annoys the fook out of me when the volume on the tv goes up by itself when the ads come on, why does it do it, is it to get ya attention?????

Hi Mate,

 

I'm a broadcast engineer so I can tell you exactly why it does and how... Firstly the commercial production companies want to make the biggest impact they can with the commercial so they make the Advert 'loud' they do this by using compression which makes audio sound louder by reducing the dynamic range (how much space audio takes up in the available audio power range) normally the dynamic range is between -18dbfs and -10dbfs... (this explained later) however production companies reduce the range to approx -12 to -10 in essence moving all of the audio into the top of the dynamic range.

 

Now I will point out that as an engineer my job is to try and counteract this... I have a number of weapons and the one of choice is currently the Junger B42 compressor limiter... now we use an audio measurement range called dbfs where the reference level is -18 or in the world of measurement tools we use ppm. OFCOM recently released a set of rules that means broadcasters are responsible for what you hear at home (despite the fact that it's purposefully mixed that way and this should be the production companies problem) basically we can use a loudness scale, different to DBFS, or we have to reduce the maxmimum power output for commercials to -18DBFS or 4 PPM so the viewer doesn't hear a noticable change in program volume... which is what the junger kit does...

 

Now the upshot of all of this is that if you notice that a particular channel is loud during adverts you can complain to OFCOM as all broadcasters have a responsibility to make sure that you do-not get 'hit' by volume during commercial breaks... So that's Why, how and what it means... sorry for going on but I've put alot of work into trying to prevent this happening for the company I work for... so hopefully it's not one of their channels!!!!

 

Paul

Edited July 4, 200916 yr by stricker

:)Ah so thats why

annoys the fook out of me when the volume on the tv goes up by itself when the ads come on, why does it do it, is it to get ya attention?????

 

Alternatively put this logo in the corner

 

ooh, cheers for that, have noticed that its more sky and digi channels that do it rather than the norm channels

Hi Mate,

 

I'm a broadcast engineer so I can tell you exactly why it does and how... Firstly the commercial production companies want to make the biggest impact they can with the commercial so they make the Advert 'loud' they do this by using compression which makes audio sound louder by reducing the dynamic range (how much space audio takes up in the available audio power range) normally the dynamic range is between -18dbfs and -10dbfs... (this explained later) however production companies reduce the range to approx -12 to -10 in essence moving all of the audio into the top of the dynamic range.

 

Now I will point out that as an engineer my job is to try and counteract this... I have a number of weapons and the one of choice is currently the Junger B42 compressor limiter... now we use an audio measurement range called dbfs where the reference level is -18 or in the world of measurement tools we use ppm. OFCOM recently released a set of rules that means broadcasters are responsible for what you hear at home (despite the fact that it's purposefully mixed that way and this should be the production companies problem) basically we can use a loudness scale, different to DBFS, or we have to reduce the maxmimum power output for commercials to -18DBFS or 4 PPM so the viewer doesn't hear a noticable change in program volume... which is what the junger kit does...

 

Now the upshot of all of this is that if you notice that a particular channel is loud during adverts you can complain to OFCOM as all broadcasters have a responsibility to make sure that you do-not get 'hit' by volume during commercial breaks... So that's Why, how and what it means... sorry for going on but I've put alot of work into trying to prevent this happening for the company I work for... so hopefully it's not one of their channels!!!!

 

Paul

 

That was an interesting read. Looks like a decent piece of kit as well (did a spot of digging: http://www.avfindia.com/audio5.html ). I'm nowhere near your level of expertise (and the engineering side of things goes right over my head!) but with my background as a musician (working in studios and with my own very modest home studio set-up) I've developed a wee bit of a gear fetish...recently manifesting in the aquisition of a pair of mint condition BBC (Spendor made) ls3-5a's and a nifty Quad 405 to power them (not sure if that kind of thing is also up your street, if not, ignore me! :D ;))...hence my interest in the B42 :)

Hi mate, the ls3's are nice speakers mate... we had them in the studios at the previous place I worked... Look after the quad amp... they're difficult to get hold of and the only amp really capable of driving those speaker properly...although be warned they're a bit thirsty... IIRC they're current dumping amps... meaning they drawing their maximum current all of the time and 'dump' what they don't need!!!!

 

I've got a set of Tannoy Monitor Gold dual concentrics which are lovely... they're augmented with a REL Sub... I'm using a Rotel pre-amp and 2 Harmon Kardon amps in bridge mode of the Tannoys.

 

If you want a really good studio toy look at http://www.tcelectronic.com/dbmax.asp . This is an awsome piece of kit... though a little costly.... anyhow, have fun!!!

 

Paul