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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?

#661

Post by klyrs »

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…

> Sound engineers need to stop needlessly flexing all that dynamic range that modern tools give them, and just produce a watchable movie.

And not just sound engineers! So many TV shows these days are filmed in nearly pitch black. If there are any lights on in the room (or it's still bright on a northern summer night and the living room doesn't have blackout curtains), I can't see the action. At first I thought I was just being cranky and old, but then we watched The Neverending Story with my kid and lo and behold, they film in "dark scenes" with torches etc so you can still see the actors well enough to read their lips! I'm sure it would be fine if I was watching it in a proper theater, but it's a frikkin TV show and who even goes to the cinema anymore?

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

#662

Post by aidenn0 »

nogridbag wrote: post #232
boltzmann-brain wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The slurred dialog is obnoxious and a sign of laziness on everyone's part. The miking, the post processing, the overdubbing (if there's any at all - recent film makers don't seem to know that this is a thing). The actor's speech pattern, where they direct their speech while acting, even how they stand and where. The choice of location and additional preparation of the stage so the speech can be picked up clearly. It'…

Would a soundbar help the situation or make it worse? With two kids 90% of the time I'm watching kids movies but I still turn on the closed captions. Any background noise and it's nearly impossible to hear the dialogue without cranking up the volume to an undesirable level.

I have a 3.1 setup and the center channel helps, but it's still really bad with many mixes. If you happen to use an ffmpeg based player, and are targeting a stereo, this audio-filter helps a lot (I stole this from someone somewhere on the internet). I use it for encoding movies for car-trips (where there is both no center channel and a lot of background noise).

    aformat=channel_layouts=stereo, compand=0 0:1 1:-90/-900 -70/-70 -30/-9 0/-3:6:0:0:0

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

#663

Post by socraticmethod »

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…

>Sound engineers need to stop needlessly flexing all that dynamic range that modern tools give them, and just produce a watchable movie.

Audio component manufacturers have actually responded to this tendency by adding in-line compressors to the audio channels that can be enabled/disabled. Sometimes this is labelled as the "Dynamic Range" feature in AV systems. Essentially it squashes the loudest sounds, which in turn brings up the average volume of the quietest sounds, thus evening the overall volume and allowing for a single volume setting to be used throughout the movie.

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

#664

Post by daniel-cussen »

moistly wrote: post #640
daniel-cussen wrote: post #602

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're welcome elteto, all the way. I have little idea when I cannot be understood, and it helps me to know when I do in fact communicate plainly.

You too-frequently convey your ideas through the use of obscure metaphor and convoluted sentence structure. Yet you clearly know how to write plainly, as you just demonstrated in your subsequent replies. It is odd that you apparently wish to be understood, but more often than not choose opacity instead of clarity. Which is a bit of a shame, because if a person makes the effort to decipher your posts, they often do sa…

OK I'll step up my game. Very constructive actionable advice, thanks.

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

#665

Post by brnt »

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…

Things are too god damn loud. I need to hear what people say, the rest is sugar.

I avoid stuff without captions. Sorry, your shite is almost certainly mixed horribly.

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

#666

Post by rapjr9 »

If you find dialog is difficult to understand you might try adding a sonic maximizer (for example Behringer Sonic Ultramizer or BBE Maximizer), a sonic exciter (Behringer Sonic Exciter or Aphex Aural Exciter), and maybe a little compression and plate reverb.

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

#667

Post by LAC-Tech »

deltasevennine wrote: post #611
LAC-Tech wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sophistication of modern audiences is now so high that the level of enunciation and clarity in older movies now sounds comical to modern audiences. My mind immediately went to that scene in idiocracy - "You talk like a fag, and your shit's all retarded"

That wasn't the intention. Watch the video. If anything old style talking in movies sounds less intelligent and artificial.

It's pretty clear to me that modern mumbling smarmy sarcasm is the low culture, and the Shakespearian trained actors of the past are high culture.

It's just like with fashion. We may pretend that hoodies and patagonia vests are just as respectable as a 20th century suit, but if we see two photos side by side we deep down know who is better dressed.

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

#668

Post by Klonoar »

omwow wrote: post #502
Klonoar wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think this is the article you mentioned: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/sep/03/tenet-dialogue-...

Thank you!

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

#669

Post by Aaargh20318 »

octobus2021 wrote: post #233
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'm very much outside of the age range mentioned in the article but +100 for crappy audio mixing. When my family was going through all the Marvel movies at first I tried to control the volume by making it higher during the dialog and lower during the battles etc but it was an exercise in futility, as I'm only human and there would be some delay in volume change and we would still miss what the guy/gal said or my hous…

> when stuff in the movie goes boom my house starts to shake.

That’s how it’s supposed to sound. Explosions are loud.

This is not a problem with the source material, it’s a problem with the setup of the playback equipment. The source contains all the original data, it’s the playback equipment’s job to render that information in the appropriate way considering the space and circumstances where it’s played.

The ‘problem’ is that the sound is mixed to a cinema-level dynamic range. If you don’t want the full dynamic range you can compress it at playback. They store it at the full range since you can’t exactly un-compress it and the exact amount of compression depends on your setup and situation anyway.

Any half-decent A/V receiver has this capability. If your receiver has Audyssey you may want to look into the “dynamic eq” and “dynamic volume” settings.

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

#670

Post by Aaargh20318 »

mihaaly wrote: post #522
octobus2021 wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm very much outside of the age range mentioned in the article but +100 for crappy audio mixing. When my family was going through all the Marvel movies at first I tried to control the volume by making it higher during the dialog and lower during the battles etc but it was an exercise in futility, as I'm only human and there would be some delay in volume change and we would still miss what the guy/gal said or my hous…

Apple TV had to introduce a feature that makes exactly that for you. Apparently this problem is that systematic. Movie makers ruin sound that the streamer device have to correct. ( https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/tv/atvba773c3c9/tvos > "Reduce Loud Sounds")

> Movie makers ruin sound that the streamer device have to correct.

It’s not the movie maker’s job to adjust the sound to your particular environment and taste. That is the job of the playback equipment and the person configuring it. The movie should be, and is, stored at the highest fidelity and with as much information as possible. This includes the original intended dynamic range. If your situation or taste calls for a smaller dynamic range you can easily adjust that at playback.

You can hardly expect movies to include hundreds of different soundtracks to cover all possible playback scenarios.

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