Posted on 12/16/2009 5:58:54 AM PST by Poser
The US House of Representatives has approved a bill which aims to limit the volume of television advertisements.
The Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act (CALM) was approved by a voice vote in the house...
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
I guess you’re right; We’re still paying them whether they’re actually destroying the Country or not at any given minute!
Many surround sound receivers have attenuators that keep the volume level. There may be external attenuators as well to reduce that problem. I thought some TVs did this as well.
Not much of a TV watcher so I am no expert.
I think the broadcasters quiet the shows so that I have to turn up the volume to hear them. Then, the normal volume commercials are annoyingly loud.
This causes some channels to be MUCH louder than others. The louder channels don’t have loud commercials.
I know! Priorities, People! Priorities! :)
A local car dealer’s commercials are interesting when dealing with both auditory and psychological volume. He has multiple locations and brands. On his Cadillac commercials he is very low key, wears a nice suit and talks in a calm, quiet voice. On his other brands he shouts and acts like a complete clown to get attention. I would hate it if he got one of the buy-here-pay-here used car lots. He would probably burst a blood vessel and my ear drums.
I have a Dishnetwork PVR that I use to record almost everything, what I want is the option in the playback to SKIP all those commercials automatically instead of jumping forward and then timing it so I resume what I’m watching.
Thank goodness Billie Mays isn’t here to see this day
(Yes, I know I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but when I read the title of this thread, HIS voice was the one that popped into my head)
What brand? Not that it matters, they’ve mostly been Japanese for years now.
THERE IS A MUTE BUTTON! USE IT!
I have not done any TV shopping lately, so I can't say who else might have it.
The three worst offenders ... local car dealerships, carpet and furniture businesses.
Aha. Radio Shack has a gizmo - TeleZapper? - that zaps robocalls. Downside is the series of tones that begin all your calls. But it works like a champ by fooling the incoming call into thinking it’s calling a fax machine.
Panasonic
ReplayTV DVRs used to have that, but they removed it from their later shipments (I have one of each version). I think DirectTV bought out their patents, but I haven't heard of them using that. The satellite companies want to stay on the good side of the broadcasters so probably wouldn't put that function on their DVRs.
Will the FCC implement this before or after the Fairness Doctrine???
Most television commercials are compressed heavily[citation needed] (typically to a dynamic range of no more than 3dB) in order to achieve near-maximum perceived loudness while staying within permissible limits. This is the explanation for the chronic problem that TV viewers and listeners have noticed for years[citation needed]. While commercials receive heavy compression for the same reason that radio broadcasters have traditionally used it (to achieve a "loud" audio image), TV program material, particularly old movies with soft dialogue, is comparatively uncompressed by TV stations. This results in commercials much louder than the television programs, since users turn up the volume to hear soft program audio. This problem is a difficult one to solve because much TV program audio contains very little audio energy to be electronically "expanded" with a compressor in an attempt to even out the volume. Even across the cable TV dial with myriad audio program volume sources, there is a wide disparity of audio volume levels.
Tks
Please point me to the section of the Constitution that places responsibility for television volume with the House of representatives, or any other legislative body...
Absolutely NOT.
I fall asleep with the TV on, usually to the History or Science Channel, and the vol low. Then I'll 'wake up' about 1:00 am to turn it off and fall back asleep. BUT occasionally some commercial comes on with the vol on '11' and I'm like jumping out of freaking bed trying to find the remote. Going back to sleep then is almost impossible, I'm up for a good hour tossing and turning.
I'm all for executing the people who do this :-)
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