In article ,
jakdedert wrote:
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....

It's a world wide thing. I recently got a satellite receiver with dish
rotator and can receive some 5000 programmes. If you can call them that.
;-) And most attempt to get the picture levels near right but seem to let
the audio look after itself. Peak levels vary by over 30dB, some stereo
ones are out of phase or only transmit one leg and high levels of
distortion tend to be the norm with the smaller channels.

--
*Why do we say something is out of whack? What is a whack?

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.