Why you can't hear the dialog anymore

[GAD]

Interesting video on why we can't the dialog in TV and movies anymore:



It seems it's more complicated that I thought including mic evolution, director preference, down-mixing, and the terrible speakers in modern TVs - not to mention watching on a computer or phone.

 

[davidbeinct]

We run our tv audio through a Denon AVR with Klipsch left right and center speakers. We use medium compression in the sound processing. It’s made a huge difference in our enjoyment of tv and movies.

 

[GAD]

We run our tv audio through a Denon AVR with Klipsch left right and center speakers. We use medium compression in the sound processing. It’s made a huge difference in our enjoyment of tv and movies.

I have a 7.1 surround sound home theater setup that I love but it didn’t help with Tenet. Some stuff is just not well mixed.

 

[gjmalcyon]

Thanks for that. I assumed it was all a result of too many headphone sessions at imprudent levels.

I picked up a Samsung 5.1 sound bar, and having that center dialog channel makes a big difference.

But She Who Must Be Obeyed still turns it up too loud.

 

[Uke]

She Who Must Be Obeyed

 

[GGJaguar]

Definitely the audio quality of flat panel TVs is pretty bad. I use a 5.1 system and that helps a lot. Still, there were a couple of shows from the UK that were mixed so badly that I had no choice but to use subtitles. The background music was too loud, but even when it wasn't playing the dialog volume was too low.

 

[gjmalcyon]

She Who Must Be Obeyed?

From Rumpole Of The Bailey as uttered by Horace Rumpole about Mrs. Hilda Rumpole. (Rumpole was portrayed by Leo McKern (of Help fame)).

After 39 years of wedded bliss ("feels like 60" <sotto voce>) a better commandment for wedded bliss I have not found.

 

[Opsimath]

Why are you laughing????

 

[Uke]

Why are you laughing????

One always obeys the Queen, the name on one of my wife's mugs which she likes to use often.

 

[gjmalcyon]

And my sister has a plaque on her wall: "When the Queen is happy there is peace in the kingdom."

 

[West R Lee]

Why? Because these flat TV's have zero room for speakers. Too thin. I just run mine through a Yamaha soundbar.

West

 

[Opsimath]

One always obeys the Queen, the name on one of my wife's mugs which she likes to use often.

I like the way she thinks!

 

[davismanLV]

Thanks for this, Gary. I've often wondered. I remember trying to watch Sherlock Holmes from 2009 with Robert Downey, Jr. What a MESS THAT WAS!! This explains a lot of it. I just use subtitles mostly. Easier for me.

 

[kitniyatran]

You should have just skipped the 2009 version of Sherlock Holmes and gone with Jeremy Brett or Basil Rathbone.
I believe the Jeremy Brett versions are the most accurate as far as Arthur Conan Doyle's Original Stories though some Liberties have been taken and some stories have been mashed together

 

[lungimsam]

One of my favorite Jeremy Brett lines is:
“Mrs. Hudson, you are interminably under foot!”.

 

[Midnight Toker]

This issue has been going on for a LONG time. You turn a movie up just loud enough to hear the dialog, then when an action sequence happens the FX sound is WAY too loud. You instantly grab the remote and turn it down. Then the dialog is too quiet again. A never ending cycle.

So, on my home theater system I went back into the speaker set up mode w/ the pink noise generator, sat in my sweet spot, got a nice balanced level on all the front/ back/ center/ subs speakers....then gave 2-3 more clicks boost on the center channel....problem solved.

 

[DrumBob]

I've been saying for years that the music you hear in movies is way too loud and obscures the dialogue. This confirms it.

 

[Bill Ashton]

She Who Must Be Obeyed?

From Rumpole Of The Bailey as uttered by Horace Rumpole about Mrs. Hilda Rumpole. (Rumpole was portrayed by Leo McKern (of Help fame)).

After 39 years of wedded bliss ("feels like 60" <sotto voce>) a better commandment for wedded bliss I have not found.

I believe, years ago, Chazmo put this into the "Glossary" that we had

 

[lungimsam]

I got into the habit by always having the closed captions on for the wife and me, whoever's native language show we are watching.
I turn off the captions when watching alone and haven't noticed any problems hearing the spoken lines of movies or shows yet.
Most of the time if I have to back up and re-listen it is because I was spacing out and not paying attention.

 

[West R Lee]

And speaking of television, is it just my wife and I that have noticed not only the degradation of Hollywood movies (no plot, no literary value, very little photography........just no story, and then the dialogue is so limited that they insert serious profanity even in instances where it is way out of context)? We find ourselves watching late at night, mostly foreign movies with English captioning on. These days, they are a much better quality it seems. It's as if Hollywood is either dumbed down, lazy, or has an agenda of producing trash.

West