| HDTV Almanac - Turn Down the Sound! | ||
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By Alfred Poor HDTV Professor Posted on February 1, 2010 Category: General Interest |
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Register Now to receive notification of new HDTV Magazine Columns via email as soon as they are published. I have reported previously on the “Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act”, or CALM, which has been passed by the House of Representatives and now is in the hands of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. However, we don’t have to wait for federal legislation to do something about the large variations in sound levels between television programming and the commercials that are inserted throughout them.
Last month, SRS Labs reported that their “TruVolume” technology is now at work in 30 million individual consumer electronic devices. More than 3,500 products use TruVolume, including HDTV televisions, set-top boxes, and soundbars. It is also found in automotive and mobile products. Samsung and Vizio are two of the companies that use SRS technology in many of their flat screen televisions. SRS also has offers a Analog Volume Leveling Adaptor, an accessory that sells for less than $50 and can add automatic volume control to televisions that don’t have the feature. (There is also an HDMI version that sells for less than $100.)
I believe that technology is the correct way to solve the problem, as opposed to invoking a new federal law or additional regulations. It puts the viewers in control of just how much — or how little – variation in volume levels is acceptable, rather than have some branch of government make that determination for them.
Posted by Alfred Poor, February 1, 2010 5:00 AM
Reader Commentary Feb 1, 6:29pm Strange. Very strange. I'm all in favor of keeping control in end-user hands. And I don't like more legislation, when we can possibly get away without it. But the approach you're advocating is: a) have broadcasters/advertisers spend $$$ for techn Feb 1, 9:50pm Look... I get AT LEAST as pissed off by the loud commercials as anyone else. And, yeah the techno remedy SOUNDS good... until you HEAR it??? But look... it's a DU Feb 2, 4:49am Churchill once described democracy as the worst form of government, aside from all the other ones that have been tried. I think we're in the same situation here. Tim and Chester, you both make good points. Yes, the SRS technology is ultimately a compre Feb 2, 6:28am OR you could just turn on the "midnight mode" or "RF" mode in your Dolby Digital decoder and do the same thing. That solution has been around since the inception of Dolby Digital and doesn't cost anything extra to anyone. And the stations could set the pr Feb 4, 5:30pm Is there any way to level out the differences in the sound volume between the HD channels and the SD channels on Dish. I have a VIP-622. I saw the volume leveler article recently but I read that it won't work with the Dolby 5.1 sound which I don't want to More on General Interest
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About Alfred PoorAlfred Poor is a well-known display industry expert, who writes the daily HDTV Almanac. He wrote for PC Magazine for more than 20 years, and now is focusing on the home entertainment and home networking markets. |
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