this post was submitted on 30 May 2025

1241 points (100.0% liked)

Comic Strips

17351 readers

2550 users here now

Comic Strips is a community for those who love comic stories.

The rules are simple:

The post can be a single image, an image gallery, or a link to a specific comic hosted on another site (the author's website, for instance).
The comic must be a complete story.
If it is an external link, it must be to a specific story, not to the root of the site.
You may post comics from others or your own.
If you are posting a comic of your own, a maximum of one per week is allowed (I know, your comics are great, but this rule helps avoid spam).
The comic can be in any language, but if it's not in English, OP must include an English translation in the post's 'body' field (note: you don't need to select a specific language when posting a comic).
Politeness.
Adult content is not allowed. This community aims to be fun for people of all ages.

Web of links

[email protected]: "I use Arch btw"
[email protected]: memes (you don't say!)

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

1241

Volume [Mr Lovenstein] (lemmynsfw.com)

submitted 2 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

129 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Source/secret panel: https://m.tapas.io/episode/3005249

top 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] [email protected] 154 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

This is a real pet annoyance of mine, and I have seeing apologist posts on the internet about it.

If the actors cant enunciate properly except when they're shouting, that's not adding realism, they're doing bad acting.

If the sound engineers can't get a good audio balance for anything except the loudest moment in a film, that's not a limitation of technology/sound physics, they're bad at mixing.

If the director can't keep all of this in check and make a film that people can actually enjoy, that's not artistic choice, they've made a bad film.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

For the sound engineers, your not wrong, but they don't have the power you think they do. Asking for another take is an annoyance but accepted by the camera team and visuals, but audio is often overlooked, and you can't just keep mixing a bad take. But, directors are on a time crunch and so a sound guy saying "actually I know that take was perfect but we can't hear anything" is usually ignored.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 weeks ago

This is a fair point. If people demanded their money back when a film has bad audio, I wonder if that might incentivise the industry to care more about this.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 2 weeks ago (11 children)

Nah, I have a good sound setup and I don't want to be watching movies with less dynamic range because some people are using their shrilly built-in TV speakers with their children screaming in the background or $5 earbuds.

If you don't want to have a proper 5.1 audio setup, it's not the director's problem, it's the media player. Audio compression, center channel boosting, and subtitling are things that media centers have been able to do for decades (e.g. Kodi), it's just that streaming platforms and TVs don't always support it because they DGAF. Do look for a "night mode" in your TV settings though, that's an audio compressor and I have one on my receiver. If you are using headphones, use a media player like Kodi that allows you to boost the center channel (which is dedicated to dialogue).

[–] [email protected] 47 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)

There is millions of people who "don't want to have a proper 5.1 audio setup". It is the director's problem, optimise for the masses, not people who can afford to setup a cinema system in their home

[–] [email protected] 31 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

We have movies with multiple audio streams. So you can choose English, or French, or crew commentary.

Why not have a mix for "standard home TV setup" and a mix for "5.1 ultimate surround sound system" and keep both groups of people happy?

[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 weeks ago

It's called Dolby 2.0 and a lot of Blu-ray movies actually do have a track (though not all). Though it's been my experience that the native 2.0 usually sounds worse than the 2.0 that I compress down from the 5.1 or 7.1 when I make a backup of my movies. I am unsure as to why this is. I'm guessing it's cause, as OP stated, the studio sound mixers just don't give a shit to make a 2 speaker system sound good.

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Where do you draw the line? If you use a soundbar, someone else is complaining because they use their built-in speakers. But if you optimize for that, someone else is using their laptop speaker on the train.

What really pisses me off with this "argument" is that the audio information is all right there, which you would know if you bothered to read the second half of my comment before getting all pissy.

5.1 audio (and the standards that superseded it in cinemas) all have multiple audio channels with one dedicated to voice. If you have a shit sound system, the sound system should be downmixing in a way that preserves dialogue better. Again, the information is all right there as there is no stereo track in most movies, your player is building it on-the-fly based on the 5.1 track. It's not the director's fault that Netflix or Hulu is doing an awful job at accounting for the fact that most of their users are listening on a sound setup that can barely reproduce intelligible speech.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I draw the line at "people watch stuff on TV and cannot hear any dialogue".

I don't need to have a doctorate on audio / put in thousands of dollars into a hobby I don't want to hear dialogue in a movie without rupturing my eardrums by an action scene.

If everything is there, let's optimize for people like me, and let people like you mess around with the settings for your home cinema.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

people watch stuff on TV and cannot hear any dialogue

did you read anything I said or do you just want to complain?

have a doctorate on audio / put in thousands of dollars into a hobby

Good news then, a more-than-decent 5.1 setup can be had for ~500 €. A decent soundbar for a few hundred.

and let people like you mess around with the settings for your home cinema

I can't if the audio source is fucked up because directors have been forced by studios to release with low dynamic range.

My whole point is that your audio goes Master -> 5.1 channels -> downmixer -> your shitty 2.0 channels speakers and my audio goes Master -> 5.1 channels -> receiver -> my 5.1 setup.

You're asking the master to change to fit your needs. I'm asking the media players to fix their fucking downmixers because that's where the problem lies. Leave the studio mastering alone god damn it.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Broooo, did you just say 500 as if that was cheap? Damn. That's what a whole ass tv costs.

Expecting for sound volumes to be somewhat balanced in a tv or generic player is not too much to ask, I don't care if a surround 5.1 or 9.1 system would have it sound right, because stuff shouldn't be fine-tuned for specialised gear, stuff should be fine-tuned for general usage and specialised gear should have in-house tweaks to make it work well.

You got it backwards and you sound pretty elitist. I get what you mean with general usage audio programs not fine tuning properly, but you are asking 90% of the population or programs to tweaks their systems so that they work for things fine tuned for 5% of the population/systems. You do see how that sounds pretentious, right? That's how it reads at least.

load more comments (2 replies)

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 weeks ago

I don't care about any of that. You care about all of that. You go buy that shit for $500 and let me watch my show with dialogue that I can hear. There is more normal people than the likes of you, so solve the issues for the common Joe, not for a dude that spent way too much time in a subreddit about audio for movies.

load more comments (3 replies)

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

WHY are you getting down voted despite giving clear suggestions on how to get around this problem for people without a 5.1 surround sound setup?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

people don't like spending money, and it's the entire problem. Visuals people will shell out money for a great TV, but then complain that the audio is terrible. Really people need to invest in both. If you are watching a movie on an expensive TV but didn't do anything for audio, well then of course it won't sound good. TVs aren't designed to have good audio. They give you a speaker to be able to listen to something, but it's a small cheap one or two in the back.

Fact is that for movies it's a video and audio, and people should be thinking about both. People don't need to go spend another 500 bucks on a 5.1 system, but even a cheapo sound bar for 150 is going to sound better - because they made it for audio. It's an audio device. I have zero surprise that people can't hear things well from a device that is meant to display visuals first.

load more comments (2 replies)

load more comments (9 replies)

load more comments (2 replies)

[–] [email protected] 134 points 2 weeks ago

Have no shame in using subtitle, because american movie is either horribly sound balanced or spoken in unintelligible accent.

[–] [email protected] 72 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (3 children)

Yes. And stop fucking mumbling. And use a proper lighting for fuck sake, I don't care if it is middle of the night in a forest, I want to be able to see what's going on.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

And please stabilise the camera. I'm not in this car chase, I'm trying to watch it without getting a migraine.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 weeks ago

Shakey cam to cover up a limited budget for a car chase, instead of getting creative ... so if the rapid cuts and wobble wasn't there you'd see that they only had one street and couldn't exceed 30mph

load more comments (2 replies)

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 weeks ago

Good luck getting actors and directors to understand hyperealistic and method acting are not ideal on every instance.

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] [email protected] 51 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

I feel like the real issue, is that we only get one volume bar. If it was normal to define both the minimal and maximal volume setting and have the players stretch the given dynamic range into that then it would all be good.

[–] [email protected] 48 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I have dabbled in video editing and it is SO easy to manipulate and level the audio track so that dialogue is louder than music and sound effects. This has led me to believe that movies where this is a major problem like Tenet are absolutely mixed this way on purpose, and the only reasonable conclusion to draw from that is that Christopher Nolan is insane.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 weeks ago

Mostly, it's a downmixing issue.

The movie is mixed to have Music, Speech, SFX spread out through 5.1 or 7.1 The speech and primary important sounds come through center. General music is a mix of L,R and Surround. When you feed that audio track to a dumb tv, it does a horrible job at turning it into L and R sound only.

If you feed it through a good 5.1 or 7.1 receiver or soundbar, you get options for Speech and surround and you can mess with levels individually. But the speech is front and loud.

If I just plug my roku into my tv, the center channel is almost at, all I get is the light intermixing of center in L and R so speech is horrible. you jack up the volume to hear the speech, then all the other sound is way too loud

Likewise, in most cases just taking an AAC and convert it to mp3 without adjusting the levels, it ends up sounding like trash.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)

How can we set volume of music, SFX and voice separately, in games but not in movies?

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

In games these categories of audio are calculated and mixed locally in real time, for movies they are mixed down to a single track and compressed ahead of time.

These days having three audio tracks would not be a significant problem, compared to the high resolution video track. But I guess the industry never changed.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 weeks ago

I could already hear the forums filling with desync complaints

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 weeks ago

You could on laserdisk, but dvd got more popular

load more comments (3 replies)

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] [email protected] 37 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Exactly why I use subtitles. Seem to recall Interstellar was horrible like this.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

It was great in cinema. It's terrible at home.

Frankly annoying as hell that shows and movies can basically only be enjoyed in a cinema or with headphones.

Where's the audio equivalent of HDR?

[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

It's funny because I understood what you meant, but I think it's the exact opposite of HDR. You want to reduce the range with a compressor.

load more comments (4 replies)

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 weeks ago

It's called dynamic compression, often labeled as night mode. Makes quiet stuff louder and loud stuff more quiet. My AVR has it as a feature and probably most TVs as well.

load more comments (2 replies)

[–] [email protected] 30 points 2 weeks ago

Commercial: DO YOU OR A LOVED ONE HAVE MESOTHELIOMA????!!!!

[–] [email protected] 29 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Alot of it is... pretentiousness?

Like, there's a lot of high-brow thinking in the movie industry where stuff is mixed for movie theaters. You know, theaters that have good surround speaker setups, but also turn the volume way too loud. It's "as its meant to be experienced" if you ask the Hollywood producers. I think Netflix and more small-screen oriented producers are better about this, where even surround mixes are much more reasonable.

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] [email protected] 24 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Watching a Christopher Nolan movie I see.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Or films from Spain. They whisper in a mumbled accent, then all of a sudden they start SCREAMING at each other.

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 weeks ago

For anyone who might find this useful:

Kodi is great for normalising volume and I try to use Kodi for Plex and YouTube on the TV:

Try adjusting the Volume to about -20 dB and the Volume Amplification to +30 dB. The latter will compress the audio as it increases volume to avoid peaks, and will effectively "flatten" the volume contour a bit. Adjust the values to your taste.

The other thing that has really helped is having a good Bluetooth speaker. If the kids are playing and being noisy in the room while I'm trying to watch TV, then sound is much clearer if the speaker is right next to me rather than trying to turn up the volume to drown out other noises.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 weeks ago

#High Dynamic Range™

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

It is why I enable "Loudness Equalization" on every audio device in Windows.

It makes soft sounds louder and loud sounds softer.

Can't stand it otherwise either.

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

The solution is obviously to learn german. Then you can watch with our excellent and easily intelligible dubs.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

But you better enjoy our voice actors, we have about 3!

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Been there the hard way. I got Tubular Bells II, and listened to it via headphones (I had no speakers).

There is one passage where the music ends, and a child speaks. It was hard to understand, so I turned the volume to 11, and heard the end of the sentence like "and nothing was ever heard of him again but the sound of tu-bu-lar bells." The next sound was the BANG of the tubular bells, making my eardrums meet somewhere in the middle. somewhere...

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Sometimes there's also a random high pitched buzz in the background that's louder than anything else for one whole scene. How heard would it be to just remove that frequency range or maybe see that it is louder than every other scene?

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 weeks ago

Just run the audio through a dynamic range compressor. Then everything will be just as loud as the commercials.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago (1 children)

This could be because your TV sucks, or at least the audio, a lot of companies push for big Bass like would be in an explosion because it sells TVs which would be fine if they didn't skimp on the highs and mids making speech suck.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Lol, no, it's not because your TV sucks, but because almost none of us are watching on a 5.1 or higher channel system and the audio mix was never changed from their cinema release

Anything I watch in my TV that sounds awful sounds just fine out of my 5.1 PC because I suddenly have access to more channels where the audio is actually out (dialogue looooves to get mixed to center only for some reason)

load more comments (3 replies)

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago

Exactly why I use subtitles.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 weeks ago

This is perfect lol. Now we need one for absurdly loud motorcycles ruining an evening’s cool.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 weeks ago

[email protected]

load more comments