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View Full Version : hold the phones, congress did something i agree with



Neal Clayton
09-30-2010, 3:57 PM
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100930/ap_on_en_ot/us_congress_loud_commercials

bill has passed both houses that require cable operators and broadcasters to limit commercial volume to the same volume of the show they're placed in.

David Weaver
09-30-2010, 4:05 PM
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100930/ap_on_en_ot/us_congress_loud_commercials

bill has passed both houses that require cable operators and broadcasters to limit commercial volume to the same volume of the show they're placed in.

SWEET - never thought this was an issue of legislation, but can't say i'm unhappy to see it.

Keith Outten
09-30-2010, 6:27 PM
The public airwaves are regulated by the FCC so it is within the authority of our Government to pass a law concerning audio specifications.

I also agree with this one, I have been fed up with commercial volume abuse for many years so this will be a welcome change.
.

Bill Orbine
09-30-2010, 6:35 PM
You know, maybe then I won't have any more fun calling up the toll free numbers posted on those loud commercials so I can complain about the loud commercials.

Jerome Hanby
09-30-2010, 6:52 PM
You know, maybe then I won't have any more fun calling up the toll free numbers posted on those loud commercials so I can complain about the loud commercials.

When they aggravate me enough, I call up ask every question I can come up with and walk through the transaction right up to the payoff then remark about the loudness of the commercial and tell them never mind.

Scott Shepherd
09-30-2010, 6:54 PM
You guys are gullible :) Now someone, somewhere, will figure out how to get around this and it'll be 10 times more annoying than this was :) What's that saying, something about the "enemy you know"?

You're going to be sorrrrrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyy. Mark my words :)

Jacob Mac
09-30-2010, 7:39 PM
You guys are gullible :) Now someone, somewhere, will figure out how to get around this and it'll be 10 times more annoying than this was :) What's that saying, something about the "enemy you know"?

You're going to be sorrrrrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyy. Mark my words :)

Off topic here, but I really dig your avatar. One of my favorite cartoons growing up.

Belinda Barfield
09-30-2010, 7:55 PM
Off topic here, but I really dig your avatar. One of my favorite cartoons growing up.

Me too, what Jacob said! Steve, you're my number one super guy!

Chris Kennedy
09-30-2010, 8:34 PM
I cannot tell you how happy I am to hear this. This is something that has driven me crazy for years.

Cheers,

Chris

Eric DeSilva
09-30-2010, 9:47 PM
What are these commercials you speak of?

DVR. When you FF over commercials, they mute.

Bill Cunningham
09-30-2010, 9:56 PM
The Lexus commercials are almost double the sound of all the others. Perhaps if you drive a Lexus, your hard of hearing, so they figure everyone else is..

Jim Rimmer
09-30-2010, 10:08 PM
It all depends on how the guidelines are written. Several years ago they tried voluntary compliance and the response was that the broadcasters keep the average volume the same or less. So, if you have a 30 second commercial with 25 seconds at 80dB and 5 seconds of silence (while the disclaimers scroll across the screen) you have average dB of 66.6 - not loud by most standards.

Disclaimer - don't start on me about what dB levels are loud and what they are broadcast at and how that is controlled by your volume control. I only used these numbers as examples to make the math easy.:D

Neal Clayton
09-30-2010, 10:20 PM
What are these commercials you speak of?

DVR. When you FF over commercials, they mute.

that's almost 100% applicable, but for football season.

i also love the knee jerk reaction to lie in the article linked above from the opponents of the bill. "wahhhhh we'll have to get equipment". what, you mean the equipment that you and every radio station in existence has had for about, lets see, 60 to 70 years?

they published guidelines on how to transmit audio in the proper way, fantastic! cause about 19 years ago my first high school job was running the board at the local AM radio station. they showed me how to read the decibel meter on the live broadcast board and how to keep them all consistent in about 2 or 3 minutes on my first day at work. and for that matter an especially 'hot' recording was worthy of complaining by the other broadcast workers. which is why, on day two, they taught us how to go find the original tape reel for a commercial and recreate the cartridges used day to day during the live broadcasts to eliminate the 'hot' ones. all of the 'new equipment' at that job wasn't very new, sadly enough. most of it was from the 70s.

wonder how much they paid for the guidelines? i could've saved them some cash and written it for them.

maybe what they MEANT to say was that 5-10 years ago they published guidelines extolling the virtues of making all ad recordings 'hot', and since they have now wasted the time of every person in the country up to and including congress with such BS, they're rescinding their original guidelines.

Matt Evans
09-30-2010, 10:31 PM
Better yet, when you don't watch TV you never hear any commercials at all. . .

Call me odd, but television and myself never got along, and I think I am happiest without it. Luckily, my wife agrees with me.

Dan Hintz
10-01-2010, 6:47 AM
Jim brings up a valid point, and even with the new legislation, it's going to be difficult. Since commercials and shows are never recorded by the same people, the recording levels can be all over the place... that leaves it up to the audio engineer at the stations to do the final mix-down, and there lies the rub.

Plain speech typically needs to be turned up so we can hear/understand it, but add in some music and suddenly it doesn't need to be as loud or it drowns out the speech. So imagine watching a drama that goes to commercial, and the commercial starts with a rock song (iPod commercial, sports car, etc.). The audio engineer has to dynamically tune the sound levels... too little and you get blown away, too much and you get artifacting in the audio and it sounds like crap. It's a fine line...

John Coloccia
10-01-2010, 8:31 AM
Or the station can spend $100 on a compressor/limiter and turn it on during commercials. If the commercial is mixed too hot, it will not sound good. Too bad for the product. Next time, they'll mix it better.

Joe Chritz
10-01-2010, 9:50 AM
Better yet. If you don't like how the commercials are on a station then watch a different one. Problem solved.

Trying to legislate every "problem" is a bad idea which is already in full swing.

Joe

Dan Hintz
10-01-2010, 10:57 AM
I DVR almost everything and skip the commercials... problem solved.

Neal Clayton
10-01-2010, 11:03 AM
Or the station can spend $100 on a compressor/limiter and turn it on during commercials. If the commercial is mixed too hot, it will not sound good. Too bad for the product. Next time, they'll mix it better.

actually it looks like you can get one for 76 dollars from amazon.

if someone had time/money to burn they could buy say...a truckload of the marketing pamphlets for that 76 dollar compressor and deliver all of them to that lobbying firm.


Jim brings up a valid point, and even with the new legislation, it's going to be difficult. Since commercials and shows are never recorded by the same people, the recording levels can be all over the place... that leaves it up to the audio engineer at the stations to do the final mix-down, and there lies the rub.

Plain speech typically needs to be turned up so we can hear/understand it, but add in some music and suddenly it doesn't need to be as loud or it drowns out the speech. So imagine watching a drama that goes to commercial, and the commercial starts with a rock song (iPod commercial, sports car, etc.). The audio engineer has to dynamically tune the sound levels... too little and you get blown away, too much and you get artifacting in the audio and it sounds like crap. It's a fine line...

all of which they've been doing ever since the first radio broadcast decades ago. it's not really a new thing.

Greg Cuetara
10-01-2010, 12:28 PM
actually I believe that some regulations like this already exist. The problem is that if you really pay attention to the shows there will be gun fire or really loud music right before the commercial starts which then allows the commercial to be much louder than the typical volume of the shows. One big problem I have is that I can hardly hear when people are talking but then there is a little action and it gets way too loud. LOML spends too much time with the remote changing the volume so that we don't wake up the kiddo.

Mike Wilkins
10-01-2010, 2:21 PM
This is great. Our government just spent millions of our tax dollars to come up with something you and I could just do with our remote controls: use the volume control.

Phil Thien
10-01-2010, 8:45 PM
That is a great idea. But let me see 'em do something about this. That's right, posts in all caps.

I suppose enforement would be probematic.

[LOL. I tried posting the above in all caps. The system automatically decapified it. I guess a higher authority than the gov't is already at work... Keith Outten.]

Greg Peterson
10-01-2010, 11:15 PM
I watch the science channel in the morning during my breakfast. When the commercials come on, the commercial volume is easily twice that of the program. I have to hurry and turn the volume down or mute it. Then there are the commercials that start out loud and get louder.

If they know how to make their commercials loud and obnoxious, they know how to not do this.

Simple compliance test is if I have to turn down the commercial, they are out of compliance.

Bryan Morgan
10-01-2010, 11:27 PM
With all the streaming technology out there you guys still watch TV with commercials? :p

Mike Sheppard
10-02-2010, 1:44 PM
They did something I like also, they went home.:D:D:D:D
Mike

paul cottingham
10-03-2010, 11:22 AM
Mythtv actually cuts commercials out of recordings.