General > General Technical Chat
Why do commercials sound so blasted loud?
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Neper:
The reach of R128 and similar rules goes further than just tv ads. In the medium term, it will also put an end to the loudness war in the music industry. If they (or further downstream the radio stations, streaming services etc.) have to crank down the overall level of their brutally compressed music to stay within legal limits the producers will think twice about the degree of dynamic compression they'll want to apply.
vk6zgo:
Compression has been used for many years to try to increase the apparent loudness of commercials.

The thing that always annoys me is when movies made for the huge dynamic range of theatre presentation are shown on TV.
The conspirators are whispering together, you can't hear, so you wind up the volume.
Seconds later, there is a massive explosion, deafening you, & driving the speakers into non linearity.

Perhaps some compression would be appropriate there!
ejeffrey:
Many AV receivers have adjustable dynamic range compression for exactly that reason.
EPAIII:
I am retired now, but for about 45+ years I was one of those engineers. In fact I have been the chief engineer of four TV stations. I worked for at least eight stations and have built completely new studio facilities at several of them. In the others I participated to one degree or another in the almost continuous upgrades that were undertaken. I not only operated the audio equipment, I designed and installed the systems. I AM familiar with this situation/problem.

The first thing I must say is the engineers, the actual engineers almost never deny this problem. At least I never met one who did. The people who deny it are audio operators, NOT engineers. These are the guys with long haircuts and metal chains around their necks. They may sound like they know something about it, but their knowledge is very, very shallow. And some of them are sneaky and hide in normal clothes.

The most fundamental answer to the "why" question is because the advertising people know that loud commercials sell more. I put that word in italics because they actually know little or nothing. The fact of the matter is, these people are insecure in their jobs (for good reason) and they always need excuses when the ads don't work as well as desired which is virtually always. And this is not the only excuse they use. You wouldn't believe how much money I have spent because the broadcast antenna on top of that 1000 foot tower is not working properly. They could have done a lot better job of improving the reception with a chain saw, but NO, it was the antenna that was at fault. Anyway, that is the reason for it, plain and simple.

So, what is done to the audio? The traditional way of setting audio levels is with a VU meter which has a scale from about -20 db to +3 db with a small range below the -20 db mark for all lesser levels. These traditional audio meters have specific ballistics associated with the way the needle (or string of LEDs) moves: fast rise time with a delayed decay so the peaks can be easily seen. Most look-alike audio meters in consumer electronic devices do not have this kind of ballistics. And the traditional way of judging proper audio level with these meters is about 3 to 5 peaks over the 0 db point on the meter per minute. That is referred to as being "in the red" on the meter because the scale from 0 db to + 3 db is colored red. That's it. In more than 45 years of TV engineering experience, that is the only guidance I was ever given on how to use those meters. Not very precise, is it?

How the audio levels are controlled beyond that is something that every TV and radio engineer must learn the hard way. And the environment that engineer is working in has a big influence on that. A top 50 music radio station is going to have a very loud sound. And one that plays only classical music will have a very low sound. Most TV programs are somewhere in between at a happy medium. But the commercials are often not produced at the TV or radio stations and the production companies which do produce them are a whole different environment.

Compression? Is that used? You bet it is! But it is not the curse you may think it is. Virtually all TV and radio stations (I don't have any experience with internet streaming channels) have audio processing equipment between the studio and the transmitter. The idea there is to have an audio signal that meets that 3 to 5 peaks "in the red" while maintaining a dynamic range that preserves the intent of the program's producers'. But compression is only one part of that processing. The real low parts of the audio can be expanded or brought up to make them more audible and understandable. And those peaks can be limited in two different ways: a soft limit that applies an increasing amount of compression in the upper one or two dbs of the range and a hard clip that prevents any levels from ever going past a fixed point to avoid over modulation in the transmitter. And the basic compression itself can have many different characteristics.

At one TV station where I began working I found that the previous non-engineer engineers had adjusted this equipment with so much compression and expansion that the audio meters at the transmitter barely wiggled up or down between -2 db and +1 db. And it sounded horrible. Almost totally impossible to understand even simple, speech. They had caved in to the demands for louder and louder and louder sound until it was nothing but loud. It took me about two hours on my first Saturday there to get it back to normal.

Around 20 or 25 years ago there was a push to remedy this situation. Complaints were heard. The FCC said they were going to fix it. Some of the audio metering equipment companies made new models that measured loudness. They had the traditional modulation meters which were an off the air version of the VU meter I described above, and they added a meter or some other indicator of the overall loudness. Stations, at least some stations bought these new metering devices. And they used them. Did it help? Not really. The same old forces of advertiser's pressure were still at work. And then along came digital. And it was a whole new ball game. It really should not have been all that different, but boy was it.

I expect that with another 20 or 30 years of viewer complaints the digital TV and AM and FM and digital radio stations will be forced to take action again. But then there is cable and satellite and internet and streaming and heaven knows what else. I can't even find an agency, local, state, or national, that has even any control over some of these. The audio out there is back to the wild west.

In short, here I am, the quintessential engineer at the very heart of this situation and I share your concerns and frustration. I have shared them for decades. Sometimes I have been able to control it and others not. And now, in my retirement, I too run the volume on my TVs up and down. And up and down and up and down and up and down.

AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAGGGGGGGG!

Will it ever be better? I fear that I will not live to see that.
EPAIII:
Compression is the cause of the problem. It is going to be hard to use it as a cure.




--- Quote from: ejeffrey on November 19, 2021, 01:59:33 am ---Many AV receivers have adjustable dynamic range compression for exactly that reason.

--- End quote ---
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