It's About Time

In other news, the Consortium of TV Marketers & Broadcasters have just announced the deployment of their new "Sear-O-Vert" advertisement system. Commercials will be only 1 second long, but at 100,000 times the brightness of the program they air during. The Consortium says that in their surveys the product-recognition rates soared and no viewers complained at all about the excruciating eye pain and after-images lasting for several minutes after each ad.

I wouldn't be surprised if new TVs are deployed with Mute functions that are automatically disabled whenever a commercial is aired.

Could do with something similar in the UK.
Del

Oh no Del...!!!!

Most adverts I've watched are better than the programmes....

That is good news except this part: "Broadcast stations, cable distributors and other video content providers who demonstrate the new rules would pose a hardship will be able to apply for a waiver to avoid the regulations."

I wonder what the "hardship" could be?

"I wonder what the "hardship" could be?"

Reduced revenues.

The headlines: "Ted Turner faces financial hardship over new volume law"

I thought the new definition of hardship is anything that someone is not comfortable with.

As exciting as this news is............with everything else that's going on, should this really be a priority for our elected officials? What the hell?

You're exactly right Doorman. We're in a recession.......any decrease in revenue will be considered a hardship. Waivers will be handed out to the biggest campaign donors.....volume remains the same..........gun laws are tightened to prevent us from blowing our heads off.

Ain't it Grand!

"I wonder what the "hardship" could be?"

Folks selling hearing aids.

Folks selling medicine for people who have to use the bathroom excessively (assuming that's where they are when the commercial comes on)

Folks selling gardening equipment (in case you might be outside and can't quite hear it)

"I wonder what the "hardship" could be?"

It could be proportional to the campaign contribution.

No doubt, plus somebody stands to make money over determining whether or not it is a hardship.

Sounds like a job for Super Attorney!

When this issue first came out, didn't they deny that there was no difference...

I have to admit that loud TV commercials are quite annoying. That being said I really find it sad that our elected (and well paid) officials find the topic worthy of floor time considering what's going on with the economy and education.

I have three very simple ways to handle the unwanted TV commercials, turn down the volume (remote controls mean I don't even have to get off my tush to do so), turn off the TV altogether, or not even bother to turn on the TV. I generally opt for the third option.

One odd thing is that for a while at least one TV manufacturer (I think it was Philips / Magnavox) built an automatic volume adjust into their TVs to keep the sound level more or less constant during commercials, channel changes, etc.

Don't know if they're still doing it or why the other manufacturers didn't follow suit.

I had bought a phillips back in the late 80's. Loved it till lighting strike or something 7 years later. Was going the buy another but didn't like the color or display on the floor models, I bought a sony instead. When I turned it on, I did not realize how spoil I was, I hated it. Commercial were wa loud.

Had one - didn't work as advertised.

TV I can be without. My life is usually more interesting than any movie. Being infiltrated by pop ups, ads, and other unsolicited crap on the www's of this world is just as bad.

I switched to

http://www.myway.com/

years ago. At least it gives me a choice and yes, this is an endorsement.

You want it your way go myway, Ky.

I've just got around to looking at my Panasonic LCD destructions to see if it has some menu, as it seemed to 'self solve' being blasted, after I went in and adjusted the (equally annoying) volume differences between channels.

I found no specific 'tweekable', like AGC or compression/decompression, but I suspect messing with the relative volume of a channel, invokes 'uniform decompression' for that channel.

Therefore as this 'loudness' is a 'compression trick' - it likely gets negated.

Might be worth having a fiddle, with whatever you have, in this general realm.

Then again it could be my ADC ^{_{(automatic deafness control)}}. Or everyone and their dog have taken to complaining and the broadcasters have decided to sort it.

Something that I have noticed lately, the volume level of some of the cable channels that I watch is considerably lower than other channels for their content, forcing me to turn up the volume, but the advertisements are at a regular volume. Is this how they are getting around these regulations?

I notice a distinct difference in volume when going from HD to non-HD channels.

Something tells me this will be like smuggling drugs. Close one hole, another one opens.

Back when there was civilization, The recording industry (RIAA) self regulated, and came up with a standard for equalization (rolloff) of records. It would be beyond any hope that this volume law would work with a "hardship waiver", what a waste of time and money.

"Back when there was civilization"

I lived through that era. There are still pockets of civilized people left on earth. They don't always seem to coincide with "civilization".

I think the situational difference is this is 'two tier'

The commercial sound producers use 'modern' compression to produce tracks that measure to the broadcaster's 'standard levels', but 'sound louder'.

The 'hardship' may be to the broadcaster, who has to now 'similarly compress' all other sound, to match the technology. More man hours, more gear, giant volume of ancient low grade tracks, .....

One could argue it is simply dragging the broadcaster into 'modern sound technology', but the natural fear may be; first to undo what the advertiser apparently wants, may have no revenue.

Perhaps the 'uncivilized' thing is advertisers are not insisting that their ads don't alienate their 'target audience' and ironically, it requires legislation to get that basic marketing concept across.

For all these years I have depended on that louder volume on commercials. It was a signal to get up off the potato patch and head for the goodie box. Then when the volume dropped I knew to grab my loot and return.

No more automatic responses. Now I have to start thinking, and while I'm on my own couch. How dare the government mettle in my private life and set my actions to their standards. This is just another unconstitutional intrusion, it's none of their business.

All the yeas will be taking second thoughts when they are over half way through the commercial before they realize it wasn't part of the program they were watching, and caused them to miss their goodie break.

Now I have to invest in a DVR. Hey, I wonder how many congressmsn have stock in DVRs?

It's about time, eh?

To think: If there were no 'Daylight Savings Time' in Washington DC, it would have been done an hour earlier!

^{(Sorry, lynlynch... couldn't stop myself!)}