Former DISH customer returning back to DISH after 6 months! Audio question.

[a2zvisa]

Hi everyone!

After spending 6 agonizing months with AT&T Uverse, I will be returning back to DISH on May 3rd!
I will be receiving a Hopper and 2 Joey setup.

When I left DISH, I had a leased 722 and a 622. I also owned a 211.

My question is this:

I remember while watching a movie or most any regular program for that matter, whenever the commercial breaks would occur, the volume level would almost always spike up. Basically the commercials would always be louder than the regular program.

Does the Hopper/Joey system fix that in any way?

 

[werdztif85]

It does... If you don't have a sound system then change it from Dolby digital to PCM only, I had the issue with my hopper and joeys and it fixed it.

 

[kwindrem]

There are many reasons why commercials are louder than the program.

The main issue is the commercial creator WANTS the audio loud so it gets your attention. Even before digital audio, commercials were heavily compressed.

Dolby Digital has actually made the situation worse. Programs authored in Dolby Digital have a way to tell the audio system what level dialog should be reproduced at (relative to maximum level). Many commercials do not use Dolby Digital audio and therefore has no dialog normalization and the audio system goes to a high gain setting. Dialog normalization can also be authored incorrectly.

Hopper/Joey have a mechanism called "Volume Leveling" (in Audio Settings menu) that is supposed to level program/commercial differences but only works on PCM (non Dolby Digital) audio. I have not played with it but it does seem to bring hot PCM audio down in level so may help match DD and PCM audio.

werdztif85 suggests selecting PCM Only for audio output. This will prevent Dolby Digital audio from reaching your audio system so it's not recommended unless you only have one-two speakers. This selection does not seem to affect HDMI audio.