Pretty soon there'll be no need to reach for the volume-control button on the remote the next time a commercial interrupts a favorite TV show.
The Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday unanimously approved new rules that require cable and broadcast stations to play commercials at the same volume as the TV shows they break into.
The new FCC order is a step in carrying out the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation, or CALM Act, which President Obama signed in 2010. The CALM Act required television stations to turn down the volume on disruptively loud ads.
Come December 2012, when the CALM Act takes effect, those commercials that blare at a much louder volume than the shows will be history.
The act requires television stations to maintain the same average volume for both programming and ads, so consumers don't have to adjust the levels at each commercial break.
Members of the commission praised the act for addressing a problem that had plagued consumers for decades.
The CALM Act requires stations to buy equipment that regulates these sound levels, ensuring the mean volume of the advertisements is no louder than that of the programming. It will be regulated with different check systems, depending on a station's size.
William Lake, chief of the FCC's Media Bureau, pointed out that such regulations had not been possible in the past because of limitations on analog television.
Now just how do they expect station engineers to achieve this? The problem is more complicated than just using an audio limiter simply because they already do! The reason some commercials are so loud is because of the intense compression the commercials maker used to make it sound as if it's jumping out at us. Also most TV programs have a lot of dynamic audio to them making the jump from the show to commercials much more striking.
I wonder how engineers will deal with this? Does the FCC even understand how this will only complicate things more? The only practical way I can imagine them fixing this is by compressing the hell out of everything, so that the shows, commercials and news breaks will all be compressed to the same volume. That will make the suspense of TV shows sound terrible.
Will be interesting to see in the future how they deal with this.
Well the obvious solution is for all production of commercials to follow a standard of not compressing their ads so much so that the broadcast station's equipment can maintain the even levels between program and commercial.
Does the FCC understand how their quick fix will just complicate things? Of course they do. Since when was government or anything linked to government ever been simple?!!
Peace!
K-ROCKS RadioOne
ZeroPointRadio
AM Stereo 1670
FM Stereo 92.1
The trick is to actively de-compress the commercial, then re-compress to the station's standard
Cheers!
Not sure how well this would work though when some commercials are so overly compressed here in the US that if you were to open their audio up in a wave editor the wave would look like one fat bar.
To make matters worse I have noticed with some commercials lately they are flipping the phase of one of the audio channels so as to make it jump out at you more. It's the equivalency of reversing the wires on one of your stereo speakers. It sounds terrible but you can't help but hear it two or three rooms away
Hell if I was a station owner I would just make some kind of unit that would automatically pad commercials about 6 or so decibels down from regular programming, but then you get into the whole trouble with your sponsors.
It sounds like one giant mess to me. Hell they should just make newer TVs have a built in feature that once they detect commercials they auto-lower the volume for you. Maybe the station could send a hidden signal to newer TVs telling them when to do that
Hell they should just make newer TVs have a built in feature that once they detect commercials they auto-lower the volume for you. Maybe the station could send a hidden signal to newer TVs telling them when to do that
I believe television receiver manufacturers already did that with adding audio levelers in the sets. They do not rely on a trigger signal when commercials air, but work full time and constantly keep adjusting the audio.
At the end of the day, it all means that the cost will be passed onto the stations and be expected to solve the problem...an on-going problem that apparently is still beyond being resolved...that is outside of the simple solutions anyway.
Go figure. Na...lets not take the simple route to solve an on-going problem that all the other expensive non-fixing solutions cannot do, but lets add another non-fixing solution and more responsibility to the broadcaster who are already barely keeping the doors open and signal on the air.
The slow and by design destruction of the economic wheels of progress. Seems to be a normal thing these days. Let's add more!!
Peace!
K-ROCKS RadioOne
ZeroPointRadio
AM Stereo 1670
FM Stereo 92.1
Not sure how well this would work though when some commercials are so overly compressed here in the US that if you were to open their audio up in a wave editor the wave would look like one fat bar.
I've seen that.... I've done my darndnest to achieve it for ham comms. That's where it should stay.
To make matters worse I have noticed with some commercials lately they are flipping the phase of one of the audio channels so as to make it jump out at you more. It's the equivalency of reversing the wires on one of your stereo speakers. It sounds terrible but you can't help but hear it two or three rooms away
We don't have that by two words - regulated industry
Hell if I was a station owner I would just make some kind of unit that would automatically pad commercials about 6 or so decibels down from regular programming, but then you get into the whole trouble with your sponsors.
No shortage of sponsors... stations have given even Microsoft ads the boot if people complain.
We will see how much of a whirl wind this will cause. New FCC rules aint going to change video and audio production standards. The FCC has no jurisdiction over how programs or commercials are produced. In fact the FCC always states they never regulate programing.
Well...isn't this so called new rule contradictory to their over 80 year old position of not stepping on program toes?!!
Who the hell is in charge up there anyway...bozo?
Sheesh
Peace!
K-ROCKS RadioOne
ZeroPointRadio
AM Stereo 1670
FM Stereo 92.1
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