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Why do all these 20-somethings have closed captions turned on?

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Re: Why do all these 20-somethings have closed captions turned on?

#221

Post by TakeBlaster16 »

bobbylarrybobby wrote: post #212
TakeBlaster16 wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever I'm watching a modern movie, sticking a compressor on the audio is a must. Open VLC settings, search for "compressor". It's programmer UI, but it does exactly what it says.

I assume "compressor" here means dynamic range compressor and not quality compressor?

Yes. Unfortunate overloaded jargon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_range_compression

It reduces variation in volume, so you can hear the quiet parts without having your ears blown out by explosions or gunfire

Re: Why do all these 20-somethings have closed captions turned on?

#222

Post by bluedino »

ryandrake wrote: post #136

One more vote for terrible audio mixes and one for actors who mumble their dialog. Whenever I watch movies with my wife, we constantly have to fiddle with the remote control. The loud parts (including explosions and music) are too loud for her, so we have to turn the volume down during those parts, but the dialog is too quiet and mumbly for me to hear, so we turn the volume up during those parts. We now just keep the…

I wish YouTube could fix this. As my playlist goes from video to video, channel to channel, the volume is all over the damn place.

Re: Why do all these 20-somethings have closed captions turned on?

#223

Post by hnick »

adwi wrote: post #26

Tangential: I’ve found subtitles to be a very useful tool for learning a language. In order of challenge, I’ll at least watch everything in English with Spanish subtitles, then Spanish SAP with English subtitles, then Spanish SAP with Spanish subtitles, then just in Spanish.

Or Baltimore slang, like when I tried to watch The Wire back in the day.

It was actually the show that I first turned on subs for and I usually keep them on now out of habit. I found the thick local accents hard to understand which is rare for me, and I didn't know if words were just slang or I'd misheard. Throw in a bunch of unique names to the mix too (I can rarely remember someone's name anyway after an introduction until I read it) as well as a few mumbley characters. Great show but I needed help.

Re: Why do all these 20-somethings have closed captions turned on?

#224

Post by ISO-morphism »

ryandrake wrote: post #136

One more vote for terrible audio mixes and one for actors who mumble their dialog. Whenever I watch movies with my wife, we constantly have to fiddle with the remote control. The loud parts (including explosions and music) are too loud for her, so we have to turn the volume down during those parts, but the dialog is too quiet and mumbly for me to hear, so we turn the volume up during those parts. We now just keep the…

Dynamic range compression is called different things on different platforms, "midnight mode", "reduce loud sounds", on Windows it's "loudness equalization".

Re: Why do all these 20-somethings have closed captions turned on?

#225

Post by _8j50 »

seniorsassycat wrote: post #47
_8j50 wrote: post #25

Not in that age group but I can't imagine not having cc on. I was hooked when watching anime and foreign movies but even with english movies they only have an upside. You don't have to guess what word they said or how someone's name is spelled. Loud scenes where you can barely hear them is one but also when you have characters that have accents or switch to a different language it helps (you don't get distracted by t…

Subtitles can hurt jokes by spoiling the punchline without the actors timing or delivery. I wonder if delaying joke/punchline subtitles till after the spoken line is complete would improve this

I usually only laugh earlier as a result of this. But now that you bring it up they can spoil things a few seconds too early as well.

Re: Why do all these 20-somethings have closed captions turned on?

#226

Post by octobus2021 »

cronix wrote: post #160
ryandrake wrote: post #136

One more vote for terrible audio mixes and one for actors who mumble their dialog. Whenever I watch movies with my wife, we constantly have to fiddle with the remote control. The loud parts (including explosions and music) are too loud for her, so we have to turn the volume down during those parts, but the dialog is too quiet and mumbly for me to hear, so we turn the volume up during those parts. We now just keep the…

If you have a 5.1 system, boost the center channel. That's mainly dialog.

I have a home theater (do they still call it that?) with 5.1, 5 speakers and all that jazz. I tried everything but with many movies (esp. all the superhero stuff) the only option is to lower the volume and turn on the subtitles to be able to follow the dialog. I wish there was an option to make the loud parts less louder and quiet less quiet, but I couldn't't find it (it's an older onkyo).

Re: Why do all these 20-somethings have closed captions turned on?

#227

Post by kirbys-memeteam »

ryandrake wrote: post #217
least wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Apple TV has a setting called "reduce loud sounds" which helps with this problem. I'm sure you can find it on other devices too. My Sony TV also has a sound setting for enhanced dialogue which might help as well. Can't really help with the actors thing, though I think I'd rather characters that are truer to life than sound like they're acting on stage, personally.

> I think I'd rather characters that are truer to life than sound like they're acting on stage, personally. You can have both though. A great example is Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation. He’s never mumbled a line in his life and you can understand everything he says during quiet dialog. You can be true to life, quiet AND understandable.

No post body was provided.

Re: Why do all these 20-somethings have closed captions turned on?

#228

Post by 83457 »

ryandrake wrote: post #136

One more vote for terrible audio mixes and one for actors who mumble their dialog. Whenever I watch movies with my wife, we constantly have to fiddle with the remote control. The loud parts (including explosions and music) are too loud for her, so we have to turn the volume down during those parts, but the dialog is too quiet and mumbly for me to hear, so we turn the volume up during those parts. We now just keep the…

I think some of it is surround sound that modern streaming and televisions use without actual surround sound speakers. I've found if a movie/show is in surround sound, changing audio to non-surround sound helps a lot.

Re: Why do all these 20-somethings have closed captions turned on?

#229

Post by ckw »

thelittleone wrote: post #220
jamesbfb wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would have paid extra for subtitles when I saw Tenet at IMAX. The audio mix made it extremely difficult to follow.

All I wanted after seeing Tenet was my time back.

I love Tenet, but it has the worst sound mix I’ve ever heard.

Re: Why do all these 20-somethings have closed captions turned on?

#230

Post by JadoJodo »

Klonoar wrote: post #185
ryandrake wrote: post #136

One more vote for terrible audio mixes and one for actors who mumble their dialog. Whenever I watch movies with my wife, we constantly have to fiddle with the remote control. The loud parts (including explosions and music) are too loud for her, so we have to turn the volume down during those parts, but the dialog is too quiet and mumbly for me to hear, so we turn the volume up during those parts. We now just keep the…

There's an article that's been floating around that notes this phenomenon started after Nolan's movies became the style to emulate, and there are various sound engineers who state they would like to do what you want but they have to produce what the paying entity asks for. Someone should feel free to link it here - I'm mobile at the moment so can't dig it up. But anyway, I just wanted to jump in and say... all the ti…

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29417309
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