[dial in the reverb to 11] "SUNDAY! SUNDAY! SUNDAY! AT NEW ENGLAND DRAGWAY! SEE THE NATIONAL NITRO FUNNY CAR CHAMPIONSHIPS! ..."
It's a wonder that our generation can hear at all. (And I saw Hendrix at Boston Garden!)
As for dynamic range, I agree; it's a very good thing, whether it's the color depth in a display or the audio in the programming.
Alfred
HDTV Almanac - Be CALM: House Bill Passes Sub-Committee
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Roger Halstead
- Major Contributor
- Posts: 210
- Joined: Sun Feb 26, 2006 4:13 pm
Be Calm
There are problems where ever you put the volume control. The most effective is to give control to the user or use technology to automate the volume of commercials at the receiver by embedding a signal or control code at the beginning of the commercial to set the volume to a specific level that could be input by the user. Giving this control to the user in this manner would unlikely be acceptable to the industry. It's like me either switching the channel, hitting pause, jumping ahead, or turning on mute when the "pitch men" come on with a commercial. I can't be the only one who is turned off by that kind of advertising.
At any rate, setting a specific limit at the receiver in general defeats the dramatic effects created by a wide dynamic range for many programs so it would have to be turned on and off with the add. Although a signal, or code in the adds to set the modulation to a specific % AT THE TRANSMITTER, might work and it wouldn't affect the receiver settings. Again the Industry might have a problem with this approach although they'd quite happily turn the volume up at our end if they could. As this is digital, audio level is something that can be locally or remotely controlled any where along the line "IF the equipment to do so is present". Unfortunately there are often noticeable variations between stations.
Implementation wise the ideal place would be at the transmitting equipment, but that means additional investment at the station. Including the technology in the receiver would likely mean decades before all users would benefit and most would remain unhappy in the meantime.
Adds, or signals inserted as I mentioned with the sci-fi channel can not be inserted like they used to in the "old days" with analog. An interrupt of only a few frames like the ones I'm talking about normally mess up the video sync causing pixelization, segmented images and frozen images that may last several times the length of the interruption. This makes the actual interruption very annoying and may mask the actual image, or sound that was inserted. Although the interruptions are very annoying they are much worse when viewing a program off the DVR. Of course for a small investment in editing they could take the time to seamlessly insert a couple of frames if they wished.
At any rate, setting a specific limit at the receiver in general defeats the dramatic effects created by a wide dynamic range for many programs so it would have to be turned on and off with the add. Although a signal, or code in the adds to set the modulation to a specific % AT THE TRANSMITTER, might work and it wouldn't affect the receiver settings. Again the Industry might have a problem with this approach although they'd quite happily turn the volume up at our end if they could. As this is digital, audio level is something that can be locally or remotely controlled any where along the line "IF the equipment to do so is present". Unfortunately there are often noticeable variations between stations.
Implementation wise the ideal place would be at the transmitting equipment, but that means additional investment at the station. Including the technology in the receiver would likely mean decades before all users would benefit and most would remain unhappy in the meantime.
Adds, or signals inserted as I mentioned with the sci-fi channel can not be inserted like they used to in the "old days" with analog. An interrupt of only a few frames like the ones I'm talking about normally mess up the video sync causing pixelization, segmented images and frozen images that may last several times the length of the interruption. This makes the actual interruption very annoying and may mask the actual image, or sound that was inserted. Although the interruptions are very annoying they are much worse when viewing a program off the DVR. Of course for a small investment in editing they could take the time to seamlessly insert a couple of frames if they wished.
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dadden
- Member
- Posts: 33
- Joined: Wed Dec 13, 2006 9:00 am
Compression and Limiting while viewing...
I would love if the Processor and TV manufacturers would place a control that would allow for on the fly change over from full dynamic range to a preselected level of compression and limiting.
My Parasound 2500-U processor has a button on the remote that allows me to turn the "night/dynamic range reduction" on and off at will.
I can enable a similar setting in my Sony Televisions here in Europe and in the USA but it is buried in about 3 levels or more down in the sound menus.
What I want is the ability to set the limiter level and type (i.e. "brickwall" or "smooth knee" or digital pre limit) and also decide the amount of compression that I want. This way we could decide what severity of sound control we want. When I am watching movies late at night I would like to limit the maximum levels without pushing the lower level signals up to the average. However when I am watching talk shows I could compress the lower level signals so that there would be less over all difference in gain. This would make the average level of the program very uniform which would be great for talking head shows in the late evening.
Sorry but that is what we sound operators like to do.
The sad thing is that we get all sorts of worthless controls like super dynamic video that no one in their right mind would use and we don't get things that we actually could use. Like truly excellent dynamic range controls for audio. I could even make a case for dynamic range controls for video based on the fact that there are people with epilepsy that would probably benefit from being able to control the maximum contrast by limiting it to help control onset problems when they are watching some of the more aggressive video effects in modern programming these days. Also those of us with migraines and just elevated sensitivity to huge changes in brightness levels would benefit as well.
Of course the chances of any of this happening is on the edge of zero. I mean point and shoot cameras still have five different colors you can shoot in and don't have full control of the actual basic function in the camera. I mean a friend of mine has a Canon P&S camera that can shoot in sepia-tone, red, green, blue, etc, etc... but he can't control the depth of field in program mode and doesn't have the ability to set a minimum shutter speed that the Auto ISO changes at and has to go through two menu settings to use fill flash in the daylight. Really, who are we kidding... the manufacturers continue and will still keep on treating we consumers like complete idiots.
I try not to think about these things too much but that would be like not breathing.
That isn't going to happen either. 
If anyone knows of a processor that will do the things that I spoke of then I would love to know about it/them.
Err, and sorry about highjacking the thread away from the commentary about the CALM legislation. It would be nice but I am not holding my breath on that either.
Good Luck,
Brian.
My Parasound 2500-U processor has a button on the remote that allows me to turn the "night/dynamic range reduction" on and off at will.
I can enable a similar setting in my Sony Televisions here in Europe and in the USA but it is buried in about 3 levels or more down in the sound menus.
What I want is the ability to set the limiter level and type (i.e. "brickwall" or "smooth knee" or digital pre limit) and also decide the amount of compression that I want. This way we could decide what severity of sound control we want. When I am watching movies late at night I would like to limit the maximum levels without pushing the lower level signals up to the average. However when I am watching talk shows I could compress the lower level signals so that there would be less over all difference in gain. This would make the average level of the program very uniform which would be great for talking head shows in the late evening.
Sorry but that is what we sound operators like to do.
The sad thing is that we get all sorts of worthless controls like super dynamic video that no one in their right mind would use and we don't get things that we actually could use. Like truly excellent dynamic range controls for audio. I could even make a case for dynamic range controls for video based on the fact that there are people with epilepsy that would probably benefit from being able to control the maximum contrast by limiting it to help control onset problems when they are watching some of the more aggressive video effects in modern programming these days. Also those of us with migraines and just elevated sensitivity to huge changes in brightness levels would benefit as well.Of course the chances of any of this happening is on the edge of zero. I mean point and shoot cameras still have five different colors you can shoot in and don't have full control of the actual basic function in the camera. I mean a friend of mine has a Canon P&S camera that can shoot in sepia-tone, red, green, blue, etc, etc... but he can't control the depth of field in program mode and doesn't have the ability to set a minimum shutter speed that the Auto ISO changes at and has to go through two menu settings to use fill flash in the daylight. Really, who are we kidding... the manufacturers continue and will still keep on treating we consumers like complete idiots.
I try not to think about these things too much but that would be like not breathing.
That isn't going to happen either. If anyone knows of a processor that will do the things that I spoke of then I would love to know about it/them.
Err, and sorry about highjacking the thread away from the commentary about the CALM legislation. It would be nice but I am not holding my breath on that either.
Good Luck,
Brian.