New FCC rule regulates TV commercial volume

[newfiend]

The Federal Communications Commission has passed a new regulation known as the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act (CALM). The new measure aims to combat obnoxiously loud television commercials, an issue we have all likely experienced firsthand.

More info here: http://www.techspot.com/news/46665-new- ... olume.html
Glad to see this is coming.. hate those LOUD commercials that stress test my Polks!
newfiend~

[Venom51]

That's one FCC rule I'm glad to see them create. Now if they enforce it that will be fantastic.

[EmirOfGroofunkistan]

wait...there are commercials?

[newfiend]

wait...there are commercials?

Only durring "Live TV" bro.. haha..

[richard1980]

Um....what's live TV?

[staknhalo]

I didn't bother reading the article, but wasn't this announced a couple of years ago?

[richard1980]

IIRC, the act was passed about a year ago and gave the FCC a year to come up with the rule.

[STC]

Um....what's live TV?

Anyone notice sometimes if the commercials flick from DD to Pro Logic, there is a massive difference in sound level.
Whether you play through a TV or through an AVR, it is quite annoying. There doesn't appear to be a balancing limiter between the two.

[STC]

An old buddy of mine in England works as a VT editor for a major TV group. He edits many shows and movies that are on at prime time, inserting the commercials and cutting out parts to make everything fit the time slot.

I visited him one day at work and he explained to me a trick that the commercials employed-

Pointing to an oscilloscope, it displayed sound level in dB's. He played a slice of regular TV show. You can imagine the graph jumping around. He then switched to a commercial. It literally filled the whole bandwidth of audible sound frequency. The commercial wasn't actually any 'louder' in dB's but they pushed all of the available frequency they could to the max, therefore staying within the max output level.

I was literally blown away at this, it was crazy.

Now this was in the UK, and I'm not sure what the differences are in the two laws are to the US.

[erkotz]

An old buddy of mine in England works as a VT editor for a major TV group. He edits many shows and movies that are on at prime time, inserting the commercials and cutting out parts to make everything fit the time slot.

I visited him one day at work and he explained to me a trick that the commercials employed-

Pointing to an oscilloscope, it displayed sound level in dB's. He played a slice of regular TV show. You can imagine the graph jumping around. He then switched to a commercial. It literally filled the whole bandwidth of audible sound frequency. The commercial wasn't actually any 'louder' in dB's but they pushed all of the available frequency they could to the max, therefore staying within the max output level.

I was literally blown away at this, it was crazy.

Now this was in the UK, and I'm not sure what the differences are in the two laws are to the US.

My understanding of the law (originally, at least, I haven't re-read the final law to confirm it is there) was that it regulated by the average volume, not the peak, meaning that this trick would be illegal.

[epete]

I keep hearing about these rules but they never seem to go into effect. I am also wondering about the ruling that will force Cable Companies to offer service on a channel by channel basis.

[erkotz]

I keep hearing about these rules but they never seem to go into effect. I am also wondering about the ruling that will force Cable Companies to offer service on a channel by channel basis.

I'm not aware of any ruling that would force channel by channel offerings, but honestly, that wouldn't work in the current market. Most of the channels are free, or at lease very cheap. Some like shopping channels actually pay the MSO to carry them. The most expensive channel? It's ESPN - costs something like $5/subscriber/month.

[barnabas1969]

If I could, I'd drop ESPN in a heart beat to save $5/month. I couldn't give a rat's rear-end about sports, so why should I have to pay for it?