipe menu.
- bhj 4y ago
  Even better would be for the compressor/limiter to detect whether the source is music, dialogue or explosion and adjust its parameters accordingly. Come on Apple, make it smarter!
  - saalweachter 4y ago
    Or movies could have separate audio tracks and volume sliders for dialog, sound effects and music, like a game from the year 2000.

by least 4y ago

bhj 4y ago

> The Apple TV has a setting called "reduce loud sounds" This does help, but at some point Apple increased the compressor’s release time so that it’s far too quiet even 10-15s after the loud transient. I wish they would make it behave more like a brickwall limiter.

nicolas_t 4y ago
I had noticed that it had changed but wasn't sure what exactly the change was. Yes, far too quiet 10-15s after the loud transient is exactly why I ended up having to disable it. Before that it worked perfectly and better than my Denon receiver :(
ace2358 4y ago
I’ve definitely noticed this change but couldn’t pick when exactly it happened. Super annoying because sometimes I start changing the volume then it starts changing the volume…

adastra22 4y ago

Cheap hack for most setups is to boost the center speaker. Usually that’s just used for dialogue.

ryandrake 4y ago

> I think I'd rather characters that are truer to life than sound like they're acting on stage, personally. You can have both though. A great example is Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation. He’s never mumbled a line in his life and you can understand everything he says during quiet dialog. You can be true to life, quiet AND understandable.

kirbys-memeteam 4y ago
vel0city 4y ago
> He’s never mumbled a line in his life and you can understand everything he says during quiet dialog. You can be true to life, quiet AND understandable. Its almost all about projection. You can come across as a "quiet" speaker and still manage to be heard when you're projecting and enunciating properly. Projecting isn't about being loud, its about being heard. I have a tendency to mumble a lot when I'm not thinking about it. Thinking about projecting my voice brings things across better, and its not really all about being louder.
least 4y ago
Jean-Luc Picard is quite intelligible even when he is soft spoken like you said. There's quite a few reasons for this. One is obvious. Patrick Stewart is a shakespearean actor so he learned how to speak in such a way. The other thing is his accent. It's an accent that lends itself well to intelligibility. Pidgin or Mountain talk or bayou certainly do not if you want something credible or authentic, for example. Thirdly, the character Jean-Luc Picard is one who has always carried himself properly and with dignity, so a voice that is loud and properly enunciated matches him perfectly. I think that you can have both, but you can't always have both. Because it doesn't always make sense to.
zh3 4y ago
I recall an episode where it's all going to hell due to the holodeck, and Picard asks what happened. Geordie, I think, explains they asked the holodeck to create a character that could outsmart Data...at which point Picard lowers his head into his hands and mumbles "Merde!" (pretty clear, despite the mumble).
marginalia_nu 4y ago
I do think Stewart's stage training shines through quite a lot. He does dial it back, but his performance is hardly realistic. (I'd also note how important recurring locations are even set up like a stage -- open with a clear unobstructed focus point for action to happen in; the bridge, ten forward and engineering especially notable). On the other hand, I'm not sure what hyper-realism would contribute to something like Star Trek. The show confidently embraces the fact that it's basically a bunch of fairy tales for nerds. That's what allows it to be as great as it is. Not everything needs to be The Wire (even though that was great too, if you enabled subtitles).

ekianjo 4y ago

so you have people in real life that emit slurred intelligible sounds instead of speaking properly? that sounds terrible.

least 4y ago
I'm one of those people that mumble and/or struggle with speaking in real life, so I'm probably placing that burden more on other people than the other way around. I just find that stage acting sounds very unnatural. So do news anchors and you will find the same sort of unnatural voice in older classic films. No one talks like that in real life so of course it's something that is going to detach the tv show or movie I'm watching from reality if they speak like that. Does that make it impossible for me to enjoy the classics? No, but they pretty much never pull me into the story in a way that makes me forget for a second that they're actors doing a performance.
- b112 4y ago
  When you are sitting at home, with perhaps a friend on your couch, do they constantly say "What?" Or, if standing with a few people you know outside, is every sentence you speak replied to with a request to repeat yourself? I bet not. Maybe it happens sometimes, but my point is, being able to understand what someone says, regardless of how they say it, is the key part here. Yet it sounds as if you believe most people are barely understandable? Including yourself? And for example, listening to much of the dialog out there, the Picard reference. The guy is in command of the flagship of a fleet, in the military, and would not be in command, in that position, if there was any inability to clearly issue orders, and to communicate fluently. Beyond that, many of the characters we watch in media, are top tier of their professions, even if that profession is 'thief'. A CEO? An ex-world class military retiree? Someone working in upper management of the NSA? These people will be heard. There are indeed roles featuring the "regular person", but if you mumble, if you define your speach style as mumbling, that means you employ the word "mumble" to differentiate you, from how most people speak. Otherwise you wouldn't be mumbling, you'd just be speakkng. So that all said, I think your assertion is unfair.
  - 4y ago

Too 4y ago

That option actually works great for resurrecting the speech in a movie, but makes all the music utterly flat and boring. With this option on you might as well throw out your expensive speaker setup and use the built in TV speaker. If only there was a hotkey to toggle it on and off, instead of hidden 4 levels down the touch-and-swipe menu.

bhj 4y ago
Even better would be for the compressor/limiter to detect whether the source is music, dialogue or explosion and adjust its parameters accordingly. Come on Apple, make it smarter!
- saalweachter 4y ago
  Or movies could have separate audio tracks and volume sliders for dialog, sound effects and music, like a game from the year 2000.