7 ms·

I totally agree. The sound mixes today are so far off a pleasant experience that the people who do make them should feel ashamed - How do many actually have a

I totally agree. The sound mixes today are so far off a pleasant experience that the people who do make them should feel ashamed - How do many actually have a home cinema room with soundproofing and 20 speakers ? Most people watch movies with a headset / a TV / 2.1 / 5.1 surround system and they may even be limited by other factors like neighbours and you know real life.. And the the voice levels is obnoxiously low and way (negatively) beyond what i would call a good experience.

boltzmann-brain 4y ago
The slurred dialog is obnoxious and a sign of laziness on everyone's part. The miking, the post processing, the overdubbing (if there's any at all - recent film makers don't seem to know that this is a thing). The actor's speech pattern, where they direct their speech while acting, even how they stand and where. The choice of location and additional preparation of the stage so the speech can be picked up clearly. It's not your hearing, it's the mix. Source: I'm a mastering engineer with a monitoring setup worth six figures and I use closed captions too. Speakers in TVs used to be tailored to making speech intelligible. Nowadays it's... well whatever it is, it's not really meant to do anything. Not even the more high-end popular speaker systems are meant to do anything at all, really. They all just kinda sorta make whatever is coming out of them sound flashy and whooshy. That's another reason why movies are even more difficult to understand. And let's be honest - a lot of it nowadays is just not _worth_ hearing... Staple tv shows form the 70s that fell into obscurity for being extremely pedestrian had better writing than nearly all big-budget movies nowadays. I remember when Pig came out recently, it was the only good movie during a span of maybe 3 months. That's how dire it is nowadays. Edit: oh, and I forgot about the ubiquitous 5.1-to-stereo downmixing bug: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32883588 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32883588
- UpstandingUser 4y ago
  > Pig ...was terrible, I wanted more screentime with that adorable pig...sorry Nic, you're in the shadow of a real star...
  - hedora 4y ago
    I really want to see it. I have decided it is the sequel to Color Out of Space, which was, by far, the best alpaca-themed rendition of an HP Lovecraft story at the time. Also, the audio mix didn't really get in the way of that one for me. (It probably still is the best, but I'd love to be corrected.)
  - sph 4y ago
    Eh, I've seen worse films from him, and worse acclaimed films this past couple years. In fact, 2 of the 6 movies I've watched the past couple years have been with Nicholas Cage, and I'm not even a fan of his. I don't know if it's just me but cinema has become really shit, unless you're into superhero movies. It's like nothing matters any more to executives and moviegoers of all ages than superheroes. Are we living in Idiocracy?
    - tinus_hn 4y ago
      No, we’re living in a world where piracy and exploded budgets mean every movie needs to be a hit. One flop and the studio is gone. So the studios produce movies that are certain to be not flops, like the endless sequels, and that will draw people to cinemas where there is no piracy, which means impressive spectacles with explosions.
      - tpxl 4y ago
        I'm sorry but piracy is not to blame for a 100 million movie budget. I live in a small country and we're able to produce very enjoyable films for far less than 10 million.
        boltzmann-brain 4y ago
        Pig is a great example because it essentially could have been a student project. The only thing you really needed was one good main actor, and who's to say a student of art couldn't have done a good job just as well. The location shots, the various scenes are all ultra low budget.
      - 4y ago
- nogridbag 4y ago
  Would a soundbar help the situation or make it worse? With two kids 90% of the time I'm watching kids movies but I still turn on the closed captions. Any background noise and it's nearly impossible to hear the dialogue without cranking up the volume to an undesirable level.
  - lostlogin 4y ago
    Many devices have a night mode to help keep the range of volumes small. The Sonos one is perfect for my use case. It changed my evening life when I found this.
    - aidenn0 4y ago
      I wish my Denon AVR had a usable night mode. Instead it has a setting called "dynamic volume" that makes it so all dialog right after an explosion is inaudible...
      - lostlogin 4y ago
        Unhelpful but probably accurate.
      - brokenmachine 4y ago
        I believe what you'd call night mode is called "Dynamic EQ" on the Denons. This basically adds more bass and treble as you lower the volume, due to the way the ear works - the Fletcher Munson curve. This still won't help with the terrible excess dynamic range that current movies insist on doing though. You'll still have to adjust the volume all the time, but it will make things sound much better at lower volumes.
  - vel0city 4y ago
    I don't know your current setup, but I'd highly recommend external speakers with most modern TVs. Back in the day with CRTs and projection screens, the TV would be pretty big regardless. They didn't have to worry about bundling in some nice speakers with a TV, because hey the TV is going to be quite large and that cavity can be a nice resonance chamber if done right. Now, all TVs need to be super thin which can be a nice thing don't get me wrong. But their packaging means their speakers are often very compromised. Sure, they're OK in a pinch, but even a cheap sound bar will often out perform most TV's built in speakers. So unless you're using the TV in a space where you just don't care about the sound quality, you'll get a lot out from having at least a sound bar or some other external speaker setup.
- hydrogen7800 4y ago
  Good to know this isn't just my ears or my setup. This was most noticeable to me recently in Dune. So much whispering dialogue, with massive dynamic range and BRAAAM [0]. Using night mode on my receiver and cranking the center channel to +10dB works pretty well for me, though. [0] https://longreads.com/2016/12/08/braaam-inception-hollywood-soundtracks/ https://longreads.com/2016/12/08/braaam-inception-hollywood-...
  - iamacyborg 4y ago
    Dune sounds great on my 2.0 system at home (low mid-range receiver and ~$200 yamaha floorstanders). Sicario too, from the same director, I generally think he does a fantastic job with audio mixes. Strange that article doesn’t talk about the tripod noise from the ‘05 War of the Worlds. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jzY099ihULs https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jzY099ihULs
    - boltzmann-brain 4y ago
      The '05 tripod noises are meant to sound like V1 bomb scare-sounds, which is originally made to sound like mythical Horns of Jericho: https://www.factmag.com/2016/10/09/sound-fear-room40-boss-lawrence-english-history-noise-weapon/ https://www.factmag.com/2016/10/09/sound-fear-room40-boss-la... Listen to the V1 bomb sound in the clip on that page - there's no surprise they're being referred to in following works of fiction.
      - iamacyborg 4y ago
        Huh, that’s neat. You can definitely see the influence of that sound then following on into Inception which seemed to really popularise it.
        boltzmann-brain 4y ago
        It's always been around. In fact it's been very popular in games like the Modern Warfare series, which have major popular appeal.
- spaceman_2020 4y ago
  A little off topic but it’s really surprising how so few of the shows and movies these days give off any vibe of sincerity. From the acting to the writing to the CGI, everything seems to be winking at the audience and trying to tell them that they are all actors and its all make believe. The perfect example is Lord of the Rings vs The Rings of Power. I had no problems believing that Aragorn really lived in Middle Earth. But every single actor in Rings of Power feels like…an actor - just someone playing a part. Maybe its the overuse of bad CGI, but so few of the worlds feel “lived in”.
  - itronitron 4y ago
    A lot of the new 4K TVs by default have some 'video enhancement' processing steps turned on by default which ends up making everything look fake. If you go into the TV settings and turn all of those things off it should make the world look more natural.
    - boltzmann-brain 4y ago
      this processing can create desync issues where the audio is in front of the video by just a bit. this creates a lip sync issue which makes people feel the audio is dubbed over and can tear you out of suspense of disbelief. but i don't think that's what they mean here. rings is just bad acting - or rather, bad direction that forces bad acting. i have no doubt the actors are capable of much more than what they're being confined to.
      - brokenmachine 4y ago
        I think OP was talking about frame interpolation aka "soap opera effect", which is both horrible and enabled-by-default on most large TVs nowadays.
    - itronitron 4y ago
      Prior HN discussion on the 'soap opera effect' I'm referring to >> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10613575 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10613575
Aaargh20318 4y ago
> The sound mixes today are so far off a pleasant experience that the people who do make them should feel ashamed - How do many actually have a home cinema room with soundproofing and 20 speakers ? Also, digital camera manufacturers should be feel ashamed for cameras providing photos that don't even fit on my monitor. My 24MP Sony camera outputs photo's at 6000x4000 pixel resolution! Who the hell has a monitor that big ? I can only see a small part of the photo at one time. Oh way, no, that's absolutely crazy. Because maybe some people do have a monitor that high-res, or maybe they want to print it or edit it or.., or... And guess what, there is no need to have the photos be smaller to display them, you can simply use a viewer that scales them to fit on your display. There is absolutely no need to throw away that extra information and you might want it in the future. Same goes for audio in a movie. If it doesn't fit the dynamic range suitable for your setup, then scale it to whatever you need it to be. You may not have a setup to enjoy that, but others might, and they shouldn't have to deal with sub-par mixes because other people don't know how to configure their playback equipment.

boltzmann-brain 4y ago

The slurred dialog is obnoxious and a sign of laziness on everyone's part. The miking, the post processing, the overdubbing (if there's any at all - recent film makers don't seem to know that this is a thing). The actor's speech pattern, where they direct their speech while acting, even how they stand and where. The choice of location and additional preparation of the stage so the speech can be picked up clearly. It's not your hearing, it's the mix. Source: I'm a mastering engineer with a monitoring setup worth six figures and I use closed captions too. Speakers in TVs used to be tailored to making speech intelligible. Nowadays it's... well whatever it is, it's not really meant to do anything. Not even the more high-end popular speaker systems are meant to do anything at all, really. They all just kinda sorta make whatever is coming out of them sound flashy and whooshy. That's another reason why movies are even more difficult to understand. And let's be honest - a lot of it nowadays is just not _worth_ hearing... Staple tv shows form the 70s that fell into obscurity for being extremely pedestrian had better writing than nearly all big-budget movies nowadays. I remember when Pig came out recently, it was the only good movie during a span of maybe 3 months. That's how dire it is nowadays. Edit: oh, and I forgot about the ubiquitous 5.1-to-stereo downmixing bug: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32883588 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32883588

UpstandingUser 4y ago
> Pig ...was terrible, I wanted more screentime with that adorable pig...sorry Nic, you're in the shadow of a real star...
- hedora 4y ago
  I really want to see it. I have decided it is the sequel to Color Out of Space, which was, by far, the best alpaca-themed rendition of an HP Lovecraft story at the time. Also, the audio mix didn't really get in the way of that one for me. (It probably still is the best, but I'd love to be corrected.)
- sph 4y ago
  Eh, I've seen worse films from him, and worse acclaimed films this past couple years. In fact, 2 of the 6 movies I've watched the past couple years have been with Nicholas Cage, and I'm not even a fan of his. I don't know if it's just me but cinema has become really shit, unless you're into superhero movies. It's like nothing matters any more to executives and moviegoers of all ages than superheroes. Are we living in Idiocracy?
  - tinus_hn 4y ago
    No, we’re living in a world where piracy and exploded budgets mean every movie needs to be a hit. One flop and the studio is gone. So the studios produce movies that are certain to be not flops, like the endless sequels, and that will draw people to cinemas where there is no piracy, which means impressive spectacles with explosions.
    - tpxl 4y ago
      I'm sorry but piracy is not to blame for a 100 million movie budget. I live in a small country and we're able to produce very enjoyable films for far less than 10 million.
      - boltzmann-brain 4y ago
        Pig is a great example because it essentially could have been a student project. The only thing you really needed was one good main actor, and who's to say a student of art couldn't have done a good job just as well. The location shots, the various scenes are all ultra low budget.
    - 4y ago
nogridbag 4y ago
Would a soundbar help the situation or make it worse? With two kids 90% of the time I'm watching kids movies but I still turn on the closed captions. Any background noise and it's nearly impossible to hear the dialogue without cranking up the volume to an undesirable level.
- lostlogin 4y ago
  Many devices have a night mode to help keep the range of volumes small. The Sonos one is perfect for my use case. It changed my evening life when I found this.
  - aidenn0 4y ago
    I wish my Denon AVR had a usable night mode. Instead it has a setting called "dynamic volume" that makes it so all dialog right after an explosion is inaudible...
    - lostlogin 4y ago
      Unhelpful but probably accurate.
    - brokenmachine 4y ago
      I believe what you'd call night mode is called "Dynamic EQ" on the Denons. This basically adds more bass and treble as you lower the volume, due to the way the ear works - the Fletcher Munson curve. This still won't help with the terrible excess dynamic range that current movies insist on doing though. You'll still have to adjust the volume all the time, but it will make things sound much better at lower volumes.
- vel0city 4y ago
  I don't know your current setup, but I'd highly recommend external speakers with most modern TVs. Back in the day with CRTs and projection screens, the TV would be pretty big regardless. They didn't have to worry about bundling in some nice speakers with a TV, because hey the TV is going to be quite large and that cavity can be a nice resonance chamber if done right. Now, all TVs need to be super thin which can be a nice thing don't get me wrong. But their packaging means their speakers are often very compromised. Sure, they're OK in a pinch, but even a cheap sound bar will often out perform most TV's built in speakers. So unless you're using the TV in a space where you just don't care about the sound quality, you'll get a lot out from having at least a sound bar or some other external speaker setup.
hydrogen7800 4y ago
Good to know this isn't just my ears or my setup. This was most noticeable to me recently in Dune. So much whispering dialogue, with massive dynamic range and BRAAAM [0]. Using night mode on my receiver and cranking the center channel to +10dB works pretty well for me, though. [0] https://longreads.com/2016/12/08/braaam-inception-hollywood-soundtracks/ https://longreads.com/2016/12/08/braaam-inception-hollywood-...
- iamacyborg 4y ago
  Dune sounds great on my 2.0 system at home (low mid-range receiver and ~$200 yamaha floorstanders). Sicario too, from the same director, I generally think he does a fantastic job with audio mixes. Strange that article doesn’t talk about the tripod noise from the ‘05 War of the Worlds. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jzY099ihULs https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jzY099ihULs
  - boltzmann-brain 4y ago
    The '05 tripod noises are meant to sound like V1 bomb scare-sounds, which is originally made to sound like mythical Horns of Jericho: https://www.factmag.com/2016/10/09/sound-fear-room40-boss-lawrence-english-history-noise-weapon/ https://www.factmag.com/2016/10/09/sound-fear-room40-boss-la... Listen to the V1 bomb sound in the clip on that page - there's no surprise they're being referred to in following works of fiction.
    - iamacyborg 4y ago
      Huh, that’s neat. You can definitely see the influence of that sound then following on into Inception which seemed to really popularise it.
      - boltzmann-brain 4y ago
        It's always been around. In fact it's been very popular in games like the Modern Warfare series, which have major popular appeal.
spaceman_2020 4y ago
A little off topic but it’s really surprising how so few of the shows and movies these days give off any vibe of sincerity. From the acting to the writing to the CGI, everything seems to be winking at the audience and trying to tell them that they are all actors and its all make believe. The perfect example is Lord of the Rings vs The Rings of Power. I had no problems believing that Aragorn really lived in Middle Earth. But every single actor in Rings of Power feels like…an actor - just someone playing a part. Maybe its the overuse of bad CGI, but so few of the worlds feel “lived in”.
- itronitron 4y ago
  A lot of the new 4K TVs by default have some 'video enhancement' processing steps turned on by default which ends up making everything look fake. If you go into the TV settings and turn all of those things off it should make the world look more natural.
  - boltzmann-brain 4y ago
    this processing can create desync issues where the audio is in front of the video by just a bit. this creates a lip sync issue which makes people feel the audio is dubbed over and can tear you out of suspense of disbelief. but i don't think that's what they mean here. rings is just bad acting - or rather, bad direction that forces bad acting. i have no doubt the actors are capable of much more than what they're being confined to.
    - brokenmachine 4y ago
      I think OP was talking about frame interpolation aka "soap opera effect", which is both horrible and enabled-by-default on most large TVs nowadays.
  - itronitron 4y ago
    Prior HN discussion on the 'soap opera effect' I'm referring to >> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10613575 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10613575

Aaargh20318 4y ago

> The sound mixes today are so far off a pleasant experience that the people who do make them should feel ashamed - How do many actually have a home cinema room with soundproofing and 20 speakers ? Also, digital camera manufacturers should be feel ashamed for cameras providing photos that don't even fit on my monitor. My 24MP Sony camera outputs photo's at 6000x4000 pixel resolution! Who the hell has a monitor that big ? I can only see a small part of the photo at one time. Oh way, no, that's absolutely crazy. Because maybe some people do have a monitor that high-res, or maybe they want to print it or edit it or.., or... And guess what, there is no need to have the photos be smaller to display them, you can simply use a viewer that scales them to fit on your display. There is absolutely no need to throw away that extra information and you might want it in the future. Same goes for audio in a movie. If it doesn't fit the dynamic range suitable for your setup, then scale it to whatever you need it to be. You may not have a setup to enjoy that, but others might, and they shouldn't have to deal with sub-par mixes because other people don't know how to configure their playback equipment.