Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article zaQaj.261484$Fc.202074@attbi_s21,
Chuck ! wrote:
It's nearly too late now since the new TV's have AVL built-in to adjust
volume increases during commercials, but I am very surprised nobody ever
built a "good" add-on aftermarket volume-leveler all these years. Why
would it be so hard to build a good yet inexpensive one?

Have you heard the results of these built in ones? Ok, I suppose, if your
standards stop at AM radio quality.

The snag with this sort of device is it has to have a fast attack time to
work and a fairly slow recovery. And will work on any programme peak - not
just commercials. Make it fast attack and fast recovery and background
sounds will pump up and down - most unpleasant.

The *only* way you can get smooth transitions between the vast variety of
programme material - and the variety of commercials - is buy having a
human rehearse that transition and adjust things accordingly. (Advertisers
- who fund the programmes - would not be happy if their product was
quieter than the progs). But playout systems are largely automated these
days to save on labour costs.

Here in Nashville--and I suppose many other places--there are a lot of
'local option' commercials. IOW, there's a commercial on the satellite
feed, but it gets pre-empted by one chosen by the cable operator.

Here, the audio levels on these local options commercials is all over
the place; usually WAY too loud, but sometimes (blessedly) barely
audible. You can tell they're local option because either the subject
is a local business, or sometimes you see just a 'blip' of another
commercial before they cut to the replacement.

Very annoying when you're listening to a movie with the volume up, or
you have the TV on as background to fall asleep by....

jak