Software application development
This blog is intended to provoke discussion and exchange between like minded software application developers, engineers, architects, project managers - and keen hobbyists too.
Sunday 9 March 2008, 10:52 AM
Turning up TV ads with data
I need to settle a long running argument as to whether the TV companies can turn up the volume of advertisements by altering the amount of data they “force” down the pipe (so to speak) into my set. Embarrassingly, I used to work as a transmission engineer for a TV station in Rome – so I should know this – but I don’t.
The theory… and the crux therefore of this data-related pub discussion. Is that they can’t actually turn the volume up, but that they can ‘compact’ the data packets that are transmitted down the line so that sound is richer, harder, heavier and basically, louder.
I stress, this is a pub-based tech theory and may hold very little water. But I can’t find solid proof.
Herb Weisbaum wrote a piece on this last year on his
MSNBC pages. Interestingly, he quotes CNET’s own Brian Dooley who talks about “perceived loudness.”
Weisbaum himself says, “They want to grab your attention. To do that, the audio track is electronically processed to make every part of it as loud as possible within legal limits.”
Maybe they are compacting data, maybe they are post-production processing it, maybe they’re just actually physically turning the sound up – either way, I’m switching channels or making a cup of tea.
PreviousComments on this post
![Simon Jones [PC Pro]](/i/z5/gl/ava/default/default.gif "Simon Jones [PC Pro]"){kind=small}
The process is called "compression" but it has nothing to do with data bits and everything to to with making the difference between the loudest and quietest sounds smaller than normal. It can be done by analog or digital means and makes the sound cut through background noise without being too loud (for our ears, the environment or the law).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_level_compression
"Most television commercials are compressed heavily (typically to a dynamic range of no more than 3dB) in order to achieve near-maximum perceived loudness while staying within permissible limits."
Regards,
Simon Jones
Contributing Editor
PC Pro Magazine
Thanks for your blog comment Simon,
It's good to know that PC Pro writers read ZDNET ;-)
There ya go - nice one, you just settled a ten pound bet and another hour's worth of cider drinking and chinwagging.
I must have heard about this somewhere and stored it away without checking to see whether to file it as 'apocryphal urban myth' or 'technology factoid'.
Trouble is, now we need a new topic to chew over down the bar... so here's hoping you can provide us with something suitably contentious.
Cheers - Adrian
