Use compressor to normalize TV volume?

[bob]

I live in an apartment so I cannot turn up the TV too loud, but some
programs have whisper quiet dialog which I have to turn up the volume
temporarily to hear, then turn the volume back down before the commercial.

Before I wear out my finger and the volume control, I'm thinking of adding
an automatic volume control between the TV and the amp like this:
http://www.amazon.com/Terk-VR1-Automatic-TV-Controller/dp/B00008VWOJ

However, I prefer something tweakable. So I wonder if audio
compressor/limiter sold by music stores can be used instead of the dedicated
TV volume controller. E.g. behringer mdx1600 or alesis 3630

[Ethan Winer]

On Mar 10, 11:57 am, "bob" <nos...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Before I wear out my finger and the volume control, I'm thinking of adding
> an automatic volume control between the TV and the amp

Most receivers these days have a "midnight" mode that does this. Even
the Pioneer receiver I bought at Costco for only $150 has that as an
option you select from the remote. They call it midnight mode because
you can watch at midnight without waking up your family. You probably
want to hook up some decent speakers to your TV anyway, right?

--Ethan

[Rick Ruskin]

I use an FMR Audio RNC and am satisfied with the results.

Rick Ruskin
Lion Dog Music - Seattle WA
http://liondogmusic.com
http://www.myspace.com/rickruskin

[Scott Dorsey]

Yes, except that the mdx1600 and the 3630 are pretty much impossible to
get to operate cleanly. The Terk will be less nasty.

If you want something clean, cheap, and tweakable, try the FMR RNC.
But I suspect you will find that the whole point of AVC is to prevent you
from having to adjust everything.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[joe h]

It's a great idea. Look into an RNC compressor from FMR audio.
Compact, clean, high quality audio fidelity.

Congress is debating "maximum volume" on TV channels. What they
*really* need to be debating is maximum contrast in volume.
Otherwise, the channels will simply lower the programming down to
-30dbfs, then jump the commercials up to -10dbfs. That's a full 20db
increase, but they will say "look, we're 10db under max, we're not
loud at all."

Some sort of rule like "the maximum signal peak of a commercial cannot
exceed the maximum signal peak of any of the programming volume that
precedes or follows it in the programming."

so if it goes: programming-commerical-programming
and the programming in either of the blocks above hit a max peak of
-6dbfs, then any of the commercials that follow cannot go above
-6dbfs.

My argument here is not perfect, I'm sure. There are people on this
newsgroup who can run circles around me on this stuff. But I'm
confident the real issue is the contrast in level between the
programming and the commercials, not the "max level".

The commercials often set the volume to "stun" with brickwall limiting
and they squash the signal to death. But forcing them to have their
peaks no louder than the programming peaks would be a great clamp on
the volume shock-wars that go on.

[Steve King]

"joe h" <ytgf...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:5701a1e4-0c0c-4789...@y36g2000pra.googlegroups.com...

My understanding is that the legislation passed. Goes into effect sometime
in the future. It does call for commercial audio to be no louder than the
average, whatever that is, level of the programming that preceeds it. Read
this a couple of months ago, so my memory could be all wrong;0)

Steve King

[Peter Larsen]

joe h wrote:

> so if it goes: programming-commerical-programming
> and the programming in either of the blocks above hit a max peak of
> -6dbfs, then any of the commercials that follow cannot go above
> -6dbfs.

It has to be about average or possibly rms level of audio for the two
minutes preceding the ad.

Kind regards

Peter Larsen

[Mark]

>
> The commercials often set the volume to "stun" with brickwall limiting
> and they squash the signal to death.  But forcing them to have their
> peaks no louder than the programming peaks would be a great clamp on
> the volume shock-wars that go on.

The PEAKS actually are controlled very well right now, that is not the
problem,

THe problem is the average, in other words the commercial is processed
such that every little syllable is at that peak, while the "show"
audio hits those same peaks but much less frequently, think about it
as modulation density..

My fear is that the broadcasters are going to attempt to comply with
the new regs by compressing everything so it all sounds equally bad.

[alex]

These midnight-modes are very effective on ac3 because in this format
the dialog normalization level is known and because the multichannel
configuration help to isolate dialogs.
otherwise i suspect that a standardized compression is applied with the
risk of too much loss in dynamic range.
Very high dynamic programs, such action movies are expected to be played
loud(!) allowing effects to overshot the level of decency in order to be
able to catch the dialogs. When effects and dialogs are present at the
same time is almost impossible to reduce the dynamic range without
affect the dialog. With high volume settings the listener can hear the
dialog because its frequency range being different from the effects. For
this reason an "A-weight like" eq can help to keep voices out of the
mess allowing the compression to be non-destructive.

alex