Volume Leveling Difference?

djjenkins

SatelliteGuys Pro
Original poster
Jan 5, 2009
179
0
Tucson, Arizona, United States
So I have the volume leveling feature enabled on my 922, but I don't see any difference from my 622. The commercials are still WAY louder than the main programs.

Anyone else experiencing this, or anyone actually hearing a difference?
 
I must be the only one then that's notices a difference then. It seems like I have to turn the volume up higher (maybe 5 more db) on my Onkyo receiver then when I had my 722 hooked up, but the volume level for sure more consistent. I haven't had to dash to the remote and turn down the volume since getting my 922. The true test will be Friday when my wife get's home from a business trip, she notices the change in volume more then I do.
 
I'm kinda wondering if the last software update tweaked the Volume Leveling a bit. It seems as if it's not working as well for me as it was a couple days ago.

There's another inherent problem with Dish's "volume leveling software". It levels out the dynamic range deliberately built into the motion picture soundtrack.

In metered testing with four different feeds on HBO HD - same movie done a minimum of two times - with the volume leveling software enabled, the dynamic range deliberately created by the sound engineer is now compressed by the new volume leveling software when that software is enabled.

While there may be some who desire the effect of a single volume level, it is not what the sound engineers had in mind when the soundtrack of the motion picture was mixed, and, in my humble opinion, constitutes an illegal edit of the motion picture.

Some of us have paid a great deal of money for, and spent a lot of time properly balancing our sound equipment to our environments so we can both view and hear motion pictures as they were intended by the director, cinematographer, and sound engineers to be seen and heard. To have Dish Network introduce a product meant to "normalize" commercial content audio levels, which wrecks havoc with motion picture soundtracks, is a truly undesirable side-effect.

Please feel free to attack, but we watch so little content with commercials that I have disabled the sound leveling software on all receivers.

Unfortunately, we must pay for the more than 200 channels with commercials so we can watch the premium channels and the only four (4) channels left on satellite and cable which do not yet have commercial content. What a sad statement on the television industry in general.
 
There's another inherent problem with Dish's "volume leveling software". It levels out the dynamic range deliberately built into the motion picture soundtrack.

In metered testing with four different feeds on HBO HD - same movie done a minimum of two times - with the volume leveling software enabled, the dynamic range deliberately created by the sound engineer is now compressed by the new volume leveling software when that software is enabled.

While there may be some who desire the effect of a single volume level, it is not what the sound engineers had in mind when the soundtrack of the motion picture was mixed, and, in my humble opinion, constitutes an illegal edit of the motion picture.

Some of us have paid a great deal of money for, and spent a lot of time properly balancing our sound equipment to our environments so we can both view and hear motion pictures as they were intended by the director, cinematographer, and sound engineers to be seen and heard. To have Dish Network introduce a product meant to "normalize" commercial content audio levels, which wrecks havoc with motion picture soundtracks, is a truly undesirable side-effect.

Please feel free to attack, but we watch so little content with commercials that I have disabled the sound leveling software on all receivers.

Unfortunately, we must pay for the more than 200 channels with commercials so we can watch the premium channels and the only four (4) channels left on satellite and cable which do not yet have commercial content. What a sad statement on the television industry in general.


I'm not going to attack. I think that's a totally valid argument against Volume Leveling. In your use case where you primarly watch premium movie content, I would do the exact same thing. Since I too feel that movies should be played back unedited and unmodified from how the director wanted his/her audience to experience the film... audio and video.

My wife and I personally, who use the DISH to watch everyday TV programming and pay for 250 channels of programming, want to have the volume leveled because there will be cases where we will be talking during a commercial break when watching live TV and it will be so loud that it is a disruption where we have to stop what we are doing and dive for the remote to either hit the mute button until the show resumes or turn it down. My wife also has very sensitive hearing and the drastic volume difference does really distract her even more then me. Now when I watch movies on our Blu-Ray player.. I don't want anything getting inbetween me and the movie experience which is why I go out of my way to make sure TruHD is selected and make sure my display is showing the video correctly because I too want that experience that you want out of watching movies on premium channels.

But I don't agree with how you speculate that Volume Leveling could be somehow construed into an "illegal edit" of the movie. Two reasons... 1. It's done at the reciever level. The feed that DISH sends to the subscriber's box is an "unaltered" feed of the content they provide. (I say "unaltered" in quotes since really it's compressed at their end in order to be sent over their service. That's going to introduce some change to the audio/video just due to the nature of the compression technology used.) 2. It's something that the user can disable if they so choose therefore restoring the programming to how a subscriber without a reciever with volume leveling will experence the content. Yes, it's not by default, but a savvy viewer such as yourself will know it's there and it can be disabled. Less savvy viewers which would be more likely the ones that would also complain about the volume differences in commercials would not know about the setting and would instead call Dish to complain and then have to be told about the feature. Which would then lead to them asking a. Why that wasn't on in the first place? b. why weren't they told about it? and c I wouldn't of had to call support and DISH could be helping someone else with a more pressing issues.

Because really, the 922 wasn't marketed as a "Volume Normalizing" receiver. It's being marketed as a "place-shifting" receiver. You won't find anything on the 922 pages or reference materials talking at all about the "Volume Leveling" feature. The only reason why we know about it was because of a Technical Chat back in December I think.

Sorry for the long rant, but that's just how I feel. Again, not attacking you at all... I just don't agree with everything you say. Just some of it.
 
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