Dolby Volume

[Hairy]

This looks like a very promising compromise for audio normalizing on the HTPC. Knowing Dolby it might take a little while before we see it in affordable setups, unfortunately.


http://www.dolby.com/consumer/technology...works.html
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2008/12...y-review/1

[pBS]

i bet it won't work because of the transmission lack of standards...i mean it looks like it's tied to volume, which is the one thing the broadcasters can't seem to put out consistently.
and what if the original content was mixed badly?

normalization can be done with a decent compander circuit or software...
some recievers have excellent loudness features with the same end results, [hi-n-lo compensation,companding,advanced agc] so this is nothing new really...just tries to be more tied with the content production...which only works well when everyone's on the same page...

it still baffles me as to why almost all ac3 implementations can't get the downmix right..
[always softer overall]
i have a feeling that the badly mixed original content is to blame for all of it...
it's really annoying how badly the volume levels are managed at the source...
everybody tries to expand the levels to make it sound 'better' [higher diff. between loud n soft passages] leading to 'surprise' blasts of high volume...
it's very hard to compensate for artificially expanded levels..

i have a tv set that has a normalization feature that works better than anything i've ever heard..i can turn volume almost all the way inaudible and still hear all dialog clearly and soft bits too! so it really sounds like the same dynamic range compression mixed with loudness control that Dolby will deliver..[only for no extra cost..lol]
but i can't even find anything that comes close anymore on new sets..

some higher end recievers/amps already process like Dolby volume....[compress at low levels, loudness compensation]

ac3 filter has a decent compander circuit, but still can't compensate for some of the Wild levels being produced thesedays...ffdshow too...[but it helps alot]

[Hairy]

It sounds a little more sophisticated to me and a much more attractive alternative to audio "normalizing" as most people know it today. The problem is that the normalizing that people think of and experience in the HTPC set up is, more times than not, just dynamic compression (or perhaps even limiting), even the companding in this situation is again more than likely just dynamic compressions.

I can completely understand why people want to even out the volume disparity. Especially for those folks in the states, volume differences between shows and adverts seem to be extreme (not so bad for us here in BBC land ). But it leads to a situation of the content produced reducing the dynamic range so that the broadcasters like it more , who then in turn reduce it further because that's what makes it "POP", only to be reduced even further by the listener because the broadcaster isn't consistent as it squeezes the nads out of the dynamic range. It all leads to this, modern society is addicted to "Loudness". The dynamic range of modern music is almost comically small and this slow rise in mean volume means that we're training ourselves to want less and less dynamic range from our audio, which is a real shame.

it still baffles me as to why almost all ac3 implementations can't get the downmix right..
[always softer overall]
i have a feeling that the badly mixed original content is to blame for all of it...
it's really annoying how badly the volume levels are managed at the source...
everybody tries to expand the levels to make it sound 'better' [higher diff. between loud n soft passages] leading to 'surprise' blasts of high volume...
it's very hard to compensate for artificially expanded levels..

This is a good example of what I mean. Don't get me wrong engineers do use the dynamic range of the mix in movies for "effect" on occasion, but because we have trained ourselves to expect everything to be loud we think it sounds weird when it isn't.

Although an extra level of processing is never ideal, it appears that Dolby are designing a system that makes a educated guess at what kind of audio it's precessing. So that it applies not just compression but also alters the tone to try and maintain a balance between the vast differences in volume experienced by the listener.

I know full well I'm swimming against the tide here , most people today prefer loud and narrow tone, which as I said is a real shame. It's like taking your favorite piece of classical music and compression the crap out of it and rolling off the top and bottom end of the frequency spectrum, that's what were doing to audio today.

"Think of the children! Won't somebody think of the children"