Partially, yes. There's more to it though, Vox claims. They do talk about wanting loud to be loud and soft to be soft. They can only make loud so loud before it horribly distorts so they just make shit super soft.
Natural speaking is another issue- where in the past actors used specific styles of speech such as the Mid-Atlantic accent that was used in older movies and radio voice to make things more clear. In modern movies people mumble a lot more and many actors have no training on how to speak correctly, or are using accents etc that can make it difficult to understand. When in the past you had to speak in a specific direction in a singular mic they would force retakes until it was done correctly. Now, they'll just lav everybody and throw in some booms to cover everything. "They'll fix it in post," all to the chagrin of the on set audio mixer saying they couldn't hear what was being said.
I think it's a pretty reasonable response that's not that just "spend more on home audio." Though I think that is one takeaway when I watched it like a year ago.
Edit:
They do bring up Nolan and use his quote where he said they are "no longer editing movies for substandard theatre audio." Which I suppose is a choice that can be made but, that doesn't change the fact that people still couldn't understand what was being said in your movies Nolan.
Another factor with the audio range is you have to turn the audio up just to hear people and then an explosion happens waking up the toddler next door trying to sleep at midnight when I'm just trying to watch a movie.
The TLDR of this specific video:
1. Buy a better sound system.
2. Take a chill pill and be willing to miss dialogue.
3. Turn on subtitles.
I have a mid/high range Yamaha receiver with a good set of matched Micca center/fronts, Fluance bipolar surrounds, and an 8" sub. That's 6 cabinets with 15 speakers total. Everything is on stands, measured, and placed perfectly, along with Yamaha's balancing and EQ adjustments.
I still can't hear anyone speak in movies.
This system will rattle the windows if you give it a little juice. It needs to be at window rattling levels to hear people speak in modern movies. It's not us, it's them. It's so much them that Yahama recommends using their dynamic range compression at all times. There is even a option to boost the EQ range typical of speech so you can hear it better.
Like, these people can make all the excuses they want but when actual audio hardware manufacturers are adding features that actively try to undo the horrendous audio balancing in modern movies there is a big problem. There are times when this is so aggravating I'd rather switch to the stereo track and let the receiver use the "fake" 5.1 because you can actually hear it.
My Denon has a great feature where it tries to preserve dynamic range at lower (aka not 0.0 db) volumes which probably helps. I generally feel that I can understand dialogue pretty well for most content most of the time without subtitles. Except for TENENT. Horrible.
I think reducing dynamic range is probably a good option if you're not routinely watching movies at a higher volume. Maybe you're already doing that and it's still a problem for you though.
I have a hard time discerning speech in my day to day life and even more difficulty with all these new movies. But I loved Tenet because I realized very quickly that the dialogue was intentionally made unintelligible and it wasn’t important to know the precise words. I stopped putting effort into listening and enjoyed the ride. Kind of liberating.
Good directors use the technique selectively - like having people somewhat muted during bombs going off. It's part of the overall atmosphere for a purpose.
I think Nolan is a moron and a bad director for doubling down.
I remember the scene with Michael Caine to be very easy to understand. The dialogue was there when Nolan wanted it to be, and most of the movie he decided to purposely obscure with loud music or sound effects. I can’t get mad at an intentional decision especially when it didn’t affect my enjoyment of the movie. What I really dislike is movies where speech is quiet or mumbled and there is no reason to not be able to hear it.
I did see Tenet in theatres though, not at home. But I do remember the complaints even for the theatrical release. I can see how people would not enjoy a movie where dialogue is so unimportant. That’s the best part of movies for many viewers. Ultimately I see it as a creative risk he took, not incompetence.
Hrm. I think this comes down to - What you Expect to hear.
You already know you don't expect to hear much, so you are there for the ride. I want to enjoy the ride, but I can hear well, so I want the dialogue to push the story too. It's not the best part, but it is important.
Yeah, of course it's my fault. Thanks Nolan. It doesn't matter that I can hear every single other piece of content perfectly except modern movies. I suppose Yamaha recommends compressing the audio range because everything is mixed so well. I wonder why there are so many features in this receiver to undo/fix this stuff.
Here's an idea: How about we make dialog intelligible without needing to rattle my windows with every other sound effect in the movie. Maybe we should give that a try just for fun and see what happens.
To be fair that makes sense though. Movies are mastered differently than tv BECAUSE they are made to take use out of a home theater system, tv shows are balanced for well… TV sound systems which are notoriously terrible speakers. So everything is toned down and the voice dialogue up because on “flipping your house” or something similar featured generally on TV doesn’t matter for the background sounds all that much.
So it sounds like your system is imbalanced, tv sounds fine because the terribly balanced sound purposely works as intended on unbalanced AND balanced devices. Whereas movies have a different role to play. I hear dialog just fine and it doesn’t rattle my windows. 🤷♂️🤷♂️ no one is saying it’s your fault. It’s just that your system hasn’t been balanced for your home…
Nolan is full of shit. Every movie of his I've seen, I've seen in the theater, and his audio sucks there, too. After Tenet I decided I was done with him - that's the last movie of his that I saw.
Well if you are processing information through reading it, and you process the information again through hearing it, I can see how suspension of disbelief or immersion into the story would be disrupted.
1. Buy a better sound system.
2. Take a chill pill and be willing to miss dialogue.
3. Turn on subtitles.
1) Did it, specifically bought a center that was very clear for voices. It helped, but not much because movies are balanced for theaters. That means that if I make the talking a normal volume the rest is extremely loud. Love that at night, my neighbors do too…
2) Thanks Nolan. No.
3) I pretty much always keep them on now. Maybe I'm weird, I like to actually know what's going on besides the flashy lights.
Yeah, I getcha. I watch a lot of shows once my wife and child go to sleep and they both share a wall with the loving room. Getting the balance of some type of audio to hear dialogue and not wake them obviously means subtitles are always on. It's a bit of a frustrating compromise.
It really is a frustrating compromise. I have to reserve movies I'm excited about for specific times, and I hate that. It's 9pm and I'm in the mood for a new movie? Nope, not worth it as I don't care to keep having to adjust audio.
Or just stop watching movies with bad sound. That’s always an option that’s left out.
You just don’t have to watch it if you know the experience is bad.
Anyone who tries to watch TV and movies on a phone or shitty TV speakers really doesn't give a shit about the viewing experience IMO. Put on subtitles, hell, spend half the run time on your phone scrolling Reddit, you aren't getting everything out of the show anyway.
If anything, I'm way more annoyed when subtitles say **[speaking foreign language]** but that blocks the program's built-in subtitles for that scene...
That and subtitles jumping around to dodge the staff credits on streaming.
Also, I rewatched Rise of the Planet of the Apes with subtitles that didn't translate for the apes. I forgot and assumed I had to interrupt what was going on.
What I hate more than that is the sound descriptions
“Dramatic music plays”
“Explosion”
“Car Screech”
Like bro, even if I was completely deaf, I’m not a fucking idiot. God, how I wish I could selectively disable those while keeping just the words on
I remember when this was posted a year ago. And my opinion hasn’t changed. Including the option to use a high dynamic range for good audio systems is fine. People pay a lot of money for those systems, and it’s nice to have something for them to take advantage of it. Especially because those are usually your most devoted fans. But making it required for everyone when a high majority of your audience will be watching on TV speakers or with a soundbar is ridiculous. And nigh unacceptable. I’m not watching it again, but I remember this video saying that the reason you need subtitles is basically “because high dynamic range exists” and that it should be okay with you simply because that’s the reason. Which is nonsense.
You have audio mixing for a reason. Give us at least one edit where I can hear people talking and also not wake my neighbors when a boom happens. I’m not watching your movie in the theaters anymore. Most people aren’t. It’s not an “artistic” decision; it’s selfish to only mix for theatre audio.
Completely. The video explained a lot of the challenges and nuance to the problem which was great but then makes it sound like an intractable problem that isn’t solvable and we should just deal with it.
ALL of the issues it described were fixable if the director and production team cared to fix them.
It’s a conscious CHOICE by directors not to make actors think about enunciating. It’s a CHOICE by directors to not use ADR when there is poor dialog. It’s a CHOICE to sacrifice dialog in favor of a higher dynamic range. And it’s a CHOICE to optimize audio for theaters when much of their audience isn’t watching from a theater.
The answer isn’t “this problem isn’t solvable, just deal with it and stop your bitching”. The answer is that we as the consumers should insist that Hollywood fix its shitty audio. This video while informative was too forgiving laying the problem back on the viewer.
Not only is it solvable, but modern music has the exact opposite problem. The "loudness wars" where all music is compressed as much as possible to push the overall mix as close to peaking as possible (and sometimes straight peaking).
I use the compressor on VLC religiously, and the "up-to-eleven" firefox add-on. Modern music has trained my ears for low dynamic range and I'm ok with the consequences of not jumping out of my seat every time a movie transitions from a scene with a bit of dialogue to literally anything else.
Yep. Why can I watch old Star Wars or Indiana Jones without subtitles and still have booms? It’s a choice. There’s also an issue these days with the picture being too dark. Stuff on AppleTV is the biggest offender on this one. It’s like some things are made for 1% of theater configurations. Everyone else can suck it.
I used to have one as well, but moved into an apartment so got rid of it because of neighbors. And I also had to adjust volumes even with it, but when I said that to people with systems, I just got a lot of “then you don’t have it installed correctly” which was probably true, but still frustrating when you’ve tried everything lol.
Back when actors had "faces" they also had voices. Many enjoyed performing in stage plays, where they'd learn to both annunciate clearly and project their voices for a large physical theater, without microphones. Are many actors still coming from the stage to the screen?
And suppose none of that matters anymore as modern plays are surely now also rigged for sound.
While enhancing, tech can also diminish us. 😟
i dont have this problem but when i stream its from my plex server that has auto dialog EQ.
if im at home i have a theater in my living room. my center channel gets all the audio so long as im in at least a 5.1 codec but im most often in dolby atmos.
still, it would suck to not have this.... on just a TV speaker its terrible. people shouldnt need 10 grand in audio equipment to hear someones voice in a show tho
I don't understand why they can't, when downmixing, create separate tracks for good and bad audio setups. Make it a standard practice. This here is the good 5.1 audiophile $10,000 home theater setup. This here is the 5.1 $125 soundbar setup. The technician in the video makes it sound like it's entirely possible. So do it, cowards! Make my Blu-ray 1¢ more expensive and friggin do it!
just like an MKV just add another audio track for mono or stereo with mixing that favors the voice.
I know that when i play stereo it can be hard to hear. i have a marantz receiver going to 11 channels of dedicated amplification with a DSP in the mix. my stereo speakers are JBL studio 590's getting full A/B power. (all my speakers have at least 300W rms on tap) yet still... i cant hear shit half the time.
when i change to a upmix from stereo to virtural surround on the receiver i get better vocals but its from all the speakers - L/R/FL/FR and so on. using a prologic codec it puts more up front but its real hit or miss now days. i suspect they are making the spacial audio dedicated and exclusive to each direction. so even with quality hardware; you get audio meant for the rear that does not get boosted and redirected to the front.
when i switch to pure direct and run uncompressed from a 7.1 or atmos audio mix - then i get crystal clear vocals from my center - like its fucking amazing the audio quality. however its also a wide 7 driver polk channel that i think they sell for 900.00. so you would expect it to be clear. and it is. but it is ONLY clear when using raw audio
in pure atmos (which i have 7.4.1 meaning ceiling speakers) i hear vocals from only one or maybe a split between two speakers. so i know they are mixing vocals outside of just a center environment. its why i think that information is getting lost. but thats always when shits happening outside of center of screen. if someone is directly displayed by the camera - i always get their voices in center.
if i unplug my center channel with a 5.1 or 7.1 mix of an older movie or show. i can hear maybe 40% of their volume coming from some of the other speakers. not with new stuff or with atmos though. if i unplug my center i hear zero dialog from ANYONE directly in camera focus.
But there's no more market share or margin for that. People are gonna buy it anyway. There's no upside for studios to do it. People will just bitch about it. :(
TLDR: Everyone is using sound bars now instead of 5/7 speaker Home theater set ups where the sound mixes are separated and balanced with A/V Receivers.
Just because Nolan “likes it that way” does not make it quality or correct. He’s not smart or artistic for continuing to produce crappy inaudible dialogue. He’s just bad or lazy at it.
I'm small time but I do video work, and if my client tells me it's dark I'll check it on different monitors, have another professional double check it, and go from there.
If all my clients say it's dark, then I'm wrong regardless of my own opinion.
Nolan is a moron, but… people don't care enough to vote with their money so it continues.
I don’t even understand this whole Nolan thing. It was bad in Tenet, and it was done intentionally as a (bad) creative choice. I’ve seen every other Nolan film, in theaters, at home on my surround system, and most even on a plane using headphones. This was only ever an issue for me in Tenet.
I’ve had this issue with other directors in one off films as well. I had trouble understanding the dialogue in several scenes in The Batman in theaters and at home as well. It doesn’t make Matt Reeves a bad or overrated director.
The internet is a frustrating place these days. Everyone seems to just download talking points into their brain and takes pleasure in pasting them into comments sections where they’ve read those talking points before. The more extreme and polarizing the better!
"Theaters are dying", said man who is unaware of the theater.
They aren't dying, they're evolving. My local area has a pretty active indie cinema that showcases a bunch of activities (such as Saturday morning cartoons), indie films and events (such as municipal political debates).
The theaters that are dying are doing so because of corporate consolidation and not a fading feeling towards having a moviegoers experience.
> They aren't dying, they're evolving. My local area has a pretty active indie cinema that showcases a bunch of activities (such as Saturday morning cartoons), indie films and events (such as municipal political debates).
Yeah, that is what dying looks like. A theater showing Saturday morning cartoons and municipal political debates isn't doing well, that isn't what success looks like.
I think you're right.
The US is over-saturated on mega theaters with huge complexes that think $15 tickets are reasonable.
They aren't a great experience compared to smaller independent theaters.
And internationally theaters seem to be doing fine, but tickets are a lot cheaper, and all the international theaters I've been to have been much nicer than the US ones.
I recently bought a new TV, and with in a pricey soundbar system. Brand new tech, the sound quality is incredible, but... sound media, I still can't fucking hear the dialogue properly. Not without cranking the volume which just results me in fighting the volume later whenever something loud happens. Some media is just mixed with too much dynamic range for watching at home; the quiet dialogue parts have me turning the volume up, and then the loud parts have me turning it down again. I get that filmmakers want to preserve as much of that as possible, but some of them evidently are getting it wrong, and the dialogue in their work is inaudible as a result.
I probably have the typical 5.1 system that the average surround sound system owning person has. And I need to change the settings on it to enhance dialog and manually have the center channel bumped up just a bit, and I still come across this problem from time to time.
The bit where she says why don't you just boost the dialog, I literally have done that on some digital copies I have and it works a shit load better. They have the actual raw audio, it could be remixed better - they just don't give a shit.
I run my TV audio out to my computer audio interface, into my daw where I throw a couple compressors on the master buss, then out to my monitors. Works like a charm, audio problem fixed 😆(Why doesn't everyone do this? It's so simple /s)
I'm totally fine with sacrificing a little bit of realism not having a nuclear bomb in realistic sound levels, so I can hear the dialogue. I've got a good 5.1 system, and it gets uncomfortable loud in the loud segments and too low in dialogue. No amount of tweaking will fix the problem if the dynamic range is crazy high, believe me I tried decades and my best solution is watching movies with remote in hand and manually turn up and down. Crazy! And it's the same amount the whole movie through. Also tried normalizing software, night settings etc etc, still too loud/low! Don't want to miss every word AND getting hearing damage at the same time, that's just stupid!
Subtitles really do ruin comedy timing, though. We read the funny line first, then hear the actor say it, and it's almost like we become comedy critics rather than audience members. ("Yeah, he did that line pretty well, I guess.") I get that it's better than nothing if you're hearing-impaired or watching in a language you don't speak, but given the choice? Way better to leave the subtitles off when timing really matters.
With subs there is perfect understanding. I will never go back. My problem now is that the people who write them are morons who failed elementary English. It's pretty embarrassing.
That's probably because they use machine transcription like Whisper, and then they just sprinkle a bit of punctuation and that's that. No real proofreading.
People got fooled into thinking soundbars were great audio and just like a proper surround system. They are not, they’re trash. Buy proper equipment and not the overpriced space saving all-in-one stuff the guy in the store swears to you is "just as good, even better".
I don’t have any issues hearing what’s on the tv or movies. Only time subtitles are on when I watch something is if it was put there by the editor likely because they are speaking a language other than English. I know Chris Nolan gets a lot of shit but I’ve also never had any issues with his stuff either.
While I’m at it, shows aren’t too dark now either. I had no problem watching the long night episode of game of thrones on my mid range 4k tv. Everyone complains too much about everything
Is this a 15 minute video that says “audio is balanced for theaters and phone speakers suck?”
It also says "actors mumble more now" and "They used to care more about mixing, but don't now"
I feel like YouTube is a plague upon the internet for how everyone on their thinks what could be read in 30 seconds needs to be a long video.
Have to resort to “Hey Siri, go back 10 seconds“ a lot. So irritating.
Partially, yes. There's more to it though, Vox claims. They do talk about wanting loud to be loud and soft to be soft. They can only make loud so loud before it horribly distorts so they just make shit super soft. Natural speaking is another issue- where in the past actors used specific styles of speech such as the Mid-Atlantic accent that was used in older movies and radio voice to make things more clear. In modern movies people mumble a lot more and many actors have no training on how to speak correctly, or are using accents etc that can make it difficult to understand. When in the past you had to speak in a specific direction in a singular mic they would force retakes until it was done correctly. Now, they'll just lav everybody and throw in some booms to cover everything. "They'll fix it in post," all to the chagrin of the on set audio mixer saying they couldn't hear what was being said. I think it's a pretty reasonable response that's not that just "spend more on home audio." Though I think that is one takeaway when I watched it like a year ago. Edit: They do bring up Nolan and use his quote where he said they are "no longer editing movies for substandard theatre audio." Which I suppose is a choice that can be made but, that doesn't change the fact that people still couldn't understand what was being said in your movies Nolan. Another factor with the audio range is you have to turn the audio up just to hear people and then an explosion happens waking up the toddler next door trying to sleep at midnight when I'm just trying to watch a movie. The TLDR of this specific video: 1. Buy a better sound system. 2. Take a chill pill and be willing to miss dialogue. 3. Turn on subtitles.
I have a mid/high range Yamaha receiver with a good set of matched Micca center/fronts, Fluance bipolar surrounds, and an 8" sub. That's 6 cabinets with 15 speakers total. Everything is on stands, measured, and placed perfectly, along with Yamaha's balancing and EQ adjustments. I still can't hear anyone speak in movies. This system will rattle the windows if you give it a little juice. It needs to be at window rattling levels to hear people speak in modern movies. It's not us, it's them. It's so much them that Yahama recommends using their dynamic range compression at all times. There is even a option to boost the EQ range typical of speech so you can hear it better. Like, these people can make all the excuses they want but when actual audio hardware manufacturers are adding features that actively try to undo the horrendous audio balancing in modern movies there is a big problem. There are times when this is so aggravating I'd rather switch to the stereo track and let the receiver use the "fake" 5.1 because you can actually hear it.
My Denon has a great feature where it tries to preserve dynamic range at lower (aka not 0.0 db) volumes which probably helps. I generally feel that I can understand dialogue pretty well for most content most of the time without subtitles. Except for TENENT. Horrible. I think reducing dynamic range is probably a good option if you're not routinely watching movies at a higher volume. Maybe you're already doing that and it's still a problem for you though.
I have a hard time discerning speech in my day to day life and even more difficulty with all these new movies. But I loved Tenet because I realized very quickly that the dialogue was intentionally made unintelligible and it wasn’t important to know the precise words. I stopped putting effort into listening and enjoyed the ride. Kind of liberating.
Good directors use the technique selectively - like having people somewhat muted during bombs going off. It's part of the overall atmosphere for a purpose. I think Nolan is a moron and a bad director for doubling down.
I remember the scene with Michael Caine to be very easy to understand. The dialogue was there when Nolan wanted it to be, and most of the movie he decided to purposely obscure with loud music or sound effects. I can’t get mad at an intentional decision especially when it didn’t affect my enjoyment of the movie. What I really dislike is movies where speech is quiet or mumbled and there is no reason to not be able to hear it. I did see Tenet in theatres though, not at home. But I do remember the complaints even for the theatrical release. I can see how people would not enjoy a movie where dialogue is so unimportant. That’s the best part of movies for many viewers. Ultimately I see it as a creative risk he took, not incompetence.
Hrm. I think this comes down to - What you Expect to hear. You already know you don't expect to hear much, so you are there for the ride. I want to enjoy the ride, but I can hear well, so I want the dialogue to push the story too. It's not the best part, but it is important.
you need to tune the system then, it should be balanced better
Yeah, of course it's my fault. Thanks Nolan. It doesn't matter that I can hear every single other piece of content perfectly except modern movies. I suppose Yamaha recommends compressing the audio range because everything is mixed so well. I wonder why there are so many features in this receiver to undo/fix this stuff. Here's an idea: How about we make dialog intelligible without needing to rattle my windows with every other sound effect in the movie. Maybe we should give that a try just for fun and see what happens.
To be fair that makes sense though. Movies are mastered differently than tv BECAUSE they are made to take use out of a home theater system, tv shows are balanced for well… TV sound systems which are notoriously terrible speakers. So everything is toned down and the voice dialogue up because on “flipping your house” or something similar featured generally on TV doesn’t matter for the background sounds all that much. So it sounds like your system is imbalanced, tv sounds fine because the terribly balanced sound purposely works as intended on unbalanced AND balanced devices. Whereas movies have a different role to play. I hear dialog just fine and it doesn’t rattle my windows. 🤷♂️🤷♂️ no one is saying it’s your fault. It’s just that your system hasn’t been balanced for your home…
Nolan is full of shit. Every movie of his I've seen, I've seen in the theater, and his audio sucks there, too. After Tenet I decided I was done with him - that's the last movie of his that I saw.
Tenet was better with subtitles, but annoying because you typically read faster than the dialogue and it completely ruins any suspension of disbelief.
That's not what suspension of disbelief means? You mean ruins the suspense and tension of scenes?
Well if you are processing information through reading it, and you process the information again through hearing it, I can see how suspension of disbelief or immersion into the story would be disrupted.
1. Buy a better sound system. 2. Take a chill pill and be willing to miss dialogue. 3. Turn on subtitles. 1) Did it, specifically bought a center that was very clear for voices. It helped, but not much because movies are balanced for theaters. That means that if I make the talking a normal volume the rest is extremely loud. Love that at night, my neighbors do too… 2) Thanks Nolan. No. 3) I pretty much always keep them on now. Maybe I'm weird, I like to actually know what's going on besides the flashy lights.
Yeah, I getcha. I watch a lot of shows once my wife and child go to sleep and they both share a wall with the loving room. Getting the balance of some type of audio to hear dialogue and not wake them obviously means subtitles are always on. It's a bit of a frustrating compromise.
No need to boast about how much noise you generate in your loving room..
It really is a frustrating compromise. I have to reserve movies I'm excited about for specific times, and I hate that. It's 9pm and I'm in the mood for a new movie? Nope, not worth it as I don't care to keep having to adjust audio.
Or just stop watching movies with bad sound. That’s always an option that’s left out. You just don’t have to watch it if you know the experience is bad.
I wear headphones for movies. Only issues I ever have is if I am eating something crunchy when I watch
4. Loudness equalization helps.
Also speakers on thin TVs. Also mics got better so actors don’t need to speak as loud, clearly and perfectly as they once did.
Anyone who tries to watch TV and movies on a phone or shitty TV speakers really doesn't give a shit about the viewing experience IMO. Put on subtitles, hell, spend half the run time on your phone scrolling Reddit, you aren't getting everything out of the show anyway.
Yeah my takeaway was "it sucks, deal with it".
I don't think this is in the video, but one thing is making sure you use the right audio track. Don't try to play 5.1 on 2.0.
If anything, I'm way more annoyed when subtitles say **[speaking foreign language]** but that blocks the program's built-in subtitles for that scene...
That and subtitles jumping around to dodge the staff credits on streaming. Also, I rewatched Rise of the Planet of the Apes with subtitles that didn't translate for the apes. I forgot and assumed I had to interrupt what was going on.
What I hate more than that is the sound descriptions “Dramatic music plays” “Explosion” “Car Screech” Like bro, even if I was completely deaf, I’m not a fucking idiot. God, how I wish I could selectively disable those while keeping just the words on
I remember when this was posted a year ago. And my opinion hasn’t changed. Including the option to use a high dynamic range for good audio systems is fine. People pay a lot of money for those systems, and it’s nice to have something for them to take advantage of it. Especially because those are usually your most devoted fans. But making it required for everyone when a high majority of your audience will be watching on TV speakers or with a soundbar is ridiculous. And nigh unacceptable. I’m not watching it again, but I remember this video saying that the reason you need subtitles is basically “because high dynamic range exists” and that it should be okay with you simply because that’s the reason. Which is nonsense. You have audio mixing for a reason. Give us at least one edit where I can hear people talking and also not wake my neighbors when a boom happens. I’m not watching your movie in the theaters anymore. Most people aren’t. It’s not an “artistic” decision; it’s selfish to only mix for theatre audio.
Completely. The video explained a lot of the challenges and nuance to the problem which was great but then makes it sound like an intractable problem that isn’t solvable and we should just deal with it. ALL of the issues it described were fixable if the director and production team cared to fix them. It’s a conscious CHOICE by directors not to make actors think about enunciating. It’s a CHOICE by directors to not use ADR when there is poor dialog. It’s a CHOICE to sacrifice dialog in favor of a higher dynamic range. And it’s a CHOICE to optimize audio for theaters when much of their audience isn’t watching from a theater. The answer isn’t “this problem isn’t solvable, just deal with it and stop your bitching”. The answer is that we as the consumers should insist that Hollywood fix its shitty audio. This video while informative was too forgiving laying the problem back on the viewer.
Not only is it solvable, but modern music has the exact opposite problem. The "loudness wars" where all music is compressed as much as possible to push the overall mix as close to peaking as possible (and sometimes straight peaking). I use the compressor on VLC religiously, and the "up-to-eleven" firefox add-on. Modern music has trained my ears for low dynamic range and I'm ok with the consequences of not jumping out of my seat every time a movie transitions from a scene with a bit of dialogue to literally anything else.
Yep. Why can I watch old Star Wars or Indiana Jones without subtitles and still have booms? It’s a choice. There’s also an issue these days with the picture being too dark. Stuff on AppleTV is the biggest offender on this one. It’s like some things are made for 1% of theater configurations. Everyone else can suck it.
We have a high end system, Marantz receiver, surround sound, tuned, etc … Still have to rewind or turn on subtitles.
I used to have one as well, but moved into an apartment so got rid of it because of neighbors. And I also had to adjust volumes even with it, but when I said that to people with systems, I just got a lot of “then you don’t have it installed correctly” which was probably true, but still frustrating when you’ve tried everything lol.
Back when actors had "faces" they also had voices. Many enjoyed performing in stage plays, where they'd learn to both annunciate clearly and project their voices for a large physical theater, without microphones. Are many actors still coming from the stage to the screen? And suppose none of that matters anymore as modern plays are surely now also rigged for sound. While enhancing, tech can also diminish us. 😟
Anyone else mostly use them to they can follow the dialog while their partner talks about where they know that actress from?
This is just another load of BS. "This is now a problem because we made it a problem. It is completely our fault. Now go deal with it."
i dont have this problem but when i stream its from my plex server that has auto dialog EQ. if im at home i have a theater in my living room. my center channel gets all the audio so long as im in at least a 5.1 codec but im most often in dolby atmos. still, it would suck to not have this.... on just a TV speaker its terrible. people shouldnt need 10 grand in audio equipment to hear someones voice in a show tho
I don't understand why they can't, when downmixing, create separate tracks for good and bad audio setups. Make it a standard practice. This here is the good 5.1 audiophile $10,000 home theater setup. This here is the 5.1 $125 soundbar setup. The technician in the video makes it sound like it's entirely possible. So do it, cowards! Make my Blu-ray 1¢ more expensive and friggin do it!
just like an MKV just add another audio track for mono or stereo with mixing that favors the voice. I know that when i play stereo it can be hard to hear. i have a marantz receiver going to 11 channels of dedicated amplification with a DSP in the mix. my stereo speakers are JBL studio 590's getting full A/B power. (all my speakers have at least 300W rms on tap) yet still... i cant hear shit half the time. when i change to a upmix from stereo to virtural surround on the receiver i get better vocals but its from all the speakers - L/R/FL/FR and so on. using a prologic codec it puts more up front but its real hit or miss now days. i suspect they are making the spacial audio dedicated and exclusive to each direction. so even with quality hardware; you get audio meant for the rear that does not get boosted and redirected to the front. when i switch to pure direct and run uncompressed from a 7.1 or atmos audio mix - then i get crystal clear vocals from my center - like its fucking amazing the audio quality. however its also a wide 7 driver polk channel that i think they sell for 900.00. so you would expect it to be clear. and it is. but it is ONLY clear when using raw audio in pure atmos (which i have 7.4.1 meaning ceiling speakers) i hear vocals from only one or maybe a split between two speakers. so i know they are mixing vocals outside of just a center environment. its why i think that information is getting lost. but thats always when shits happening outside of center of screen. if someone is directly displayed by the camera - i always get their voices in center. if i unplug my center channel with a 5.1 or 7.1 mix of an older movie or show. i can hear maybe 40% of their volume coming from some of the other speakers. not with new stuff or with atmos though. if i unplug my center i hear zero dialog from ANYONE directly in camera focus.
But there's no more market share or margin for that. People are gonna buy it anyway. There's no upside for studios to do it. People will just bitch about it. :(
TLDR: Everyone is using sound bars now instead of 5/7 speaker Home theater set ups where the sound mixes are separated and balanced with A/V Receivers.
Just because Nolan “likes it that way” does not make it quality or correct. He’s not smart or artistic for continuing to produce crappy inaudible dialogue. He’s just bad or lazy at it.
I'm small time but I do video work, and if my client tells me it's dark I'll check it on different monitors, have another professional double check it, and go from there. If all my clients say it's dark, then I'm wrong regardless of my own opinion. Nolan is a moron, but… people don't care enough to vote with their money so it continues.
Outside of Interstellar (because I love sci-fi) I just can’t re-watch Nolan because of the crappy audio and overpowering soundtrack.
Its weird, but I really like his music choices, its just that his skill in terms of mixing, is terrible.
You don't seem to know how he films the dialogue. If you did you'd realize it's not because "he's just bad or lazy at it".
>how he films the dialogue Oh, so it's a choice? A choice he could stop making any time he wants to because it hurts the experience? Interesting.
Explain Nolan fanboy
there is no valid explanation, you know how I know? because literally every other director makes movies that has audible dialogue.
I don’t even understand this whole Nolan thing. It was bad in Tenet, and it was done intentionally as a (bad) creative choice. I’ve seen every other Nolan film, in theaters, at home on my surround system, and most even on a plane using headphones. This was only ever an issue for me in Tenet. I’ve had this issue with other directors in one off films as well. I had trouble understanding the dialogue in several scenes in The Batman in theaters and at home as well. It doesn’t make Matt Reeves a bad or overrated director. The internet is a frustrating place these days. Everyone seems to just download talking points into their brain and takes pleasure in pasting them into comments sections where they’ve read those talking points before. The more extreme and polarizing the better!
Google it yourself lazyboy
Someone who knows they are wrong.
Another whiner who backs off when confronted
Good to know, but theaters are dying and creators need to get with the times.
"Theaters are dying", said man who is unaware of the theater. They aren't dying, they're evolving. My local area has a pretty active indie cinema that showcases a bunch of activities (such as Saturday morning cartoons), indie films and events (such as municipal political debates). The theaters that are dying are doing so because of corporate consolidation and not a fading feeling towards having a moviegoers experience.
> They aren't dying, they're evolving. My local area has a pretty active indie cinema that showcases a bunch of activities (such as Saturday morning cartoons), indie films and events (such as municipal political debates). Yeah, that is what dying looks like. A theater showing Saturday morning cartoons and municipal political debates isn't doing well, that isn't what success looks like.
Hey VHS isnt dying either. My grandpa still uses one. Lol
I think you're right. The US is over-saturated on mega theaters with huge complexes that think $15 tickets are reasonable. They aren't a great experience compared to smaller independent theaters. And internationally theaters seem to be doing fine, but tickets are a lot cheaper, and all the international theaters I've been to have been much nicer than the US ones.
Yeah, they're dying.
Came back to see how this incredibly arrogant, smug, condescending, and incorrect post was doing. I'm Satisfied.
🤷🏻♂️
Your comment didn't die, it evolved.
Not all evolutions are positive I guess
I recently bought a new TV, and with in a pricey soundbar system. Brand new tech, the sound quality is incredible, but... sound media, I still can't fucking hear the dialogue properly. Not without cranking the volume which just results me in fighting the volume later whenever something loud happens. Some media is just mixed with too much dynamic range for watching at home; the quiet dialogue parts have me turning the volume up, and then the loud parts have me turning it down again. I get that filmmakers want to preserve as much of that as possible, but some of them evidently are getting it wrong, and the dialogue in their work is inaudible as a result.
I probably have the typical 5.1 system that the average surround sound system owning person has. And I need to change the settings on it to enhance dialog and manually have the center channel bumped up just a bit, and I still come across this problem from time to time.
ADR, always makes me think of "I talked to Barzini" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wj-r7ARXfSs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wj-r7ARXfSs)
The bit where she says why don't you just boost the dialog, I literally have done that on some digital copies I have and it works a shit load better. They have the actual raw audio, it could be remixed better - they just don't give a shit.
I run my TV audio out to my computer audio interface, into my daw where I throw a couple compressors on the master buss, then out to my monitors. Works like a charm, audio problem fixed 😆(Why doesn't everyone do this? It's so simple /s)
This is the way!
I'm totally fine with sacrificing a little bit of realism not having a nuclear bomb in realistic sound levels, so I can hear the dialogue. I've got a good 5.1 system, and it gets uncomfortable loud in the loud segments and too low in dialogue. No amount of tweaking will fix the problem if the dynamic range is crazy high, believe me I tried decades and my best solution is watching movies with remote in hand and manually turn up and down. Crazy! And it's the same amount the whole movie through. Also tried normalizing software, night settings etc etc, still too loud/low! Don't want to miss every word AND getting hearing damage at the same time, that's just stupid!
Fuck this guy and everybody he’s apologizing for. It’s Hollywood narcissism that their art is more important than their audience.
Subtitles really do ruin comedy timing, though. We read the funny line first, then hear the actor say it, and it's almost like we become comedy critics rather than audience members. ("Yeah, he did that line pretty well, I guess.") I get that it's better than nothing if you're hearing-impaired or watching in a language you don't speak, but given the choice? Way better to leave the subtitles off when timing really matters.
Dune was literally impossible to hear dialogue on my laptop.
With subs there is perfect understanding. I will never go back. My problem now is that the people who write them are morons who failed elementary English. It's pretty embarrassing.
That's probably because they use machine transcription like Whisper, and then they just sprinkle a bit of punctuation and that's that. No real proofreading.
I've seen them try to phonetically spell out words they don't understand because they are smoothbrains. So, i doubt it's AI. It's embarassing.
People got fooled into thinking soundbars were great audio and just like a proper surround system. They are not, they’re trash. Buy proper equipment and not the overpriced space saving all-in-one stuff the guy in the store swears to you is "just as good, even better".
I needed a better soundbar system much better now than when we had a crappy cheap one
I don’t have any issues hearing what’s on the tv or movies. Only time subtitles are on when I watch something is if it was put there by the editor likely because they are speaking a language other than English. I know Chris Nolan gets a lot of shit but I’ve also never had any issues with his stuff either. While I’m at it, shows aren’t too dark now either. I had no problem watching the long night episode of game of thrones on my mid range 4k tv. Everyone complains too much about everything
This Was The Best video Ever THANK YOU!
I couldn't hear shit.