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Direct TV and volume

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daniel49

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Is it just my setup or is it direct tv in general that all the commercials are 2-3 times the volume of the programming? Very annoying.
 
Sue... it's illegal now... or will be in a year.

http://www.digtriad.com/news/national_world/article.aspx?storyid=151847&catid=175

Washington -- President Barack Obama has signed legislation to prevent advertisers from abruptly raising the volume of TV commercials louder than regular programming.

The law signed by Obama on Wednesday requires the Federal Communications Commission to adopt industry standards coordinating ad decibel levels to those of the regular program within one year.

The new regulations go into effect a year after that. They apply to all broadcast providers, including cable and satellite.

Lawmakers who sponsored the bill said they were reacting to their constituents' complaints about abrasively loud television commercials -- and their own experiences.

The FCC has been receiving complaints since the 1960s about jarring sound bursts when commercials come on, but had not regulated program or commercial volume.
Click to expand...
 
Uh... that's all TV. Cable, satellite, and OTA (maybe to a lesser extent with OTA).

Regular programming uses sound leveling (drawing a blank on the proper term), so that not all sounds in the broadcast are at maximum volume. Thus, you get a range of volume levels... and thus makes it seem like commercials are are louder.
They are not, not technically speaking at least. Commercials cannot play at a louder volume than your volume setting, but many commercials forgo the use of realistic sound engineering, and broadcast all sounds at the same level, the max.
If regular programming had sound levels where all sounds were at equal at the max volume, they would sound just as loud as commercials. If everything was the same volume as a nearby explosion in a regular program, or if you heard everything at that same volume and then compared it with a commercial, it would sound the same.

It's annoying as shit, but nothing fancy going on. Commercials are actually being less fancy but not using the same sound engineering as regular programming.
 
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