Thursday, March 1, 2007

Video Playback: volume compression

I live in an apartment, the walls are thin, and I enjoy my TV and movies late at night. The dynamic range is way too high, some dialogue is barely audible at full volume but sudden action explodes in a frantic dive for the volume control. Volume normalization can mitigate this somewhat at extreme settings, but it is imprecise and inaccessible.

A better model: interactive volume mode, simple controls which adjust expander / compressor / limiter to intuitively adjust dynamics. If I can't hear the dialogue, I indicate "too quiet". This boosts the input volume or otherwise adjust the dynamics to boost quiet parts. After the first car crash, I indicate "too loud". This looks at the maximum output volume during the last 10 seconds, and adjusts the compressor/limiter to guarantee that nothing will produce output louder than 90% of that. The system would quickly be tuned to the content and my environment.

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