Dialog in newer movies/films/streaming shows

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RobertH3

RobertH3

No need to buy stands after a launch day!
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I have been struggling to hear dialog lately and thought it was all on me - hearing loss. NOT SO! Check out the article. Not sure how to attack this problem, but endless commentary on reviews of movies and streaming shows may be the only answer. Actors using a mumbly, breathy style and directors/producers who mix for "realism" should be the first targets. That should fix the poor mixes. I am especially honked about the streaming shows, where compression is used and everyone should KNOW that means more attention on it. I am going to start writing reviews about how much I would have liked a show if I could hear the actors talk

https://www.slashfilm.com/673162/he...icult-to-understand-and-three-ways-to-fix-it/
DIALOG SHOULD BE CLEAR!
 
I've noticed this too @RobertH3 , thanks for posting this :computer:

It takes twice as long for us to watch shows now. I pause the show to ask my wife what they said...... she pauses the show to ask me what they said.... or we rewind because neither of us knows what they said.

Yet I can watch the old Star Trek series, and every word is clear and understandable.

Technology marches forward.... or does it?
 
sub-titles..

teh wife is deaf in one ear, so she lives by them! I find them annoying. But rather I be annoyed, than I be ANNOYING!! :D
 
I most recently noticed this problem while watching the new Dr Who episodes. Background music and incidental noise wasn’t…
 
Many newer sound bars and sound systems made for TVs have the ability to raise the dialogue volume. Nearly all broadcast movies and popular shows are now done in 5.1 (or greater), where the main dialogue is sent to the center channel. By raising the volume of the center channel, you are basically raising the volume of just the dialogue. Even on my older system I can dig into the menus an raise the volume of the center channel by 6db, which helps quite a bit. It's a big enough issue that lists like this exist:

https://www.rtings.com/soundbar/reviews/best/by-usage/dialogue
Another solution, depending on your circumstances, is 'private listening', like Airpods. I have an AppleTV and Airpod Pros, and when I use them to listen to a movie after my wife has gone to bed I find it a lot easier to understand dialogue.

Another first world problem!


Tony
 
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I’ve noticed that on DVDs, Blu-rays, 4k, that these movies actually are recorded with lower volume; sure, I have hearing loss, but not that much. I have to plug the output to an amp.
 
High quality HI-FI speakers do wonders, as the $.50 cent tiny speakers they put in TV's are aggravating, and induce listener fatigue.
 
manixFan said:
Nearly all broadcast movies and popular shows are now done in 5.1 (or greater), where the main dialogue is sent to the center channel.
Click to expand...

When using built-in speakers or a single stereo pair, it may be necessary to turn any surround/processing off in your TV's audio menu. One of our TV's is often unlistenable in surround mode for that reason- no dialogue.
 
Glad to know I wasn‘t just complaining because of my hearing loss! Two weeks now with hearing aids. Learning curve in process.
Blue tooth connected to the TV does do wonders! Even having to reduce the volume substantially.
 
hobie1dog said:
High quality HI-FI speakers do wonders, as the $.50 cent tiny speakers they put in TV's are aggravating, and induce listener fatigue.
Click to expand...

+1 on pairing TV with quality sound system.

I can't watch video content with crappy TV speakers anymore - way too much sound distortion at way too frequent intervals.
Spend a few $$$ on a decent sound system (most of you have already spent $$$$ on 4K TVs), and watching video content will be transformed and WAY more enjoyable! Even regular news feeds become more enjoyable and discernible.

YMMV,
a
 
I lived with a hearing-impaired housemate for years and closed captions are turned on with all my devices by default. I only turn them off if they’re wrong, annoyingly mistimed, or otherwise useless. If that happens and I also can’t understand the dialogue I want to understand, I just shut it off.

If the directors are to complain about closed captioning being distracting from the visual spectacle or whatever, they need to wrestle with the studios for better sound mixing instead of attacking the viewer.

Actually I think we need more effort put into closed captions and hard-coded subtitles as well. (Speaking foreign language) Bruh! Translate it!

050EC239-71A7-4045-9A20-BD98648CF720.gif
 
I'm hard of hearing so Closed Captioning has been turned on by default for years. But I've noticed a number of times when even our "20-something" kids have said that they couldn't have understood the dialog without the captions.

Another nice side benefit is that some shows will name the song and the artist of the background music in the caption stream.
 
I hate when I can’t understand dialog. My wife and I watched the recent James Bond movie tonight, and there were three crucial pieces of dialog that were unintelligible, and it really pissed me off. There is no excuse for that.
 
Both my wife and I have hearing aids. We don't wear them all the time. But even with them on the dialog on the TV is hard to understand. CC is on all the time. We stopped going to movies decades ago because we couldn't understand what was being said. Usually drowned out by the music. The music is usually louder than the dialog. The same for TV.
 
Yes on the home theater - to a point. Hobie as you know, Hi-Fi is NOT a definable term haha. Everyone's idea of it is different, and that's OK in the house. Not for a movie or streamed show. If a director (the one that created Bane the Mumbler / Tenet) has his/her own special definition of Hi-Fi, then that means you have to go to a special theater or build a home system designed / tweaked to make that particular director's mixing decisions work.
Sigh. The Sony we bought sounds good (for a tv) and should be easily able to produce dialog, it even has a dialog sound setting. So, more attention to the dialog in the mix. My freaking Scan-Speaks cannot pull dialog out of some of the moosh they call a soundtrack, especially on Prime/Netflix. Compression is hard on music, harder on dialog. DVD's are better but are a dyin'

So for the Hollywood people that just must have a special theater or soundsystem, just won't watch your 'artistic' works since I can't understand them :p
Cheers / Robert
 
The loud music and background noise that washes out dialogue is really irritating to both me and my wife. She has less of a problem than I do.
 
teepot said:
We stopped going to movies decades ago because we couldn't understand what was being said.
Click to expand...

Most movie theaters these days have closed captioning devices available at the service desk. The two types I have seen are either a pair of glasses that display the captions in front of your eyes or a metal snake that fits into a cupholder at one end and displays the captions at the other. They work well and are free to use, you just have to ask.
 
Antares JS said:
Most movie theaters these days have closed captioning devices available at the service desk. The two types I have seen are either a pair of glasses that display the captions in front of your eyes or a metal snake that fits into a cupholder at one end and displays the captions at the other. They work well and are free to use, you just have to ask.
Click to expand...
Learn something new every day - that's really interesting!
 
I did not know that. Thanks
.
Antares JS said:
Most movie theaters these days have closed captioning devices available at the service desk. The two types I have seen are either a pair of glasses that display the captions in front of your eyes or a metal snake that fits into a cupholder at one end and displays the captions at the other. They work well and are free to use, you just have to ask.
Click to expand...
 

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