For years now I’ve wondered why people keep complaining about dialog in movies. Now I’ve spent a few days in a hotel with a TV stuck on default picture and sound settings. I started a Dune marathon. (He just passed the gom jabbar)
Much of the dialog is far quiter than it should be. Enough to be difficult to understand if I didn’t know the movie so well. Even softer sounds I know should be there aren’t audible at all. While I wouldn’t call the loud portions too loud, I’m in a hotel and don’t want to disturb my neighbors, so I’m riding the volume some.
I don’t have access to the TV’s settings, so I don’t know if it’s possible to improve things at all. I can say, the built in sound on televisions is certainly not what it should be. It could be improved from factory, with better down-mixing and level curves. That might cause issues with other programs though.
Atraides are about to rescue a harvester. I’ll get back to it.
Sadly, most new TVs in the US have factory settings that promote in-store display: cranked up saturation, punchy & unbalanced audio, etc. One of the first things that should be included with your initial setup of any new TV should be correcting that bullshit, IMHO.
Hell, I was stuck at a massive “thrift” store (ie. warehouse size) and in my time-wasting wander, I noticed their media section had TVs with wildly different picture settings. All volumes were zeroed or muted, so I know someone had to interact with each one —and, it’s statistically unlikely that each was set that way when individually donated/acquired. So, I went over and began silently correcting them.
I mean, no one in the store was giving those borked screens a second glance —until I fixed them. Some fellow shoppers started asking me a few basic questions about the TVs, and my ND ass didn’t connect the dots. These are people simply asking for help, and I enjoy helping people find the tech they need/want, so: win/win.
I must’ve helped half a dozen of them to choose the best one for their needs & budget, and each left with one in their cart. Near the 10min mark, a worker came over to ask what I was doing, so I told him: “I’m helping total strangers buy a TV from you, I guess? Do you want me to stop? You are running out, so I can understand the concern.” 🤣
If I tried that at Costco, etc? I’d get arrested before I could say ACAB. ☝🏼
Yeah.
Now when are we going to complain about the picture settings, I don’t want to miss that one?