I'm not going to describe the movie, because my concern is my hearing.
I've noticed, more and more, watching DVD's or older VCR's, the music in a movie is louder than the dialogue and "Joe Black" is almost entirely soft spoken.
My question is, (to any Freeper that knows (or experiences the same) .....
:Do movie makers do that intentionally (I notice a lot of the same on TV .. commercials and et-cetera's) where the music overpowers the spoken word
Have I reached the point of old age and deteriorating hearing that is un-correctable?
I suppose I could make an appointment and see an audiologist, but Freepers have been my warmth and friend for so long ....
anyone ?
thanx
If you buy a 5.1 surround, the diaglogue is mostly from the middle speaker (of five). You can adjust the relative volume of each speaker so the middle speaker is louder than the others, allowing you to hear the dialogue much better.
Worked for me with my artillery ears.
You are not alone. I’ve noticed that the sound mix doesn’t seem right. Sometimes the actors voices are so low that I have to keep increasing the volume and when they change scenes or the music comes in, the sound is then too loud.
A lot of movies on DVD use a separate channel for speech. Unless you have a “center channel” the dialogue gets very muddy and over powered by the background music and sound.
It’s not just DVDs. We were at a dinner show (Medieval Times) where you could not follow the plot (thin as it was) because the music was too loud. All my kids complained about that, too, so it wasn’t just my aged ears.
Voice frequency is in the 300 - 3000hz range. If you’ve had an audiogram done I’d look to see where you rate.
Two words: closed captions
If it’s good music, just sing along, and pretty soon you won’t care what the dialog is. :)
You should probably get your ears checked. You may be having difficulty with just certain tones, which a hearing aid could correct.
Have I reached the point of old age and deteriorating hearing that is un-correctable?
I do not watch any modern movies so I don`t know about them but I can watch a Gene Autry movie * just an example ) and hear every word said but watch a magnum PI or Rockford files and start having problems and many other movies are much worse.
I believe many use the sound affect to make up for the poor quality of the movie as if noise is the only thing people are interested in which is partly true.
I think one problem is that by the time the final mix is done the sound guys have heard the dialog so often that they know it by heart and don't actually need to hear it anymore, which is of no help to those who haven't heard it a dozen times before.
Thanks to big'ol_freeper for the center channel suggestion.
I have the same complaint: background noise/music too loud.
I recall trying to watch the new CW series Reign. Not only was the background music too loud, it did not even match what was going on on the screen. I turned it off after about 20 minutes.
Many times, with DVDs/recorded movies & TV series/OnDemand, I have to stop the video, rewind, readjust the audio, and try to figure out what someone said.
I even have headphones with inline volume control, partly because I live in an apartment and don’t want to run my audio loud and partly to increase/decrease the audio.
I occasionally watch old movies and TV series and have noticed that few of them had the problem with the background noise/music overpowering the audio.
It’s your hearing. Trust me. I had the same problem for the last 10-12 years. Blamed the movie, the speaker, etc.
Finally went in for a hearing test last month. Bingo! Got a hearing aid a few weeks ago.
The problem I swore I didn’t have, is now fixed.
I don’t have the problem with movies, unless the people have a heavy British accent and are mumbling.
But sports broadcasts drive me crazy. Sometimes the crowd noise is so loud, you can’t hear a word the announcers are saying (but maybe that’s a good thing!).
knarf, I have experienced the same problem, and thought it was just me.
I noticed that the sound was coming out of my TV(flat screen) more on the right than the left.
I haven’t looked, but I wonder if there is a control on the settings to balance out the speakers. I have to check the remote.
I experience the same thing, I use headphones in an attempt to mitigate the problem, what adds more to the frustration is when there is no dialog, just music, the music jumps up so many decibels, I need to rip the head phones off.
I have a quick fix for that: don’t ever go to a movie theater again. It works for me, and saves a lot of money. So what if you see the movies at home a few months later, the oldest ones are better, anyway. Then at home, set your TV to the old fashioned mono setting, and all the bird chirps, tire squeals, wind, music, and other garbage go away.