10 ms·

The fact that I have to turn on closed captioning to understand anything tells me these producers have no idea what we want and shouldn’t be telling us what set

by pupppet 10mo ago

The fact that I have to turn on closed captioning to understand anything tells me these producers have no idea what we want and shouldn’t be telling us what settings to use.

retrac 10mo ago
Perhaps a mixing issue on your end? Multi-channel audio has the dialog track separated. So you can increase the volume of the dialog if you want. Unfortunately I think there is variability in hardware (and software players) in how to down-mix, which sometimes results in background music in the surround channels drowning out the dialog in the centre channel.
- josephg 10mo ago
  Is there a way to do this in vlc? I run into this problem constantly - especially when 5.1 audio gets down mixed to my stereo setup.
- mikepurvis 10mo ago
  It's reasonable for the 5.1 mix to have louder atmosphere and be more dependent on directionality for the viewer to pick the dialog out of the center channel. However, all media should also be supplying a stereo mix where the dialog is appropriately boosted.
  - CoffeeOnWrite 10mo ago
    My PS4 Slim was not capable of this at the device level. An individual app could choose to expose the choice of audio format, but many do not :(
- ludicrousdispla 10mo ago
  It's an issue even in theaters and is the main reason I prefer to watch new releases at home on DVD (Dune I saw in the theater, Dune 2 I watched at home.)
  - UltraSane 10mo ago
    The dialogue in Dune and Dune part 2 was very clear in theater.
    - usefulcat 10mo ago
      Probably also doesn't hurt that theater audio levels are usually far higher than what most people would use at home.
- aidenn0 10mo ago
  > Multi-channel audio has the dialog track separated. So you can increase the volume of the dialog if you want Are you talking about the center channel on an X.1 setup or something else? My Denon AVR certainly doesn't have a dedicated setting for dialog, but I can turn up the center channel which yields variable results for improved audio clarity. Note that DVDs and Blurays from 10+ years ago are easily intelligible without any of this futzing.
- deelowe 10mo ago
  Sometimes it's because the original mix was for theater surround sound and lower mixes were generated via software.
TheEaterOfSouls 10mo ago
I had the same thing with Severance (last show I watched, I don't watch many) but I'm deaf, so thought it was just that. Seemed like every other line of dialogue was actually a whisper, though. Is this how things are now?
- lostlogin 10mo ago
  Our tv’s sound is garbage and I was forced to buy a soundbar and got a Sonos one. Night mode seems to crush down the sound track. Loud bits are quieter and quiet bits are louder. Voice boost makes the dialogue louder. Everyone in the house loves these two settings and can tell when they are off.
TimorousBestie 10mo ago
My personal theory of the case is that mid-band hearing loss is more common than people want to admit and tends to go undiagnosed until old age.
- worthless-trash 10mo ago
  Just did a hearing test last week, still in the very good range. The sound is mud, we've just become accustomed.
- copperx 10mo ago
  Mid band hearing is the last to go, unless there's lot of loud noise damage.
  - sdenton4 10mo ago
    There's a things called 'hidden hearing loss' in which the ability to pause midband sounds specifically in complex/noisy situations degrades. This is missed by standard tests, which only look for ability to hear a given frequency in otherwise silent conditions. https://www.audiology.org/consumers-and-patients/hearing-and-balance/hidden-hearing-loss/ https://www.audiology.org/consumers-and-patients/hearing-and...
- throw-12-16 10mo ago
  Its simpler than that. Flatscreen TV's have shitty speakers.
- isleyaardvark 10mo ago
  It's very easy to watch an older movie on the same system and notice the contrast.
pezezin 10mo ago
English is my second language and I always though my lack of understanding was a skill issue. Then I noticed that native speakers also complain. Then I started to watch YouTube channels, live TV and old movies, and I found out I could understand almost everything! (depending on the dialect) When even native speakers can't properly enjoy modern movies and TV shows, you know that something is very wrong...
- UberFly 10mo ago
  I "upgraded" from a 10 year old 1080p Vizio to a 4K LG and the sound is the worst part of the experience. It was very basic and consistent with our old TV but now it's all over the place. It's now a mangled mess of audio that's hard to understand.
  - gmac 10mo ago
    The TV makers all want to sell you an overpriced soundbar too.
  - tuetuopay 10mo ago
    I had the same issue, turn on the enhanced dialogue option. This makes the EQ not muffle the voices and have them almost legible. I say almost because modern mixing assume a center channel for voices that no TV have.
- bee_rider 10mo ago
  The sound mixing does seem to have gotten much worse over time. But also, people in old movies often enunciated very clearly as a stylistic choice. The Transatlantic accent—sounds a bit unnatural but you can follow the plot.
  - troupo 10mo ago
    Not just old movies. Anything until mid-2000s or 2010s.
    - 10mo ago
rtpg 10mo ago
I have the same sound issues with a lot of stuff, my current theory at this point is that TVs have gotten bigger and we're further away from them but speakers have stayed kinda shitty... but things are being mixed by people using headphones or otherwise good sound equipment it's very funny how when watching a movie on my macbook pro it's better for me to just use HDMI for the video to my TV but keep on using my MBP speaker for the audio, since the speakers are just much better.
- greatgib 10mo ago
  It is a well known issue: https://zvox.com/blogs/news/why-can-t-i-hear-dialogue-on-tv-anymore?srsltid=AfmBOooo70Xs3hL0Wfrwy8usfD9Mkh-g9VNwHAGJDBaPIxYoWk93r_Ca https://zvox.com/blogs/news/why-can-t-i-hear-dialogue-on-tv-... I don't find the source anymore but I think that I saw that it was even a kind of small conspiracy on tv streaming so that you set your speakers louder and then the advertisement time arrive you will hear them louder than your movie. Officially it is just that they switch to a better encoding for ads (like mpeg2 to MPEG-4 for DVB) but unofficially for the money as always...
  - nutjob2 10mo ago
    I think the issue is dynamic range rather than a minor conspiracy. Film makers want to preserve dynamic range so they can render sounds both subtle and with a lot of punch, preserving detail, whereas ads just want to be heard as much as possible. Ads will compress sound so it sounds uniform, colorless and as clear and loud as possible for a given volume.
    - ajmurmann 10mo ago
      Even leading ads out the dynamic range is really an issue for anyone not living alone in a house with no other homes very close.
  - ribosometronome 10mo ago
    I feel like the Occam's Razor explanation would be that way TVs are advertised makes it really easy to understand picture quality and far less so to understand audio. In stores, they'll be next to a bunch of others playing the same thing such that really only visual differences will stand out. The specs that will stand out online will be things like the resolution, brightness, color accuracy, etc.
throw-12-16 10mo ago
Sounds like you are just using internal speakers. They are notorious for bad vocal range audio. I have a decent surround sound and had no issues at all.
- iancmceachern 10mo ago
  This is the way
- tybulewicz 10mo ago
  Is there any way to connect just a center speaker to the TV? I want to get a 3.0 setup with minimal changes to the equipment.
  - throw-12-16 10mo ago
    Soundbars are a good option, but spend some time reading reviews as there is a huge gap between the cheaper ones and good quality that will actually make a difference. My brother has 2 of the apple speakers in stereo mode and they sound pretty good imo. Nothing beats true surround sound though.
    - drcongo 10mo ago
      I have an eye-wateringly expensive 7.1 surround system in the living room, and a pair of full size HomePods either side of the TV in my studio. I prefer the audio from the HomePods.
      - throw-12-16 10mo ago
        Honestly after hearing his I don't blame you, especially when you consider what a pain in the ass it is to setup a 7.1 system properly.
        drcongo 10mo ago
        Ha, 2 hours of placement and calibration tests and then the kids move the speakers to put a mug down. I've given up.
redox99 10mo ago
Never had an issue with Stranger Things. Maybe you're using the internal speakers?
- KeplerBoy 10mo ago
  Most people do, I reckon.
  - throw-12-16 10mo ago
    Its why captions have become so popular.
- InsideOutSanta 10mo ago
  I agree. There are absolutely tons of movies and TV series with indecipherable dialogue, but Stranger Things isn't among them.
- szszrk 10mo ago
  > Maybe you're using the internal speakers? Which is just another drama that should not be on consumers shoulders. Every time I visit friends with newer TV than mine I am floored by how bad their speakers are. Even the same brand and price-range. Plus the "AI sound" settings (often on by default) are really bad. I'd love to swap my old tv as it shows it's age, but spending a lot of money on a new one that can't play a show correctly is ridiculous.
  - throw-12-16 10mo ago
    Just buy a decent external surround sound system, has nothing to do with the TV and will last a long long time.
    - epistasis 10mo ago
      I really don't want to install multiple new devices. I don't care about the cost, the inconvenience and hassle is a PITA. Plus then you had to fiddle with multiple volume controls instead of one to make it work for your space. No thank you. We should make the default work well, and if people want a sound optimized experience that requires 6x the pieces of equipment let those who want to do the extra work do what they need to for the small change in audio quality. Without that change in defaults more and more people will switch to alternatives, like TikTok and YouTube, that bother to get understandability as the default rather than as something requiring hours of work and shopping choices.
joquarky 10mo ago
One problem is that the people mixing the audio already know what is being said: Top-down processing (or more specifically, top-down auditory perception) This refers to perception being driven by prior knowledge, expectations, and context rather than purely by sensory input. When you already know the dialog, your brain projects that knowledge onto the sound and experiences it as “clear.”
- snakeboy 10mo ago
  Makes sense, but how does this explain the fact that this problem seems recent, or at least to have worsened recently ?
  - KeplerBoy 10mo ago
    TV shows changed completely in the streaming age it seems. These days they really are just super long movies with glacial pacing to keep users subscribed.
    - sfn42 10mo ago
      As opposed to the House model where every episode is exactly the same with some superficial differences? I like the long movie format, lots of good shows to watch. Movies feel too short to properly tell a story. It's just like a few highlights hastily shown and then it's over.
      - KeplerBoy 10mo ago
        Sure, it's completely different from procedural comedic shows like House and there's some great shows to watch! Still, sometimes it feels like the writers weren't granted enough time to write a shorter script. Brevity isn't exactly incentivized by the business model.
      - mnky9800n 10mo ago
        I feel like there are plenty of examples of movies that tell a good story. I think the reason people like long form television over movies is a movie requires an emotional commitment that it will end. But there’s always another episode of television.
socalgal2 10mo ago
Conspriacy theory ... TVs have bad sound so you're compelled to by a soundbar for $$$ I've certainly had the experience of hard to hear dialog but I think (could be wrong) that that's only really happened with listening through the TV speakers. Since I live in an apartment, 99% of the time I'm listening with headphones and haven't noticed that issue in a long time.
- tensor 10mo ago
  Like all conspiracy theories, this seems rooted in a severe lack of education. How exactly do you expect a thin tiny strip to produce any sort of good sound? It's basic physics. It's impossible for a modern tv to produce good sound in any capacity.
  - throw-12-16 10mo ago
    It's easier to believe in conspiracy than do a few minutes of research to discover that you need a good quality sound system to have good quality sound.
  - socalgal2 10mo ago
    My Mac is pretty thin. It provides pretty good sound. My older LCD TVs (before my current one) all provided good sound. So no, I don't need to have a server lack of education. All I need is my actual experience to know that it's not impossible for a thin TV to have reasonable sound.
- cedilla 10mo ago
  I assume that TVs have bad sound because better speakers just don't fit into their form factor.
- amiga-workbench 10mo ago
  I don't think the bad sound is necessarily deliberate, its more of a casualty of TV's becoming so very thin there's not enough room for a decent cavity inside. I had a 720p Sony Bravia from around 2006 and it was chunky. It had nice large drivers and a big resonance chamber, it absolutely did not need a sound bar and was very capable of filling a room on its own.
karlshea 10mo ago
One big cause of this is the multi-channel audio track when all you have is stereo speakers. All of the dialog that should be going into the center speaker just fades away, when do you actually have a center the dialog usually isn't anywhere near as quiet. Depending on what you're using there could be settings like stereo downmix or voice boost that can help. Or see if the media you're watching lets you pick a stereo track instead of 5.1
- amlib 10mo ago
  We've been mixing vocals and voices in stereo since forever and that was never a problem for clarity. The whole point of the center channel is to avoid the phantom center channel collapse that happens on stereo content when listening off center. It is purely an imaging problem, not a clarity one. Also, in consumer setups with a center channel speaker it is rather common for it to have a botched speaker design and be of a much poorer quality than the front speakers and actually have a deleterious effect to dialog clarity.
  - tuetuopay 10mo ago
    Welp we had no issues in ye ol days. When DVD releases were expected to be played on crappy TVs. Now everything is a theatre mix with 7.1 or atmos and whatnot. Yes we know how to mix for stereo. But do we still pay attention to how we do?
  - mrob 10mo ago
    It's a clarity problem too. Stereo speakers always have comb filtering because of the different path lengths from each ear to the two speakers. It's mitigated somewhat by room reflections (ideally diffuse reflections), but the only way to avoid it entirely is by using headphones. Try listening to some mono pink noise on a stereo loudspeaker setup, first hard-panned to a single speaker, and then centered. The effect is especially obvious when you move your head.
TheAceOfHearts 10mo ago
For an interesting example that goes in the opposite direction, I've noticed that big YouTube creators like MrBeast optimize their audio to sound as clear as possible on smartphone speakers, but if you listen to their content with headphones it's rather atrocious.
AngryData 10mo ago
Using some cheap studio monitors for my center channel helped quite a bit. It ain't perfect, I still use CC for many things, but the flat mid channel response does help with speech.
bee_rider 10mo ago
The specific suggestions they made are good in this case though, they want people to turn off the soap-opera-effect filters.
madaxe_again 10mo ago
This is probably the sound settings on your TV. Turn off Clear Voice or the equivalent, disable Smart Surround, which ignores 2.0 streams and badly downmuxes 5.1 streams, and finally, check your speaker config on the TV - they’re often set to Showroom by default, which kills voice but boosts music and sfx, and there should also be options for wall proximity, which do matter, and will make the sound a muddy mess if set incorrectly.
- BobaFloutist 10mo ago
  Kinda silly that you have to turn off a setting called "Clear Voice" to hear the voices clearly
october8140 10mo ago
Your speakers are probably garbage.
- machomaster 10mo ago
  This is a gross simplification. It can be part of the explanation, but not the whole one, not even the most important. It mostly boils down to filmmaker choices: 1. Conscious and purposeful. Like choosing "immersion" instead of "clarity". Yeah, nothing speaks "immersion" than being forced to put subtitles on... 2. Not purposeful. Don't atttibute to malice what can be explained by incompetency... Bad downmixing (from Atmos to lesser formats like 2.0). Even if they do that, they are not using the technology ordinary consumers have. I mean, the most glaring example is the way the text/titles/credits size on screen have been shrinking to the point of having difficulties reading them. Heck, often I have difficulties with text size on by FullHD TV, just because the editing was done on some kind of fancy 4k+ display standing 1m from the editor. Imagine how garbage it looks on 720 or ordinary 480! For the recent example check the size (and the font used) of the movie title in the Alien Isolation movie and compare it to the movies made in the 80-90s. It's ridiculous! There are many good youtube videos that explain the problem in more details. https://youtu.be/VYJtb2YXae8 https://youtu.be/VYJtb2YXae8 https://youtu.be/wHYkEfIEhO4 https://youtu.be/wHYkEfIEhO4
spoiler 10mo ago
The problem is multi-faceted. There was a YouTube video from a few years ago that explains this[1]. But, I kind of empathise with you; I and some friends also have this issue sometimes when watching things. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYJtb2YXae8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYJtb2YXae8
- 1970-01-01 10mo ago
  It really isn't. I've never, never had a hard time hearing the voiceover whenever the ads decide to intrude. Sound editor and mixer is a full time job. The audio problem starts and ends with them not doing their job. If the source is mumbled, the experience needs to be fixed in post or redone. Else garbage in, garbage out. It's only multi faceted in regards to letting the quality of the finished product slip on every check down the line.
ryanjshaw 10mo ago
Apple TV (the box) has an Enhance Dialogue option built-in. Even that plus a pair of Apple-native HomePods on full volume didn’t help me hear wtf was going on in parts of Pirates of the Caribbean (2003) on Disney. If two of the biggest companies on the planet can’t get this right, I don’t know who can.
- GlacierFox 10mo ago
  What do you mean? Like you can't hear the spoken dialogue?
  - deleted 10mo ago
    [deleted]
- acuozzo 10mo ago
  "Reduce Loud Sounds" does dynamic range compression. If you pair this with "Enhance Dialogue" you'll probably have an easier time making out what is said.
accidentallfact 10mo ago
I think it isn't a mixing issue, it's an acting issue. It's the obsession with accents, mixed with the native speakers' conviction that vowels are the most important part. Older movies tended to use some kind of unplaceable ("mid atlantic") accent, that could be easily understood. But modern actors try to imitate accents and almost always focus on the vowels. Most native speakers seem to be convinced that vowels are the most important part of English, but I think it isn't true. Sure, English has a huge number of vowels, but they are almost completely redundant. It's hard to find cases where vowels really matter for comprehension, which is why they may vary so much across accents without impeding communication. So what the actors do is that they focus on the vowels, but slur the consonants, and you are pretty much completely lost without the consonants.
- YmiYugy 10mo ago
  The Mid-Atlantic accent has fallen out of favor since at least the latter part of the 50s. The issue with hard to understand dialog is a much more recent phenomenon.
  - skydhash 10mo ago
    I have a 5.1 surround setup and by default I have to give the center a boost in volume. But still you get the movie where surround (sound effects) is loud and the center (dialog) is low.
- drdec 10mo ago
  >Most native speakers seem to be convinced that vowels are the most important part of English As a native English speaker studying Spanish, my impression is that English cares about the consonants and Spanish is way more about the vowels. YMMV
ubermonkey 10mo ago
Well, first, audio and video are different things. Second, I'm 55. There ARE programs I turn on the captioning for, but it's not universal at all. Generally, it's things with accents. We absolutely do not need the captions at our house for STRANGER THINGS.
sotix 10mo ago
I don't understand how your inability to understand dialog negates a producer giving appropriate instructions on visual settings? The post was good advice, and your train of thought feels like some sort of fallacy. To be a bit more helpful, what are you using to listen to the show? There are dozens of ways to hear the audio. Are you listening through the TV speakers, a properly set up center channel speaker, a Kindle Fire tablet, or something else? Providing those details would assist us in actually helping you.
- deleted 10mo ago
  [deleted]
mgaunard 10mo ago
Americans also seem to believe that their accent, which generally sounds awful to other speakers, is somehow natural and easy to understand for everyone. I turn on closed captions for most American films, but I find that I rarely need them for British ones.
- senordevnyc 10mo ago
  What a weird comment. I think that probably most Americans, like most people of any nationality, could give two shits if people elsewhere find their accent hard to understand, or “awful”.
  - mgaunard 10mo ago
    Hollywood movies specifically target a global audience and not just a domestic one. The US is only at most 30% of Hollywood revenue.
    - senordevnyc 10mo ago
      Haha, sounds like we’re still winning despite the “awful” accent. Hope you find some peace with it!
      - mgaunard 10mo ago
        Imagine how much they would "win" if they got rid of their chauvinism and properly catered to their audience. Though I'm not sure why you're personally getting pride out of global corporations making money.
moffkalast 10mo ago
The Nolan school of mixing audio.
tsss 10mo ago
Yeah, Stranger Things producers of all people should perhaps be cautious calling something "garbage". Rarely has a TV show fallen so far so fast.
eutropia 10mo ago
Yeah, this was a problem for me until I upgraded to using actual speakers with an amp and everything. TV sound is terrible for dialog these days!
Avamander 10mo ago
Do you have a stereo setup? I suspect downmixes to stereo and poor builtin speakers might be heavily contributing to the issue you describe. Anecdotally, I have not encountered this issue after I added a center channel. Nor do I have any issues with the loudness being inconsistent between scenes. I suspect that might be an another thing introduced by downmixing. All the surround channels are "squished" into stereo, making the result louder than it would have otherwise been.
slumberlust 10mo ago
Do you have a dedicated center channel by chance?
kjkjadksj 10mo ago
Don’t blame the producer blame your av setup with a lack of separation
lossyalgo 10mo ago
I can't find the article now but supposedly it's because "new" (within the last 10ish years) productions are created for multiple devices and audio engineers target the lowest-common denominator, which are smartphones. If on a PC, there are numerous websites with various VLC "movie" settings to combat this issue. I've tried several with mixed results, I always end up reverting to default at some point because for some movies, they work, but other movies not so well, and it's horribly annoying to constantly tweak VLC advanced settings (too many clicks IMO). The idea being that with VLC, you can change frequency volumes to raise typical frequencies for voices and an in-turn lower other frequencies typical in actions scenes e.g. for explosions.

by pupppet 10mo ago

The fact that I have to turn on closed captioning to understand anything tells me these producers have no idea what we want and shouldn’t be telling us what settings to use.

retrac 10mo ago

Perhaps a mixing issue on your end? Multi-channel audio has the dialog track separated. So you can increase the volume of the dialog if you want. Unfortunately I think there is variability in hardware (and software players) in how to down-mix, which sometimes results in background music in the surround channels drowning out the dialog in the centre channel.

josephg 10mo ago
Is there a way to do this in vlc? I run into this problem constantly - especially when 5.1 audio gets down mixed to my stereo setup.
mikepurvis 10mo ago
It's reasonable for the 5.1 mix to have louder atmosphere and be more dependent on directionality for the viewer to pick the dialog out of the center channel. However, all media should also be supplying a stereo mix where the dialog is appropriately boosted.
- CoffeeOnWrite 10mo ago
  My PS4 Slim was not capable of this at the device level. An individual app could choose to expose the choice of audio format, but many do not :(
ludicrousdispla 10mo ago
It's an issue even in theaters and is the main reason I prefer to watch new releases at home on DVD (Dune I saw in the theater, Dune 2 I watched at home.)
- UltraSane 10mo ago
  The dialogue in Dune and Dune part 2 was very clear in theater.
  - usefulcat 10mo ago
    Probably also doesn't hurt that theater audio levels are usually far higher than what most people would use at home.
aidenn0 10mo ago
> Multi-channel audio has the dialog track separated. So you can increase the volume of the dialog if you want Are you talking about the center channel on an X.1 setup or something else? My Denon AVR certainly doesn't have a dedicated setting for dialog, but I can turn up the center channel which yields variable results for improved audio clarity. Note that DVDs and Blurays from 10+ years ago are easily intelligible without any of this futzing.
deelowe 10mo ago
Sometimes it's because the original mix was for theater surround sound and lower mixes were generated via software.

TheEaterOfSouls 10mo ago

I had the same thing with Severance (last show I watched, I don't watch many) but I'm deaf, so thought it was just that. Seemed like every other line of dialogue was actually a whisper, though. Is this how things are now?

lostlogin 10mo ago
Our tv’s sound is garbage and I was forced to buy a soundbar and got a Sonos one. Night mode seems to crush down the sound track. Loud bits are quieter and quiet bits are louder. Voice boost makes the dialogue louder. Everyone in the house loves these two settings and can tell when they are off.

TimorousBestie 10mo ago

My personal theory of the case is that mid-band hearing loss is more common than people want to admit and tends to go undiagnosed until old age.

worthless-trash 10mo ago
Just did a hearing test last week, still in the very good range. The sound is mud, we've just become accustomed.
copperx 10mo ago
Mid band hearing is the last to go, unless there's lot of loud noise damage.
- sdenton4 10mo ago
  There's a things called 'hidden hearing loss' in which the ability to pause midband sounds specifically in complex/noisy situations degrades. This is missed by standard tests, which only look for ability to hear a given frequency in otherwise silent conditions. https://www.audiology.org/consumers-and-patients/hearing-and-balance/hidden-hearing-loss/ https://www.audiology.org/consumers-and-patients/hearing-and...
throw-12-16 10mo ago
Its simpler than that. Flatscreen TV's have shitty speakers.
isleyaardvark 10mo ago
It's very easy to watch an older movie on the same system and notice the contrast.

pezezin 10mo ago

English is my second language and I always though my lack of understanding was a skill issue. Then I noticed that native speakers also complain. Then I started to watch YouTube channels, live TV and old movies, and I found out I could understand almost everything! (depending on the dialect) When even native speakers can't properly enjoy modern movies and TV shows, you know that something is very wrong...

UberFly 10mo ago
I "upgraded" from a 10 year old 1080p Vizio to a 4K LG and the sound is the worst part of the experience. It was very basic and consistent with our old TV but now it's all over the place. It's now a mangled mess of audio that's hard to understand.
- gmac 10mo ago
  The TV makers all want to sell you an overpriced soundbar too.
- tuetuopay 10mo ago
  I had the same issue, turn on the enhanced dialogue option. This makes the EQ not muffle the voices and have them almost legible. I say almost because modern mixing assume a center channel for voices that no TV have.
bee_rider 10mo ago
The sound mixing does seem to have gotten much worse over time. But also, people in old movies often enunciated very clearly as a stylistic choice. The Transatlantic accent—sounds a bit unnatural but you can follow the plot.
- troupo 10mo ago
  Not just old movies. Anything until mid-2000s or 2010s.
  - 10mo ago

rtpg 10mo ago

I have the same sound issues with a lot of stuff, my current theory at this point is that TVs have gotten bigger and we're further away from them but speakers have stayed kinda shitty... but things are being mixed by people using headphones or otherwise good sound equipment it's very funny how when watching a movie on my macbook pro it's better for me to just use HDMI for the video to my TV but keep on using my MBP speaker for the audio, since the speakers are just much better.

greatgib 10mo ago
It is a well known issue: https://zvox.com/blogs/news/why-can-t-i-hear-dialogue-on-tv-anymore?srsltid=AfmBOooo70Xs3hL0Wfrwy8usfD9Mkh-g9VNwHAGJDBaPIxYoWk93r_Ca https://zvox.com/blogs/news/why-can-t-i-hear-dialogue-on-tv-... I don't find the source anymore but I think that I saw that it was even a kind of small conspiracy on tv streaming so that you set your speakers louder and then the advertisement time arrive you will hear them louder than your movie. Officially it is just that they switch to a better encoding for ads (like mpeg2 to MPEG-4 for DVB) but unofficially for the money as always...
- nutjob2 10mo ago
  I think the issue is dynamic range rather than a minor conspiracy. Film makers want to preserve dynamic range so they can render sounds both subtle and with a lot of punch, preserving detail, whereas ads just want to be heard as much as possible. Ads will compress sound so it sounds uniform, colorless and as clear and loud as possible for a given volume.
  - ajmurmann 10mo ago
    Even leading ads out the dynamic range is really an issue for anyone not living alone in a house with no other homes very close.
- ribosometronome 10mo ago
  I feel like the Occam's Razor explanation would be that way TVs are advertised makes it really easy to understand picture quality and far less so to understand audio. In stores, they'll be next to a bunch of others playing the same thing such that really only visual differences will stand out. The specs that will stand out online will be things like the resolution, brightness, color accuracy, etc.

throw-12-16 10mo ago

Sounds like you are just using internal speakers. They are notorious for bad vocal range audio. I have a decent surround sound and had no issues at all.

iancmceachern 10mo ago
This is the way
tybulewicz 10mo ago
Is there any way to connect just a center speaker to the TV? I want to get a 3.0 setup with minimal changes to the equipment.
- throw-12-16 10mo ago
  Soundbars are a good option, but spend some time reading reviews as there is a huge gap between the cheaper ones and good quality that will actually make a difference. My brother has 2 of the apple speakers in stereo mode and they sound pretty good imo. Nothing beats true surround sound though.
  - drcongo 10mo ago
    I have an eye-wateringly expensive 7.1 surround system in the living room, and a pair of full size HomePods either side of the TV in my studio. I prefer the audio from the HomePods.
    - throw-12-16 10mo ago
      Honestly after hearing his I don't blame you, especially when you consider what a pain in the ass it is to setup a 7.1 system properly.
      - drcongo 10mo ago
        Ha, 2 hours of placement and calibration tests and then the kids move the speakers to put a mug down. I've given up.

redox99 10mo ago

Never had an issue with Stranger Things. Maybe you're using the internal speakers?

KeplerBoy 10mo ago
Most people do, I reckon.
- throw-12-16 10mo ago
  Its why captions have become so popular.
InsideOutSanta 10mo ago
I agree. There are absolutely tons of movies and TV series with indecipherable dialogue, but Stranger Things isn't among them.
szszrk 10mo ago
> Maybe you're using the internal speakers? Which is just another drama that should not be on consumers shoulders. Every time I visit friends with newer TV than mine I am floored by how bad their speakers are. Even the same brand and price-range. Plus the "AI sound" settings (often on by default) are really bad. I'd love to swap my old tv as it shows it's age, but spending a lot of money on a new one that can't play a show correctly is ridiculous.
- throw-12-16 10mo ago
  Just buy a decent external surround sound system, has nothing to do with the TV and will last a long long time.
  - epistasis 10mo ago
    I really don't want to install multiple new devices. I don't care about the cost, the inconvenience and hassle is a PITA. Plus then you had to fiddle with multiple volume controls instead of one to make it work for your space. No thank you. We should make the default work well, and if people want a sound optimized experience that requires 6x the pieces of equipment let those who want to do the extra work do what they need to for the small change in audio quality. Without that change in defaults more and more people will switch to alternatives, like TikTok and YouTube, that bother to get understandability as the default rather than as something requiring hours of work and shopping choices.

joquarky 10mo ago

One problem is that the people mixing the audio already know what is being said: Top-down processing (or more specifically, top-down auditory perception) This refers to perception being driven by prior knowledge, expectations, and context rather than purely by sensory input. When you already know the dialog, your brain projects that knowledge onto the sound and experiences it as “clear.”

snakeboy 10mo ago
Makes sense, but how does this explain the fact that this problem seems recent, or at least to have worsened recently ?
- KeplerBoy 10mo ago
  TV shows changed completely in the streaming age it seems. These days they really are just super long movies with glacial pacing to keep users subscribed.
  - sfn42 10mo ago
    As opposed to the House model where every episode is exactly the same with some superficial differences? I like the long movie format, lots of good shows to watch. Movies feel too short to properly tell a story. It's just like a few highlights hastily shown and then it's over.
    - KeplerBoy 10mo ago
      Sure, it's completely different from procedural comedic shows like House and there's some great shows to watch! Still, sometimes it feels like the writers weren't granted enough time to write a shorter script. Brevity isn't exactly incentivized by the business model.
    - mnky9800n 10mo ago
      I feel like there are plenty of examples of movies that tell a good story. I think the reason people like long form television over movies is a movie requires an emotional commitment that it will end. But there’s always another episode of television.

socalgal2 10mo ago

Conspriacy theory ... TVs have bad sound so you're compelled to by a soundbar for $$$ I've certainly had the experience of hard to hear dialog but I think (could be wrong) that that's only really happened with listening through the TV speakers. Since I live in an apartment, 99% of the time I'm listening with headphones and haven't noticed that issue in a long time.

tensor 10mo ago
Like all conspiracy theories, this seems rooted in a severe lack of education. How exactly do you expect a thin tiny strip to produce any sort of good sound? It's basic physics. It's impossible for a modern tv to produce good sound in any capacity.
- throw-12-16 10mo ago
  It's easier to believe in conspiracy than do a few minutes of research to discover that you need a good quality sound system to have good quality sound.
- socalgal2 10mo ago
  My Mac is pretty thin. It provides pretty good sound. My older LCD TVs (before my current one) all provided good sound. So no, I don't need to have a server lack of education. All I need is my actual experience to know that it's not impossible for a thin TV to have reasonable sound.
cedilla 10mo ago
I assume that TVs have bad sound because better speakers just don't fit into their form factor.
amiga-workbench 10mo ago
I don't think the bad sound is necessarily deliberate, its more of a casualty of TV's becoming so very thin there's not enough room for a decent cavity inside. I had a 720p Sony Bravia from around 2006 and it was chunky. It had nice large drivers and a big resonance chamber, it absolutely did not need a sound bar and was very capable of filling a room on its own.

karlshea 10mo ago

One big cause of this is the multi-channel audio track when all you have is stereo speakers. All of the dialog that should be going into the center speaker just fades away, when do you actually have a center the dialog usually isn't anywhere near as quiet. Depending on what you're using there could be settings like stereo downmix or voice boost that can help. Or see if the media you're watching lets you pick a stereo track instead of 5.1

amlib 10mo ago
We've been mixing vocals and voices in stereo since forever and that was never a problem for clarity. The whole point of the center channel is to avoid the phantom center channel collapse that happens on stereo content when listening off center. It is purely an imaging problem, not a clarity one. Also, in consumer setups with a center channel speaker it is rather common for it to have a botched speaker design and be of a much poorer quality than the front speakers and actually have a deleterious effect to dialog clarity.
- tuetuopay 10mo ago
  Welp we had no issues in ye ol days. When DVD releases were expected to be played on crappy TVs. Now everything is a theatre mix with 7.1 or atmos and whatnot. Yes we know how to mix for stereo. But do we still pay attention to how we do?
- mrob 10mo ago
  It's a clarity problem too. Stereo speakers always have comb filtering because of the different path lengths from each ear to the two speakers. It's mitigated somewhat by room reflections (ideally diffuse reflections), but the only way to avoid it entirely is by using headphones. Try listening to some mono pink noise on a stereo loudspeaker setup, first hard-panned to a single speaker, and then centered. The effect is especially obvious when you move your head.

TheAceOfHearts 10mo ago

For an interesting example that goes in the opposite direction, I've noticed that big YouTube creators like MrBeast optimize their audio to sound as clear as possible on smartphone speakers, but if you listen to their content with headphones it's rather atrocious.

AngryData 10mo ago

Using some cheap studio monitors for my center channel helped quite a bit. It ain't perfect, I still use CC for many things, but the flat mid channel response does help with speech.

bee_rider 10mo ago

The specific suggestions they made are good in this case though, they want people to turn off the soap-opera-effect filters.

madaxe_again 10mo ago

This is probably the sound settings on your TV. Turn off Clear Voice or the equivalent, disable Smart Surround, which ignores 2.0 streams and badly downmuxes 5.1 streams, and finally, check your speaker config on the TV - they’re often set to Showroom by default, which kills voice but boosts music and sfx, and there should also be options for wall proximity, which do matter, and will make the sound a muddy mess if set incorrectly.

BobaFloutist 10mo ago
Kinda silly that you have to turn off a setting called "Clear Voice" to hear the voices clearly

october8140 10mo ago

Your speakers are probably garbage.

machomaster 10mo ago
This is a gross simplification. It can be part of the explanation, but not the whole one, not even the most important. It mostly boils down to filmmaker choices: 1. Conscious and purposeful. Like choosing "immersion" instead of "clarity". Yeah, nothing speaks "immersion" than being forced to put subtitles on... 2. Not purposeful. Don't atttibute to malice what can be explained by incompetency... Bad downmixing (from Atmos to lesser formats like 2.0). Even if they do that, they are not using the technology ordinary consumers have. I mean, the most glaring example is the way the text/titles/credits size on screen have been shrinking to the point of having difficulties reading them. Heck, often I have difficulties with text size on by FullHD TV, just because the editing was done on some kind of fancy 4k+ display standing 1m from the editor. Imagine how garbage it looks on 720 or ordinary 480! For the recent example check the size (and the font used) of the movie title in the Alien Isolation movie and compare it to the movies made in the 80-90s. It's ridiculous! There are many good youtube videos that explain the problem in more details. https://youtu.be/VYJtb2YXae8 https://youtu.be/VYJtb2YXae8 https://youtu.be/wHYkEfIEhO4 https://youtu.be/wHYkEfIEhO4

spoiler 10mo ago

The problem is multi-faceted. There was a YouTube video from a few years ago that explains this[1]. But, I kind of empathise with you; I and some friends also have this issue sometimes when watching things. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYJtb2YXae8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYJtb2YXae8

1970-01-01 10mo ago
It really isn't. I've never, never had a hard time hearing the voiceover whenever the ads decide to intrude. Sound editor and mixer is a full time job. The audio problem starts and ends with them not doing their job. If the source is mumbled, the experience needs to be fixed in post or redone. Else garbage in, garbage out. It's only multi faceted in regards to letting the quality of the finished product slip on every check down the line.

ryanjshaw 10mo ago

Apple TV (the box) has an Enhance Dialogue option built-in. Even that plus a pair of Apple-native HomePods on full volume didn’t help me hear wtf was going on in parts of Pirates of the Caribbean (2003) on Disney. If two of the biggest companies on the planet can’t get this right, I don’t know who can.

GlacierFox 10mo ago
What do you mean? Like you can't hear the spoken dialogue?
- deleted 10mo ago
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acuozzo 10mo ago
"Reduce Loud Sounds" does dynamic range compression. If you pair this with "Enhance Dialogue" you'll probably have an easier time making out what is said.

accidentallfact 10mo ago

I think it isn't a mixing issue, it's an acting issue. It's the obsession with accents, mixed with the native speakers' conviction that vowels are the most important part. Older movies tended to use some kind of unplaceable ("mid atlantic") accent, that could be easily understood. But modern actors try to imitate accents and almost always focus on the vowels. Most native speakers seem to be convinced that vowels are the most important part of English, but I think it isn't true. Sure, English has a huge number of vowels, but they are almost completely redundant. It's hard to find cases where vowels really matter for comprehension, which is why they may vary so much across accents without impeding communication. So what the actors do is that they focus on the vowels, but slur the consonants, and you are pretty much completely lost without the consonants.

YmiYugy 10mo ago
The Mid-Atlantic accent has fallen out of favor since at least the latter part of the 50s. The issue with hard to understand dialog is a much more recent phenomenon.
- skydhash 10mo ago
  I have a 5.1 surround setup and by default I have to give the center a boost in volume. But still you get the movie where surround (sound effects) is loud and the center (dialog) is low.
drdec 10mo ago
>Most native speakers seem to be convinced that vowels are the most important part of English As a native English speaker studying Spanish, my impression is that English cares about the consonants and Spanish is way more about the vowels. YMMV

ubermonkey 10mo ago

Well, first, audio and video are different things. Second, I'm 55. There ARE programs I turn on the captioning for, but it's not universal at all. Generally, it's things with accents. We absolutely do not need the captions at our house for STRANGER THINGS.

sotix 10mo ago

I don't understand how your inability to understand dialog negates a producer giving appropriate instructions on visual settings? The post was good advice, and your train of thought feels like some sort of fallacy. To be a bit more helpful, what are you using to listen to the show? There are dozens of ways to hear the audio. Are you listening through the TV speakers, a properly set up center channel speaker, a Kindle Fire tablet, or something else? Providing those details would assist us in actually helping you.

deleted 10mo ago
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mgaunard 10mo ago

Americans also seem to believe that their accent, which generally sounds awful to other speakers, is somehow natural and easy to understand for everyone. I turn on closed captions for most American films, but I find that I rarely need them for British ones.

senordevnyc 10mo ago
What a weird comment. I think that probably most Americans, like most people of any nationality, could give two shits if people elsewhere find their accent hard to understand, or “awful”.
- mgaunard 10mo ago
  Hollywood movies specifically target a global audience and not just a domestic one. The US is only at most 30% of Hollywood revenue.
  - senordevnyc 10mo ago
    Haha, sounds like we’re still winning despite the “awful” accent. Hope you find some peace with it!
    - mgaunard 10mo ago
      Imagine how much they would "win" if they got rid of their chauvinism and properly catered to their audience. Though I'm not sure why you're personally getting pride out of global corporations making money.

moffkalast 10mo ago

The Nolan school of mixing audio.

tsss 10mo ago

Yeah, Stranger Things producers of all people should perhaps be cautious calling something "garbage". Rarely has a TV show fallen so far so fast.

eutropia 10mo ago

Yeah, this was a problem for me until I upgraded to using actual speakers with an amp and everything. TV sound is terrible for dialog these days!

Avamander 10mo ago

Do you have a stereo setup? I suspect downmixes to stereo and poor builtin speakers might be heavily contributing to the issue you describe. Anecdotally, I have not encountered this issue after I added a center channel. Nor do I have any issues with the loudness being inconsistent between scenes. I suspect that might be an another thing introduced by downmixing. All the surround channels are "squished" into stereo, making the result louder than it would have otherwise been.

slumberlust 10mo ago

Do you have a dedicated center channel by chance?

kjkjadksj 10mo ago

Don’t blame the producer blame your av setup with a lack of separation

lossyalgo 10mo ago

I can't find the article now but supposedly it's because "new" (within the last 10ish years) productions are created for multiple devices and audio engineers target the lowest-common denominator, which are smartphones. If on a PC, there are numerous websites with various VLC "movie" settings to combat this issue. I've tried several with mixed results, I always end up reverting to default at some point because for some movies, they work, but other movies not so well, and it's horribly annoying to constantly tweak VLC advanced settings (too many clicks IMO). The idea being that with VLC, you can change frequency volumes to raise typical frequencies for voices and an in-turn lower other frequencies typical in actions scenes e.g. for explosions.