Why are (cable TV) Ads often so much louder than regular programs?

Question

Why are (cable TV) Ads often so much louder than regular programs?

Answer 1

lots of the loud commercials are not any more ones that contain this methodology. they're ones inserted via the cable provider in between what they're playing from this methodology source. they're loud and repetitive and also you need to guess that the persons operating them are acquainted with the thanks to regulate their equipment. luckily the hot cable equipment gives you a DVR so any software it truly is recorded can actually be zipped previous those commercials.

Answer 2

20db? Do you have any idea what that means? Probably not, but in any case here's the answer...



First off, most humans can not detect a 25% change in volume. The audio in commercials is NOT louder, it just sounds louder. Given a scenario of a TV show with an audio range of 0.0v (silent) to 1.0v(loud); most people will agree that you would expect a show to have varying degrees of loudness. As in a car chase vs. a love scene. The audio in the love scene might be in the range of 0.0v - 0.4v. Not real loud. But the car chase might have a range of 0.8v - 1.0v. Much louder. Now when a show goes to a commercial, they do something called "fade to black", which is zero video and zero audio. When the commercial starts, you've lost your audio baseline, and they start the commercial at 0.999v. Which is real loud compared to the black silence. Ears don't have much in the way of memory. You think something was louder, but you cant tell unless you A-B test the two sources.



The way to prove or disprove this, is to use an o'scope to measure the audio peaks at the speaker. The commercial does not go any louder than the TV show. It just has a higher average, since it doesn't ever quiet down, and this makes it seem like it's louder.



Btw, a 20db change is more than 300%. It can probably seem that way; if you're using it to compare silence against anything other than silence.

Answer 3

I am told that statistically they aren't. Caused by using a different machine to broadcast them. And you are probably right about the engineer.

Answer 4

This is a common thing that will happen and is intentional. Cable stations vary the audible carrier signal slightly so that you TV thinks the signal is weak and turns off any AGC (automatic gain control) this is an old trick to get people who are watching a show to listen to ad by increased volume when going to bathroom or kitchen during commercial break.



You want to look for a set that has auto volume control, this measures the output and tries to maintain a set level out for volume. Also I haven't seen this possible in HDTV set because they most often have the latter.



Note satellite cannot do this to you!!! Vote with your feet if you don't like it. I can't stand the regulated monopoly cable has in the US and I am fighting back.



Oh yeah Cogeco is the biggest bunch of crooks in Canada.