There are ways around that, for example I watch my Plex server on an Apple TV and there is an option that will reduce loud sounds so I can hear dialogue without being blasted away at other parts
If you make a movie you make it with multiple audio tracks (lines), often there are dozens of lines for cinemas and more for IMAX. If you mix all those lines together, e.g. to 5.1 for home cinema you’ll lose dynamic range. Now if you mix it into 2 lines (stereo) this means you basically have everything (explosion, whispers) on the same two lines for left and right and that’s why you either need at least a front speaker for dialogue (so only effects are muddy but voices are clear) or bear with it.
They do for 5.1, which is a pretty common home setup, even 3.0 or 3.1 works quite okay with it. How many people do actually watch movies with a stereo setup nowadays?
Oh god yeah. Some early video games are fucking horrendous for this. Thank GOD that it’s almost essentially now to have sliders for individual tracks. Always end up lowering the music to 75, the sound effects to 85-90 and the dialogue stays at 100.
I have a surprising number of games which I play with BGM at 1%. That is nuts! Why should any game be designed roughly 100x too loud!?
If memory serves, Age of Empires 3 DE is this way last I tried to play and chat on Discord. Earth Defence Force 4, and all of the new Counter Strikes are similar. It’s a war on eardrums!
Subtitles ruin native-language movies. I’ll enable them if I’m watching something in public because I’m not a monster but otherwise I hate them.
Get some decent speakers, FFS. A ‘sound bar’ does not qualify. A good center channel speaker is essential. Don’t even need the rear surrounds with a good front setup.
I have this problem with games, but there’s no rewind on games, and for some reason every game maker has decided that the most critical information you ever get happens when there’s loud sounds going on as some climatic event is happening and you can’t understand a fucking thing they say.
So most of the game I don’t need it, except for what ends up being the most important times I need it and don’t have it, so I have to leave them on in games.
And ya it’s distracting. At best I’m concentrating on not reading them which is distracting itself.
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