Add break volume changing

paulbok

Is anyone else getting seriously P1$$*d with the volume increasing during add breaks on the majority of the non-terrestrial stations?
I have to turn it down at least 5-6 notches as it becomes deafening, then of course I miss the restart of whatever I was watching as I don't hear it come back on and may be reading a magazine or on the web.

I rang UPC before on this and was told that it was down to the signal from the stations. But surely they have control of their own signals?

I also have a vague recollection of hearing of a law in Italy making this illegal.

Freddie59

paulbok wrote: »

Is anyone else getting seriously P1$$*d with the volume increasing during add breaks on the majority of the non-terrestrial stations?

Doesn't really bother me. I find Sky One to be the worst offender - particularly on ad breaks during America-made shows.

seamus

Yeah, wrecks my head. As said, Sky are the pits for this and it generally seems to be the satellite channels that do this - Comedy, Dave, etc - rather than the likes of BBC or RTE.

I doubt there's anything UPC can easily do about it. They could apply a sound normalisation algorithm to the stream, but I imagine that any agreement they have includes clauses that disallow UPC from interfering with the feed as provided by Sky.

It's also a fairly big deal to do that for the sake of a few complaints from customers, as they risk causing sound and/or syncing issues on the feed. Much easier to say that's the feed and there's nothing they can do about it.

Red Alert

The sad thing is that the reduced volume level during the actual movie or programme you're watching means that the signal/noise ratio is lower, so the sound quality is worse too!

If you use a surround amplifier for watching TV, take out the manual and see if there's any option called something like Compression or DRC. That'll do the normalisation for you.

Cantona's Collars

It's an old trick used to grab peoples attention when the ads come on.The volume is higher,that makes you take notice whether you like it or not.

Del2005

It's annoying and the USA has banned it. Why can't our caring EU do it for us?