StametsAnd thus my subtitle requirement was born
lugalThat’s why subtitles became so popular in the recent times
Yeah it’s bad… It’s gotten to the point that I have unironically said “Wait! Where are my subtitles? I can’t hear without my subtitles!”
You said that watching a video or in a real life conversation?
ℕ𝕠𝕓𝕠𝕕𝕪 𝕆𝕗𝕗𝕚𝕔𝕚𝕒𝕝As a HoH person I secretly love this trend and hope it never dies
Haha, I’m glad somebody can benefit
kubicaI saw a video the other day of a sound technician complaining about the auto-gain enabled by default on TVs. While I understand their point this is the kind of bullshit I see as the reason.
donYeah I have ‘em on by default now
IninewCrowI have tinnitus and I have a hard time hearing low volume audio … so yes subtitles are a requirement now.
The funny part to that is if I decide to watch some dumb action flick … I set the sound for the explosions and I really don’t care if I can hear the dialogue because I know it will be stupid
I’m here to preach Loudness Equalization. If you’re watching on Windows, enable it for SURE.
(I’m also a tinnitus boi)
hschenSecret i learned on my raspberry pi running stereo speakers on Kodi is you can set a seperate volume for the dialogue channel so i just bumped it up like 14 decibels and now it matches the action fairly well. You can set it from the audio settings inside the movie and its called something like center channel downmix i cant remember exactly
Center channel downmix boost or something is the name. Iirc the phenomenon with quiet dialogue is due to most streaming content being delivered with surround audio. The shitty cheap video players used by the streaming services will do a cheap flat downmix to stereo which results in the center channel being too low when split into two mono channels for playback on stereo speakers. This is due to maths or something.
Back in the day dvd and even vhs movies had proper stereo mixes where the center channel would be boosted to audible levels.
Tl;dr: just pirate shit and use a proper video player instead of the cheapass players used by netflix, disney, etc.
germtm.me trying to hear dialogue in Half-Life mods with shit audio mixing, while guns are super loud.
Oh god yeah. Some early video games are fucking horrendous for this. Thank GOD that it’s almost essentially now to have sliders for individual tracks. Always end up lowering the music to 75, the sound effects to 85-90 and the dialogue stays at 100.
same, but like 100-50-20 for voice-sfx-music
I have a surprising number of games which I play with BGM at 1%. That is nuts! Why should any game be designed roughly 100x too loud!?
If memory serves, Age of Empires 3 DE is this way last I tried to play and chat on Discord. Earth Defence Force 4, and all of the new Counter Strikes are similar. It’s a war on eardrums!
Christopher Nolan
rigattiBWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH
Me and dad saw Oppenheimer in the cinema, the sound was almost unbearable at times…
The problem is that he masters his audio to top of the line theaters, so it sounds muddy on anything other than that. Very snobby.
I’ve read his sound mix is shit on top of the line IMAX too. Plenty of complaints since the days of The Dark Knight, He is just high on his own supply and can’t admit that he is shit at sound mixing dialogue. That or some contractor lied to him when they built whatever he mixes on.
Sounds great if you’re watching on Wandows with Loudness Equalization!
BlackmistI genuinely think he’s suffered hearing damage at some point during The Dark Knight Rises, and can no longer tell.
starman2112He specifically declines to mix it well on stereo because he doesn’t think we should be watching his movies with anything but the most expensive speakers
I hate Nolan. As long as he hates me for having normal speakers, I’m gonna hate him for being an elitist prick
Every damn time! As someone who is not a video editor or sound engineer, isn’t it pretty easy to equalize all the sound?
It is and they used to.
There’s something called dynamic range, which is essentially the difference between the loudest and quietest sounds. With a low dynamic range explosions and whispers are just as loud as each other.
There has been a recent trend for filmmakers to want a high dynamic range. This makes explosions, car crashes, and gunshots feel extra impactful. The problem is that that means other things become more quiet by comparison. Those “other things” include dialogue.
This leads to people not in a movie theatre or with a home audio setup that costs more than my car not being able to hear a goddamned word.
I fucking hate modern movies.
SotuandusoBut the ✨art✨!
Generic MCU Movie #4195643
How recent is that trend ? Because I definitely agree that modern movies’ mixing usually sucks ass for a non-theater setup, but I recently watched some 70’s James bond movie and it was actually much worse than what I’m used to. Like, if I setup the TV volume so the gunshots/explosion and the musics didn’t blow up my eardrums, dialogues were basically unintelligible 80% of the time
VieuxQuebNot only the eight audio equipment, I want to be able to watch something and not wake up the neighbors up/downstairs!
I know Christopher Nolan is the worst for it, for a few reasons, apparently the IMAX cameras cause it, too. So, however long they’ve been around
This. They really need to start including both low dynamic range AND high dynamic range audio options in home/streaming releases of movies, and TV should exclusively be LDR if they can’t simulcast the the different audio signals.
HDR audio sounds amazing and is totally worth it when you have the right audio equipment, so it shouldn’t stop existing entirely, but it’s bullshit that people that don’t have that equipment get an even worse experience than LDR as a result.
HolyhandgrenadeThey already give you the option of choosing between stereo or 5.1, I don’t see why a low dynamic audio mix would be any different on the technical side.
Then again, a new mix would cost more money.
Then again, a new mix would cost more money.
I learned something today! yaaaay!
They are EQ for 5.1 and the voice goes into the center channel. In a proper system the center channel is bigger than the satellites so you get clear dialog, but if you try to output 5.1 into two channels everything is squeezed together
Even with a 5.1.2 setup new movies and series sounds equalization sucks
On Windows, right click the sound icon, go into sound options, playback, double click on your default playback device, and go to the Enhancements tab.
LOUDNESS EQUALIZATION
is fucking awesome and more people should be aware of it. It’s baked into Windows 10!
Does that work if using VLC?
If you are running that VLC on Windows, yes!
It is a setting on the sound device, which VLC uses.
Indeed! Like the other poster says, it’s ALL THE SOUNDS.
Turn it off for games, but I turn it on for EVERYTHING else. It makes things bearable to watch! IT’S MAGIC
AnarchistsForDemocracyvlc has a compressor which is what “loudness equalization” uses.
penquinI already fucking struggle with understanding English since it’s my second language, and with this new shit sound, it’s now fucking worse. I used to be able to do without subtitles most of the time, but now I can’t watch shit without it.
Double_ASame. I can’t watch English movies on a TV because I just don’t understand it… But then with headphones on everything is perfect.
That’s why I love Star Trek. I never have trouble understanding dialogue.
Older TV shows generally have a more even audio mix, because they were mixed for clear dialogue on TV speakers. Nowadays even TV shows have movie theater mixes, despite the fact that no one will ever see these shows in the cinema. I think TV execs just assume way more people have a Dolby Atmos system in their living room than they do in reality. It’s pretty stupid.
why not provide two mix-downs one for regular people and one for idio… I mean those tv execs?
pewgar_seemsimandroidno , it’s just that almost all streaming services think you have dolby atmos surround sound
I have it, still need subtitles because mumbling is cool yo
Classic schooled actors with theater experience are being replaced by young actors using basic conversational speech and volume. More natural but not that easy to understand.
“Back in my day, people talked more clearly!”
No grandpa, you’re just going deaf
No, there’s definitely an element of not speaking clearly.
Matthew McConaughey and Tom Hardy as examples. Chris Nolan gets shit on for his terrible sound mixing, but him picking actors who mumble is the main issue.
Put on a movie from 1980 vs one from 2020. The voice clarity is night and day.
Hmm, no, that one is on snob directors and pretentious sound engineers.
Dude that shit is recorded on microphones and levels can be adjusted with mixers.
Atmos won’t save you from shitty sound mixes, I have a pretty nice sound setup and still have to turn on captions if I want to hear a conversation without being blown away during the next action sequence.
Not just that, they assume you have an IMAX Dolby system installed in your theater sized living room, that everyone obviously has. Bad mixes are inexcusable and sound mixing snobbism is a symptom of the pompous pretentiousness that is the rotten core of Hollywood. Yes, Hollywood, most foreign films with DTS have perfectly good and serviceable mixes.
I do.
I still have subs on.
Subtitles ruin native-language movies. I’ll enable them if I’m watching something in public because I’m not a monster but otherwise I hate them.
Get some decent speakers, FFS. A ‘sound bar’ does not qualify. A good center channel speaker is essential. Don’t even need the rear surrounds with a good front setup.
Try dubbing for ruining native-language movies.