i can reliably parse most English language dialect. most…
but don’t ask me to repeat anything from Eddy Vedder in Pearl Jam. i need subtitles for that shit!
who was it (was it here on bbs?) that posted about the Mystic Chicken at the New Zealand airport. that’s funny!
Lol…I do that when watching The Great British Baking Show.
I would agree with you (I’m one of those annoying people who HAS to “fix” other people’s systems when I visit them), except that I don’t generally have any problem with media that is over about 15 years old. If older media can be played on newer multi-channel equipment without any loss of verbal intelligibility, I don’t see why the newer stuff can’t be mastered that way.
has a few paragraphs in the middle about how no one at the distribution level cares enough to make dialogue clear and distinct, so various companies are using AI to resolve the very problems they had a hand in creating.
"Netflix still uses a dialogue-anchor spec, she said, which is why shows on Netflix sound (to her) noticeably crisper and clearer: “If you watch a Netflix show now and then immediately you turn on an HBO show, you’re gonna have to raise your volume.” Amazon Prime Video’s spec, meanwhile, “is pretty gnarly.” But what really galls her about Amazon is its new “dialogue boost” function, which viewers can select to “increase the volume of dialogue relative to background music and effects.” In other words, she said, it purports to fix a problem of Amazon’s own creation. Instead, she suggested, “why don’t you just air it the way we mixed it?”
I’d like to watch a movie where I could set my language preferences like this
SDH: OFF
French: French
English: OFF
German: German
All other languages: English
and as I pick up more languages, or my listening skills in french and german improve. my preferences could change. Right now, if I turn off the subtitles to watch the double life of veronique, I miss what the poles are talking about.
Exactly. The whole article is BS. I don’t watch anything now in any language without subtitles.
It’s not some mysterious generational thing. Ugh.
edited to avoid making double posts. That is why I deleted the next post. It is below.
And what if you have no sound bar? I have a tv speaker or I have two Sonos speakers as a pair. No center channel. So there is no fixing it.
I do want that sound bar but my wife already doesn’t want the gear we have. Why can’t I have a Stereo option? (note…apple tv isn’t quite smart enough to use the tv speakers as center channel as far as I can hear.)
Also, agreed on the audio processing issues. I have a son who is deaf, with cochlear implants, so we have been watching with subtitles on since he lost his hearing.
We have had subtitles on as long as I’ve been married, as my wife is ESL. When I got the DVDs from netflix for the original All Creatures Great and Small there were… no subtitles! And I don’t know which region that was set in but so much rural farmer dialog was unintelligible, and the audio was kinda muddy garble, so we almost pulled the plug but we just kind of switched to getting the gist of things through context.
So the issue is a combination of different streaming services audio encoding and crappy consumer surround hardware?
I don’t have a 5.1 or whatever system, or a fake-surround sound bar, and I don’t subscribe to any streaming services. So everything I watch goes through VLC Player down-mixed to stereo and played through either an old crappy tv speaker, or the MBP headphone jack. Maybe that combination corrects the issue for me that others are experiencing.
It’s seems to me the problem is the surround channels are too loud in relation to the center channel. I can imagine the companies set it up that way deliberately for sales floor “wow” factor, just like the horrible image settings that still plague our parents’ HD screens.
@1000YearBan yes, that sounds about right.
All I know is I either have the sound way too loud (my wife just yelled out of our bedroom at me) or I can’t hear any dialog. I have very good hearing, tested at audiologist.
I have read that the mixing for 5.1 is what caused this, but that could just be BS.
Since I made my last post I tried putting on the tv speaker along with the sonos. Perhaps it is better? Not sure.
Sounds like from your system if you are mixing to stero that you are indeed fixing the issue. Or also…headphone is much different than no headphone.
I think part of the issue is that mastering technology/practice doesn’t yet correct for the vast range of consumer hardware. I have a system on the moderately high end of consumer hardware. Not audiophile, not entry level, a definite investment after 20 years of listening to built-in TV speakers. It’s remarkable, a real revelation. No problems with dialog or sound mix on even very dynamic movies.
It’s also at least adjacent to peak privilege. My level of knowledge, free time, and monetary position should not be required to experience mass market media. I don’t mean that as a flex, there’s not much flexing to do…my point is that I had to make it a priority to put a decent-sounding system in, and it seems to me unreasonable to have to prioritize that.
It reminds me of a story, anecdotal or real, I’m afraid I can’t remember the players. Upcoming pop star in the 80s walked up to their engineer before recording and tossed a Walkman on the desk. Said, “make it sound good on that”. Exactly the point. Make it sound good on common outputs, and for people in the lower percentiles of hearing ability, and it’ll be better for everyone.
Designing for accessibility tends to result in a better experience for all users.
classic;
(still got this “project” to do; have the 6-channel version of oppenheimer laying around and want to make a new audio track which will only contain dialouge and only some of the soundtrack, which is in the original mix just unbearable for me.)
Scottish guy here. First time I ever had to use subs for an English language show was the first season of The Wire. That was some incomprehensible gibberish right there.
You can do that with Audacity for free.
I use it to isolate center channel dialogue and rear stereo ambiance to sample for my music.
Set up the number of channels and drop the video file. Remix the levels and remux back to the video.
But it’s stupid to have to do that.
Do tell.
Which characters dialogue couldn’t you parse?
that was my plan. so far, I was just too lazy 
And thus the loudness wars began… You can mix a track so it sounds passably loud on underpowered system. But if someone plays that track on a real stereo system and cranks that volume knob, it’ll sound like a solid wall of noise. But louder. It won’t be more dramatic. It’ll never get close to the feeling of a live performance.
If someone mixed the 1812 overture thatt way, you’d never believe that that cannons were in fact howitzers. Maybe your speakers would survive the attempt, though.
The Atlantic article I posted mentioned that each soundtrack is supposed to be mixed so you don’t need to turn your volume up to hear dialogue, and commercials don’t immediately prompt you to turn down the volume out of concern for your ears. The associated metadata can be used by your receiver to tweak the sound. For instance you could have a night mode that boosts the volume of soft sound effects, ensures that the main dialogue audible, but dampens the force of explosions. It’s a DSP version of someone intentionally mixing for a cheap AM radio-- except that it’s reversible.
But if your streaming provider is lazy, and doesn’t adhere to the standard, none of this can really work.
Jesus effin’ christ… I didn’t hear anything until the last one… and I even have my hearing aids in.
English fellow who lives in Scotland, here. Careful, now! 
(I assume you meant dialect of the english language rather than a dialect within an english area, of course but, as I say: careful!)
dont know how reliable a yt-vid is in terms of audio fidelity accuracy, but for maybe peace of mind try
Im apparently 12 years younger or at least my hearing is.
