• SpaceScotsman@startrek.website
    2·
    13 days ago

    This is a real pet annoyance of mine, and I have seeing apologist posts on the internet about it.

    If the actors cant enunciate properly except when they’re shouting, that’s not adding realism, they’re doing bad acting.

    If the sound engineers can’t get a good audio balance for anything except the loudest moment in a film, that’s not a limitation of technology/sound physics, they’re bad at mixing.

    If the director can’t keep all of this in check and make a film that people can actually enjoy, that’s not artistic choice, they’ve made a bad film.

    • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.techEnglish
      1·
      13 days ago

      For the sound engineers, your not wrong, but they don’t have the power you think they do. Asking for another take is an annoyance but accepted by the camera team and visuals, but audio is often overlooked, and you can’t just keep mixing a bad take. But, directors are on a time crunch and so a sound guy saying “actually I know that take was perfect but we can’t hear anything” is usually ignored.

      • SpaceScotsman@startrek.website
        1·
        13 days ago

        This is a fair point. If people demanded their money back when a film has bad audio, I wonder if that might incentivise the industry to care more about this.

    • odelik@lemmy.today
      1·
      13 days ago

      I’ve noticed that some of the best enuciators are people that have a lisp and have obviously either taken speech classes or have self taught themselves how to overcome their lisp with better enuciation.

    • azertyfun@sh.itjust.works
      0·
      13 days ago

      Nah, I have a good sound setup and I don’t want to be watching movies with less dynamic range because some people are using their shrilly built-in TV speakers with their children screaming in the background or $5 earbuds.

      If you don’t want to have a proper 5.1 audio setup, it’s not the director’s problem, it’s the media player. Audio compression, center channel boosting, and subtitling are things that media centers have been able to do for decades (e.g. Kodi), it’s just that streaming platforms and TVs don’t always support it because they DGAF. Do look for a “night mode” in your TV settings though, that’s an audio compressor and I have one on my receiver. If you are using headphones, use a media player like Kodi that allows you to boost the center channel (which is dedicated to dialogue).

      • Maalus@lemmy.world
        1·
        13 days ago

        There is millions of people who “don’t want to have a proper 5.1 audio setup”. It is the director’s problem, optimise for the masses, not people who can afford to setup a cinema system in their home

        • Zombie@feddit.uk
          1·
          13 days ago

          We have movies with multiple audio streams. So you can choose English, or French, or crew commentary.

          Why not have a mix for “standard home TV setup” and a mix for “5.1 ultimate surround sound system” and keep both groups of people happy?

          • buddascrayon@lemmy.world
            1·
            13 days ago

            It’s called Dolby 2.0 and a lot of Blu-ray movies actually do have a track (though not all). Though it’s been my experience that the native 2.0 usually sounds worse than the 2.0 that I compress down from the 5.1 or 7.1 when I make a backup of my movies. I am unsure as to why this is. I’m guessing it’s cause, as OP stated, the studio sound mixers just don’t give a shit to make a 2 speaker system sound good.

      • stephen01king@lemmy.zipEnglish
        0·
        13 days ago

        WHY are you getting down voted despite giving clear suggestions on how to get around this problem for people without a 5.1 surround sound setup?

        • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.techEnglish
          0·
          13 days ago

          people don’t like spending money, and it’s the entire problem. Visuals people will shell out money for a great TV, but then complain that the audio is terrible. Really people need to invest in both. If you are watching a movie on an expensive TV but didn’t do anything for audio, well then of course it won’t sound good. TVs aren’t designed to have good audio. They give you a speaker to be able to listen to something, but it’s a small cheap one or two in the back.

          Fact is that for movies it’s a video and audio, and people should be thinking about both. People don’t need to go spend another 500 bucks on a 5.1 system, but even a cheapo sound bar for 150 is going to sound better - because they made it for audio. It’s an audio device. I have zero surprise that people can’t hear things well from a device that is meant to display visuals first.

          • azertyfun@sh.itjust.works
            0·
            13 days ago

            I had a 5.0 setup before I even bought my first TV. I was just using my PC monitor until then.

            It’s counter-intuitive but decent sound comes first. I’d much rather watch Interstellar in 360p with 5.1 audio than in 4K OLED HDR with built-in speakers.

            But when you say that people get mad because they spent a grand on a TV that sounds like shit and they feel they have to defend their choices.

            • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.techEnglish
              1·
              12 days ago

              Agreed. In computer terms it’s similar to using integrated graphics when you bought everything else to be a gaming computer. I mean, the integrated graphics will work, but it feels like you’re missing a curcial component there. Or buying a computer with a spinning hard disk as it’s main drive now. You have to go into the purchase thinking of the whole usage in mind, not just what’s on the screen.

  • DarkCloud@lemmy.world
    0·
    13 days ago

    I blame Dolby 5.1… switch to Dolby 2.1… people encoding online video should do this before ripping video or us and audio leveler on the resulting files and save everyone else the hassle.