In the past 5 to 10 years my wife and I have been having increasingly significant difficulties understanding movie dialogue. This has been mostly on our 7.1 home theater system, simply because we seldom go to the theater to see movies anymore. This was true even before Covid. Often we'll have to stop the movie and ask one another what an actor just said, often replaying it, and if we think it's important to the plot even turning on subtitles temporarily to go back and find out what we had missed. Often I've thought of any number of things that might be the cause of our difficulties: We're getting older and our hearing isn't what it ought to be, that our sound system isn't up to the standard that we'd like, or that the dynamic range in newer movies is so great that quieter dialogue is too quiet when the volume is adjusted so that the loud parts don't blow us into the neighbor's yard. There are other examples, but the gist is that I/we have been blaming it on any number of possible things that mostly might have to do with deficiencies on our end. This video tells me that this isn't necessarily the case, and I'm actually relieved to hear it. At nearly 20 minutes long it might be outside of many people's attention span but if, like us, you've been having trouble understanding movie dialogue this puts a new perspective on things. I'm amazed at some of the explanations and points made, and found myself exclaiming out loud in many places as I agreed with some things, and was just astounded by others. I really think it's worth the time to watch.
I with you I leave on subtitles all the time because it is so hard to understand. Also a constant finger on the volume throttle. I am always turning down during the excruciating loud scenes that is in most Movies. But to me the overall mumbling of dialog or that talking in a whisper is beyond the pale. And an instant iterant.
Sidd
"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." ..... Ferris Bueller
For me it's interesting to know that this wasn't just a personal problem and that it's a real issue for many people. As for subtitles, I really don't like keeping them on all the time. I don't understand how someone can be reading subtitles and be watching the movie at the same time. I read pretty quickly, but I can't read fast enough to appreciate what's going on on the screen. This is the same reason I don't watch films made in a language other than English. Since I don't speak any other languages I just can't appreciate the film while watching subtitles.
Sidd, most TVs today have options to compress the dynamic range, but that kind of defeats the intent of the creators and I can't bring myself to use it. I like the high DR, in general, but when the loudest parts are too loud and the soft parts can't be understood somethin's gotta give.
Here's another reason for not understanding movie dialog...background music is so loud it drowns out the speaker. I have noticed this is occurring more and more.
This is so funny. I thought I had a hearing problem, and my wife is always saying to turn down the volume when the sound suddenly increases. Now I just use headphones most of the time.
Thanks for sharing the article, John. I can easily believe that the actors are part of the problem but, as the video above noted, there are multiple issues involved. That was a good point about TVs in themselves not being able to reproduce good audio. I wouldn't even think of watching without upgraded external audio - at least a good quality soundbar, but I like our surround system, and even then the problem is still evident.