TV Modulation Levels

Has the TV world gone mad?

Since the first of September, broadcast TV in Canada has transferred to the digital realm (that is to say, over-the-air transmission) and I've been researching and buying new TV receivers and antenae to enable reception. This has been an adventure in itself, seeing as how optimal reception paths are at almost four 90 degree differential points of the compass from my house. An omni antenna didn't work, and directional antennas, as it would seem, picked up signal from one direction to the exclusion of others. (Don't even suggest cable, since I live in the country, away from such utilities)

But my biggest gripe with digital TV so far is that the commercials all seem to be so much louder than the broadcast volumes of the programs. This was always a concern in the analog transmission world too, but has been much exacerbated since the switch to digital. I know that the United Satates advocated the CALM act several years ago to remedy the problem and force broadcasters to reigh in their over-compressed and amplified audio as far as commercial production is concerned.

How is it in other countries that have made the switch? Does the compressor still rule supreme in the audio rack? And, speaking of gizmos, what's a good audio leveller that could be introduced in order to attenuate some of this over-modulated drivel?

Don't these advertisers know that this consumer would run a mile rather than support them and their ear-splitting ways?

Have you looked into the menu of the television to see if they have a leveler built-in that can be activated?  Many do these days.

Certainly seems to be a roblem on this side of the pod as well.  Of course now everything has gone digital, the producers can abuse the sound more than was ever possible in analogue.

It's not just the adverts either - the programmes themselves seem to come at different levels - even on the same station.  I'm forever leaping on the volume control.

Eric's suggestion is worth looking into - my TV has just sauch a control - but it's not a lot of use in my case, as I pick the audio striaght off the satellite receiver and run it through the normal audio system  This makes for a massive improvement in sound quality.

Here in the UK and most of Europe audio levels for submitted programmes should adhere to EBU R128.

http://tech.ebu.ch/loudness

PPMulator XL provides both a standalone and plugin metering for this standard.

http://products.zplane.de/index.php?page=ppmulatorxl

Ozone 5 supports this too - and it works fine as a plugin within Audition.

Which is all well and fine, but unfortunately the end results, as far as TV broadcasts are concerned, are no better at all. Hasn't made a shred of difference. We have at least one big-name programme, sold all over the world, where if you watch it, you have to adjust the levels throughout the show, simply because they can't get this right at all. And you still get level shifts between programmes, because the advertisers simply ignore this sort of 'legislation' altogether, just as they always have and always will.

So I'd say none of this complicated metering shenanigan was necessary in the slightest. All they needed to do was to bring in world-wide legislation to force all stations to use the correct Orban Optimod, with some sensible settings! Yeah....

Just don't start me off on this........... Where I live in the UK, the whole mess is an utter embarrassment and disgrace.

First, the digital terrestrial transmitter allocations. A filler transmitter in England has been retro-fitted to back-fire Welsh straight past our area. "Planners" allocated the new transmitter the same polarisation and adjacent channels to the main transmitter for the area. All the set  top boxes, PVR's and TV's I've encountered deal differently with re-numbering channels and some, including the one purchased by the family member we care for, won't re-allocate at all. I had to make a chart to list "For channel 1, hit 67, 2 is 48 etc etc.". We have a Sony TV and a Sony PVR. They can both be set up correctly, but the procedure is completely different for each device.

Most people round here have been forced to satellite reception.

Because of the rigid liabilities of the family situation, we are having to settle for a regular viewing pattern. I have been allocated the task of sitting with the remote control and silencing the TV for the adverts and trails, thus totally defeating the advertisers' intentions, and being complained at about two or three times each night "Why can't you get that volume right?".

When I worked in broadcasting, I tried to recruit qualified, competent engineers who could show artistic and cultural abilities. I am extremely proud that so many of them were so creative and directly influential on programme makers in their day and went on to great height in other (mainly non-broadcast) organisations after the redundancies announced by the non-productive, non-creative bean-counting nonentities that "manage" nowadays.

The whole business is so depressing........

On another matter, did anyone else notice this obit of one of the good ones?

http://tinyurl.com/6nkauat 

Ah, Mr Longden. Didn't realise that he'd died, but did know quite a bit about his desk designs! RIP.