Timmers Loc: San Antonio Texas.

This is something that has been going on for years. On U-Tube, on the Amazon Prime, and frankly other locations. I tried to hear a movie's audio and it comes out as a wispier, or low volume, yet when there is a commercial (U-Tube) the audio blares. I know that for some reason the providers are doing this with purpose, that is apparent.

My question is, is there anything that can be done on a standard computer like a Dell computer to increase the volume beyond the volume knob on the speaker? I have actually doped out of a film because the audio is so low I simply cannot follow the dialogue, and this is on a paid site.

BebuLamar

On Youtube I have a drop out of about 1 sec or even less once every 15 min or so. I don't know what happens. When I watch youtube it doesn't bother me but when I tried to record the music off the youtube video that would ruin the recording.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

It all depends on what volume level the recording is made, ANYWHERE.
Some are low, some are high, some in the middle. Very annoying on the record level, no consistency.
The only thing I can think of is to plug the computer audio out into another speaker with an amplifier for the low volume ones.
I saved a movie one time (before the 'save from net' site was banned in the US) that has a VERY low recorded volume. Maybe earphones...

dpullum Loc: Tampa Florida

In addition... movies historically had music composed specifically to be relevant to the scene... now with movies and with simple discussions, and interviews, people are compelled to have distorted background noise NOISE, screeches and rumbles like heavy traffic, which makes it difficult to understand them. I do not understand this insanity.

Music in movies is at times a problem because it is designed to be a separately regulated sound vs the speech but in Net playback it is there usually way too loud. Also, actors think mumbling is a great style, "bunk" it is sloppy.

Bultaco Loc: Aiken, SC

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I've noticed the same thing on TV. Yes, it is annoying, but I think it's because there are two different systems. There is the TV show, and there is the commercial. They are somewhat independent, so the sound levels are different. You never come across a commercial with lower volume, though, do you? I press the Mute button when YouTube ads come on.

What's even more annoying is loud music drowning out the dialog. That's why I always use closed captions.

I've never come across a way to increase computer volume on the computer. I bet wearing headphones would help.

FredCM Loc: Central Illinois

The so-called background music on action tv shows and movies sounds like a deaf engineer testing synthesizers. That is not music, it does not heighten suspense, it just aggravates us (me only?). Or should I just admit my name should be Ove?

Timmers Loc: San Antonio Texas.

I'm sorry, I don't believe any of these explanations as to the fact that the sound tracks on movies/movie videos is any thing more than intentional. Long before we had computers or U-Tube or Amazon, all the other providers, the audio was loud enough to be herd. I do not buy into the notion that motion picture companies can not and do not provide good sound in their films. Hollywood makes films to make money, if their sound tracks were no good people would not pay money to see films.

My feeling is that companies like Amazon Prime are being paid to screw up the audio as well as U-Tube. It is like flash makers for photography drain batteries of power unless you take the batteries out. The Polaroid slide duplicator was notorious in doing this. Made by Vivitar, you either removed the batteries, or some of us put a torn Polaroid film piece of the cardboard from the film box between the batteries and that kept the batteries from draining.

But if course this sounds like conspiracy theory, yet everyone I know has noticed the audio problems of too low volume. If the senders of these films just boosted the audio, then we the viewer could turn down the volume on our speakers, but we cannot raise that volume higher than the max setting on the speaker.

A new issue that is unrelated to the audio is with Amazon Prime Video. They now have mostly pay to view films and the rest have excessive commercials that are as bad commercial TV. So I just got rid of Amazon. A film on U-Tube may have commercials, but they are short and are just a few. Bad but tolerable. While Amazon that is being paid, unacceptable business practice, I did not just fall of the turnip wagon on the way into town.

So, a favorite cartoon from here, the hog, makes my point and many other people's point.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Some comments - I know that certain directors want loud background sound while the actors are speaking. I've heard them say this during interviews.

YouTubers control the sound of the videos they post. As I go from one to the other, I have to adjust the sound up or down. One in particular channel requires me to turn the sound up almost all the way.

I've never had any commercials in Amazon Prime videos, and I never pay to watch an online movie.

rcarol

Many years ago, the FCC ruled that the sound for commercials for broadcast TV could not be any louder than the program that it was interrupting. They used power as opposed to peak volume as the criteria for determining compliance. The advertisers got clever and decided they could boost the power in the higher sound frequencies while reducing the power in the low frequencies during the commercials thus keeping the total transmitted power during commercials the same as during the program. The net result was that the commercials sounded louder when they broke from regular programming. It was a clever way to get around the FCC ruling. However, the FCC has no control over the volume of streaming video since the internet does not use the airways for distribution. That is my understanding.

aphelps Loc: Central Ohio

There are several ways to deal with this. On the computer, look at the sound card options for volume leveling or such. On the TV menu, there may be a similar option under audio processing. These levelers may or may not provide sufficient dynamic range for wide swings in volume. In that case, you need a volume limiter, compressor or volume-dependent auto gain control. That will decrease high volume and increase low volume. Being an electrical engineer, I designed and built one of these. If you are handy building electronics I can send you the circuit diagram.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Well said. There are outboard audio above threshold compressor/expanders such as the old Dbx 128 that you can pick up inexpensively, but for internal computer use, there are aps available here (disclaimer - I haven’t tried any of these) I Googled “real time audio compressor Ap” : https://sourceforge.net/directory/?q=audio%20compressor%20limiter

Timmers Loc: San Antonio Texas.

Thanks you for answering my question, it helps.

Tim.

Timmers Loc: San Antonio Texas.

Thanks, you for this, I will ask my nephew who is a wiz kid for electronics. You offered a practical solution to the problem.

Tim.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Most movie productions and broadcast TV sound on PROGRAM MATERIAL is now normalized to -23db LUFS. This is done to improve the dynamic range of movies so that spectacular loud sounds have some headroom to sound loud. The theory goes that dialog should be at a normal conversation level, but a rock band or a jet taking off should be very loud by comparison.

That's okay in a theater or in a wealthy person's 7-speaker, 2400 Watt RMS amp-equipped home theater, but doesn't work well on cheap TVs or computer monitors.

On the other end of the scale, commercial ads are generally normalized to -12db LUFS or louder. Even PBS does that. The promotional sponsor mentions at the start of the PBS News Hour are MUCH louder than the studio announcers and most stories filed by reporters.

The solution is to get a set of powered speakers or a sound bar with a woofer, and connect them to your computer or TV. OR, do like I do and plug in a set of decent headphones.

It would be nice if there were devices built into computers and TVs that acted like broadcast compressor-limiters or audio leveling amplifiers. A leveling amp tracks the average volume and raises or lowers it gently when it changes.

Edit: See Tri-X's note above.