TV to quit waking baby, bothering neighbors ...

[HeyBub]

"Listen up, TV advertisers: Big Brother is muting you! Well, not entirely. But beginning at midnight tonight, new Federal Communications Commission rules will bar television networks from blasting viewers with those excessively loud, screamy commercial breaks. At last you can retrieve your sanity from Empire Carpet and the KIA Hamsters. (The rules will not, however, get those damn kids off your lawn.) Adopted a year ago Thursday, the rules "will require commercials to have the same average volume as the programs they accompany," the FCC says. "

[Fred]

I wonder if the FCC requirement applies to Internet commercials/advertising also?

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per HeyBub:

I'm still amazed to hear that people still listen to commercials

- especially political ones, but commercials in general.

It's been so many years since I've listened to more than 10 seconds of *any* commercial I can't even recall.

The Mute button has been available longer than a lot of viewers have been alive, not to mention Tivo and the various PC-based functional equivalents.

I must be out of touch because I would think that the whole TV/advertising paradigm should have been in big trouble by now.

[trader4]

It's an interesting question what the extent of the impact DVR's is having on advertisers. I have TIVO and for a' decade now I've watched probably 95% of my TV time delayed, skipping commercials. I agree with you that you would think it must be having a significant impact by now.

[Pat]

Well meaning laws often end up causing other issues. I've noticed quite a few commercials lately that have a period of silence. When that is unexpected, it actually makes people look at the TV to see what's wrong. Even after getting used to it, will that let the advertisers play the rest of the commercial at a louder volume, becasue the average will still be below the limit?

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per [e-mail]:

My prediction would be that commercials will become less intrusive and more entertaining.

When we used to visit the in-laws in Germany years and years ago, for some reason commercials were not played during shows.

Instead, all the commercials were lumped back-to-back during a certain time of day.

Sounds crazy, but those commercials were entertaining in and of themselves and people actually used to watch them.

[The Daring Dufas]

It became law in Germany years ago and Magnavox had an automatic volume limit as a feature in their TV sets but I haven't noticed it lately. ^_^

TDD

[Danny D.]

I always wondered why automatic gain control (AGC) didn't lower the loud commercial volumes automagically.

Isn't that what ACG is supposed to do?

[Danny D.]

This might be an example of the more entertaining of them:

[The Daring Dufas]

Magnavox had an automatic volume level control feature on their sets at one time. ^_^

TDD

[dennisgauge]

Just seeing the products and logos as they whizz by in fast forward has just as much of an effect on the average consumer as a 15-second commercial.

Bet if you speed through a commercial break on the DVR, you can name at least three products that were advertised during that break even though you didn't hear a word.

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per [e-mail]:

much of an effect on the average consumer as a 15-second commercial.

three products that were advertised during that break even though you didn't hear a word.

With disc-based DVRs the viewer does not see anything because it jumps a set amount of time rather than fast-forwarding. Fast Forward is typically also available, but is not something one would use to skip commercials. _Personally I don't think I've ever used it except accidentally.

Typically there are two programmable buttons: "Long Jump" and "Short Jump".

I've got mine set to 1 minute and 10 seconds respectively.

Commercial comes, I typically hit 1-minute 5 times and then skip back a few 10-second jumps. You get a feel for the commercial lengths on various shows.

OTOH, some products (MythTV is one) have add-ons that somehow spot commercials and never even record them. I used to use MythTV and can testify that the auto-skip-commercials thing works.

[NotMe]

Don't bet on it. I see (on an O scope) and hear that the programming is getting the odd bit of audio added that raises the technical level of the program audio. when the commercial come along those element are not present so the 'message' audio is at a higher level.

[nestork]

I'm glad to see that they're finally getting rid of those loud commercials. It was annoying to have to continuously adjust the volume to account for the commercials being louder than the rest of the programming.

Does anyone know how many minutes of commercials TV networks are allowed to run during the day. Sometimes you sit down to watch TV and there's nothing but commercials on.

[gfretwell]

as much of an effect on the average consumer as a 15-second commercial.

three products that were advertised during that break even though you didn't hear a word.

Replay TV had auto commercial skip on it's 45xx and 5xxx machines and Sonic Blue got sued out of existence over it.

It would skip any 30 second spot. Unfortunately it did not work on these mini infomercials we see these days that go a couple minutes

[gregz]

Without looking, the article specifies average volume, which means nothing to me. You can keep peak level equal, within 3 db, etc. Average is another thing, which also depends on compression levels. I would have to read the FCC data.

I originally started using automatic volume controllers because the cheap comcast cable had wide rage of volumes between channels. It's ok today. I used to make and buy various controllers, including feeding through VCR's automatic volume circuitry. I also used them to feed widely varying mp3's volume.

It's been annoying the commercial volume often went up close to 10 db, or twice the loudness. About time.

Greg

[Mark]

the problem is that the the "solution" the stations are using is instead of lowering the commercial average loudness to match the shows, they are compressing the shows to make them louder to match the commercials so now EVERYTHING IS COMPRESSED AND LOUD ALL THE TIME and sounds terrible even if you turn down the volume. Its not about the peak levels, those are well controlled, its more about the density of the sound.

Google "loudness wars" the same thing has happened to CDs in the recording industry.

Mark

[Ed Pawlowski]

Easy to fix. Get a DVR and record the shows you want to watch. Just FF through them and watch a one hour show in about 40 minutes with NO commercials. About the only thing we watch in real time is the news., even that is delayed if we are eating dinner.

[hrhofmann]

The FCC has granted extensions of time for smaller cable networks and distributors to comply with the new rules.

Also, it is the "density" of the sound that is to be partially controlled, not just the peak amplitude. If you are of an engineering bent, read the actual FCC ruling to understand what it is that is supposed to be happening.

[Jim Elbrecht]

Is that compression the thing that makes some TV shows have such loud background music you can't hear the conversations the actors are having?

I can't believe how much background conversation completely disappears. I notice it on all the CSI's- some ABC show, and an HBO & Show time series. [Boardwalk Empire has *a bunch* of stuff going on that I'd never know about without closed captioning]

Jim