My Apple TV has a "tone down the explosions" setting, which helps a lot.
Even still, at times I wish I had a volume knob on my remote to swing one way or the other as the scene change in the thing I'm watching. The remote is too slow.
But it's annoying to have these wide ranges. Then you watch a news or talk program or something like that, and the voices are front and center and everything is peachy.
Later, we can talk about how dark things have become on screen as well.
> ... when we got a look at that spec, they require it to be based on the overall [volume] of the film, not on the dialogue level of the film. Consequently, that's a big action movie with shooting and cars and big music, and the result of that is that you have a much more squashed up, un-impactful mix ...
Yes, I want it somewhat squashed up! Please do that! I understand the artistry and desire for dynamic range, but when the character is whispering some critical plot detail, you can zoom in for a feeling of intimacy/privacy and have the actor stage whisper so everyone knows what was said. It shouldn't actually be a whisper that people a few feet away can't hear. When you follow it up with an explosion, sure, make it a little louder, but not real-life loud! That would you blow out your speakers and wake the baby.
And yes, darkness on-screen is another problem. Not everyone has plasma or OLED displays (though the latter are becoming more available), nor watches in pitch black. And when downconverted from 10 bits to 8 bits, streamed through compression algorithms, and displayed on average TN displays...no, you can't see what's going on. Tom Scott did an excellent video on this subject a while ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9j89L8eQQk. Game of Thrones in particular was unwatchable for me because of this.
The goal is to sell. They probably get paid by TV manufacturers (like a product placement).
> Game of Thrones in particular
That confirms, they definitely get paid ;)
This would be an excellent idea! Oftentimes I'll watch something, then in the middle turn on the subtitles and learn that I was misunderstanding the name of someone/something.
Even if I hear it correctly the spelling may be different and can give better context and cultural flavor.
In movie theaters, they'd show English language films with Danish subtitles and, often, I'd miss a comic piece of dialog because the subtitles let the audience in on the joke before I could hear it spoken, and then the audience laughter would drown out any chance I had of hearing the joke.
It was a bit frustrating.
Streaming services have taken a massive step backward in this regard. TVs should have better signal processing options for this (and some do). I have a custom "night mode" set up that deals with mixed streaming volume levels in my system, but I'm using highly customized pro audio gear in ways that the average user won't want to pay for or deal with.
I am fortunate enough to have a home cinema room with a projector and some pretty beefy audio gear hooked up. But most of the time we watch in the lounge where it’s a more casual affair.
I just noticed this trying to watch Amazon's new Wheel of Time series. It doesn't matter what the volume on the TV is - the background music and effects are so much louder than the dialog that I can't understand what people are saying.
> But it's annoying to have these wide ranges. Then you watch a news or talk program or something like that, and the voices are front and center and everything is peachy.
I've often thought a lot of these problems could be solved just by adding a "minimum volume" knob to all the "maximum volume" knobs we currently use, allowing users to forcefully reduce the dynamic range in an easy-to-understand way (while still being loud enough to hear dialogue). I remember "large dynamic range" being advertised as something you want for home theatres/etc, but in general I think it's more a misfeature/antipattern.
EEs, correct me if I'm wrong, but the amplifier circuitry is digitally-controlled now, no? So hypothetically could be rapidly adjusted with low latency?
You want to keep some dynamic range but not too much.
Having said that, it turns out that I'm reasonably deaf in one ear. It's considered "Mild" hearing loss but wow is the effect substantial. My wife listens on videos on her phone at the same volume level that is literally me being able to JUST hear it. Moderate-Severe hearing loss must be impossible. And one of my ears is totally normal... only one ear has "mild" hearing loss.
Anyway long story short, consider getting a hearing test :)
Until the last couple of decades, most British movies/TV tended to use a lot of “Received Pronunciation” English (the Queen’s English) which has very crisp enunciation. Other accents were usually relegated to very specific character roles that highlighted the rustic “cockney” or “Yorkshire” character.
More recently, other British accents have been used more and many of them are the opposite of crisp enunciation. Some seem to be talking with marbles in their mouths. This seems to represent a greater democratization of the characters represented with less of an emphasis on upper classes.
This has been accomplished in a number of ways - opening more regional TV production studios, commissioning more content from regions outside London, hiring presenters/actors with regional accents etc, the net effect of all of which has been to broaden BBC talent pool beyond the usual cadre of “Received Pronunciation”-style presenters.
As one example, I personally find the presenter Freddie Flintoff to be almost impossible to understand on any BBC show he appears on, but he has exactly the sort of accent you would never have heard on BBC 40 years ago.
I've cut back tremendously on my listening in part on this basis. (Overall quality of coverage also seems to have flagged, also often with an eye toward popularity over significance. I'm aware that there's been a war against the BBC by political elements within the UK, I disagree strongly with it, and feel that also has a large role in these trends.)
But as with online content: if your design and/or presentation are getting in the way of your message and ability to communicate ... please stop doing that.
Some US programs used British actors to "raise the game" for their US co-workers.
Examples: The Americans, The Wire, Homeland, Deadwood, etc etc.
And as a side-effect, the dialogue was generally more understandable.
In all seriousness, Baltimore has a pretty heavy accent, especially in the inner city & Dundalk. It's rather comical to say that they got English actors because they were more understandable, to then turn around and make them less understandable.
Thank you. I've been in England for 8 years now and I've become fluent with any type of accent, yet I've still been watching movies with subs at home and it's been a crutch hard to get rid of; it made me second guess my ability to understand spoken English.
I have no issues in real life, or when watching YouTube, but movies, man... there's times I miss some words or I don't understand what's going on and I am unsure if I missed some kind of plot-crucial idiomatic joke whispered 30 minutes ago. And let's not speak of Tenet. Nolan is one of my favourite film-makers, but I hated that movie because I couldn't understand half the dialogue and the plot.
I'm happy to know it's not me, nor my ears failing.
On top of that, said explainer will complain that their work is "super difficult" and "hard to explain", but then, if by some miracle I can get them to sit still long enough and get up to speed, "miraculously" I'm able to onboard others.
I swear it's not a super-power! I just don't assume a ton of context!
This one is definitely not just you... I'm not sure Christopher Nolan himself understood the plot beyond "Inception, but for time machines".
But since we’re talking about it… it didn’t help understanding the plot that it was by far the poorest sound mixing I’ve ever heard. I had to watch it a second time with subtitles on, only to confirm it wasn’t any better when you could understand them.
That, or a cynical mix engineer noticed that the words don't make the movie any better, so they made an editorial decision to cut them a little (plus, everything was clear enough in their carefully calibrated 22.2 Atmos studio).
Do you genuinely believe films like Edge of Tomorrow are works directed by a genuine auteur with full control? That is almost certainly not the case. The director is Doug Liman. He's not a bad director by any means but if you look at his filmography—Mr & Mrs Smith, Jumper, Bourne Identity—he's not exactly Francois Truffaut.
Besides, artists do not behave consistently. Some may care less about comprehension, while others may care deeply. Lumping them all into one category and making a false dichotomy between style and comprehension are both vast oversimplifications.
Netflix has been slowly pushing more international content in the US as many of Americans are starting to become more comfortable with reading subtitles.
I do think there is some room for improvement though in that subtitles should absolutely have standardized options for how they display on screen. Some people really like the yellow, others find that much more distracting compared to a bold white lettering on a semi-opaque black background. Let the viewer decide which one they are most comfortable with unless you have some specific art directed reason why they need to be formatted a certain way.
I should try delaying the subtitles so I can only read things that I've missed.
There's a baseline assumption with a lot of "high quality" movies and television that every member of the audience has perfectly working senses. The sad fact is "low quality" reality TV is much more accessible. Sporting events are also a lot easier because you can hear the people talking clearly.
For a more concrete example Star Trek: Discovery is difficult for me to hear and follow everything, whereas the older TV series and the new the animated ones are much easier.
The other nice feature of subtitles is sometimes there is helpful metadata there, like identifying the song playing in the background or some words not intended to be heard like a whisper or voice coming from a phone receiver.
I’d recommend the show overall.
Though I could see full "yam yam" being hard - that's the rural dialect from the black country.
One of the many alleged origins for the term is a German director (which director varies according to the story) declaring that a scene should be shot "mit out sound".
Why do you say it looks utter crap then?
Based on what? In my experience, most of the worst audio experiences are middle-brow action movies (such as Edge of Tomorrow and Nolan's movies), not auteur.
I can't recommend OLED TVs enough. Worth every penny.
But I agree that way too many movies nowadays are too dark.
If you care about it, Blu-ray and OLED should give you excellent dark scene detail.
If you want to have a bad experience or don't care, buy a shitty TV.
I agree lots of shows nowadays are too dark overall, but I don't agree that they shouldn't have dark scenes at all because some people bought shitty TVs.
If I want to see and hear what is happening in the movie/TV show, that should just be guaranteed for the home release of the movie/TV show for any kind of popular TV/sound system - this is on the film.
The gaming industry, for all its faults, has this right. Any game has some recommended system requirements, and as long as your machine meets these, it's the game's fault if it's not working well. No one will say "X is stuttering at low graphical settings on my system" "obviously, you need to buy the best GPU money can buy if you want to enjoy that game".
Of course, the way to achieve this is to give consumers the ability to trade off visual (and audio) fidelity for usability on the system they have. Apparently Hollywood is entirely allergic to this idea.
They are able to for the video. You just think the tradeoff is too great.
With my OLED, I'm yet to see a scene in a movie where it is too dark to be able to tell what's going on. I agree that too many movies are too dark for pleasurable viewing though.
So I think if you bought a crappy TV then you can't see it properly, if you bought a good TV then you just find it a bit dark.
Unfortunately, with the audio complaints however, everyone is suffering, even people who bought high end systems.
I have a medium-high end calibrated 5.1 surround system with a sub. I still have the volume issues like everyone else, having to turn it up to hear the dialog and then having to turn it down for loud scenes so I don't blow the doors off.
Thousands of dollars worth of speakers and I still have to turn subtitles on to understand the audio sometimes.
So the annoying sound is clearly an "artistic" choice, or incompetence by the directors to ruin the audio for everyone.
But I don't think every single scene has to be bright just because some people bought systems that can't display dark scenes properly.
I agree to an extent with you, but regarding the visuals, because I use an OLED the dark scenes don't bother me much, so because it's adequate for me, I think it could be argued that there you have made a tradeoff with the equipment you bought. Sometimes I watch movies on my IPS PC monitor and that is bearable too.
With audio, there's no amount you can spend to make it adequate.
I'll put it this way, I find the audio nowadays much more terrible than the video.
I don't know why directors insist on annoying people in every way available to them though. It should be their job to make good movies, and a movie is about audio and video. So they're literally bad at major parts of their job.
It seems to be a fairly recent thing though. I wonder why this is happening?
Why do modern directors want to piss off their customers??
I don't want my blacks to be blue or purple because you won't buy a better TV.
If the TV you have can't show dark colors properly, your TV is faulty.
1. I thought movie firms were paid to sell more modern screens with contrast ratios 3000:1, so they made it look pitch black for everyone with an older screen. Didn’t occur to me that it could be for art.
2. Oh, in terms of unwatchable shooting style, there was the hype of shoulder cameras in the 2010s, with its apogee in Bourne Legacy (4th). Most shots were 0,5s to 1 second for 20 minutes in a row, unbearable. Especially when it’s a dialog with someone expressing feelings, feels like the director is surfing on the view selectors.
The actual article content here about the reasons for dialogue getting worse is interesting. I'd have suspected it's mostly about the actors no longer being predominantly stage-trained, but apparently that is part of it but a small part. I don't really notice it personally, though, since my wife is deaf, so ever since marrying her, I've watched everything with closed captioning on.
That's great for people with TV's capable of that type of playback, but for everyone else, tough luck unless you have a blacked-out home theatre room to watch all you casual TV in.
I saw a great example of this in a recent LTT video[0] of a cheap "HDR" TV. The shadows all blended together and the highlights just looked like a flat white instead of a very lightly shadowed sparkle.
Actually after re-watching BladeRunner 2049 on my q95t I came to conclusion that I like watching dark scenes on my TV as much or even more then in cinema.
I often watch movies on my OLED and think, "this is so dark it only just looks OK on this TV - it would definitely look like crap if we were at the cinema".
Honestly I'm surprised that there are so many dark scenes in movies for that reason alone.
Last time I went to the cinema (a long time ago now), it was terrible how little contrast it had. Half the time I was thinking how crap it looked and I'd rather just watch it at home.
>For me-- I rarely watch movies without subtitles nowadays; can't understand half the dialog. try enabling dynamic range compression on your TV/Sound Receiver. Many movies are mastered for Cinema, which means voices are whsiper quiet and other sounds are loud af, this compresses it down to a more reasonable range for a home setup.
You also have to control the ambient lighting around the TV which can be a pain in the ass.
If directors want movies to be seen, they should consider the home viewing environment. Just as the article says many films consider the home sound environment and mixing for non-pristine environments.
The entire battle of winterfell was just mush.
Needless to say nowTV get no money from me.
I'm sure it would have looked fine if it was streaming at 20mbit.
In the UK, the DPP sets contribution bitrates for close-to-tx programs* HD are 45mbit h264 or 60mbit mpeg2 for live contribution, if you have to compress it (clearly 1.5gbit is preferred), and for UHD I think it's 90Mbit h265. Those bitrates are set to assume another compression layer, but I suspect if that episode had gone out on say BBC One HD it would have been running at 15mbit+ for the entire time.
* Game of Thrones I suspect would be classed as a close-to-tx delviery to reduce chances of leaks - certainly I know a broadcaster in Austrialia was receiving it on an NTT decoder over an MPLS from their LA office rather than as a file)
Part is the too many audio tracks being mixed in, that the article talks about. Also, I've noticed American actors seem to mumble their lines a lot, I dont know why. British actors (usually) speak clearly. Maybe its a cultural thing, like Americans prefer method acting more?
Also, I've noticed that stage actors like Patrick Stewart , speak clearly, maybe because on stage you have to enunciate properly.
The end result is: If a movie doesn't have subtitles, we don't watch it. (And havent been to a cinema for 2+ years, obviously, in cinemas you rarely get the option).
On an unrelated note: I dont know why so many movies are shot in the dark. It might make sense when viewed in a theater, but when viewing at home, I can't see anything. The last few scenes of Edge of Tomorrow were impossible to understand because of this.
My impression is: The "arteestes" have taken over Hollywood, and making stylish movies take precedence over making movies that are easy to watch and hear.