[cvuls]

I'm guessing you're using a stereo setup then, dialogue is usually mixed into the centre channel, downmixing a 5.1 or 7.1 stream to stereo will produce those results.

even worse is if you don't downmix to stereo, and all you are hearing is front left and right, which is often just the reverb effect channels for dialogue

[mysterydip]

Don't many people have just a stereo setup still (myself included)? Why would a newer standard be backwards-hostile like that?

[willcipriano]

As a counterpoint, I have both 5.1 via ARC and Dolby Atmos system hooked up via eARC and dialogue is still quiet in some modern releases. Older movies sound great though.

[cvuls]

this will be because more recent movies will be utilising high dynamic ranges for audio, worked around by compressing/limiting but in doing so, you lose quality.

trade-offs for everything.

there was a time when stereo was seen as unnecessary faff, too.

edit: movies are mixed for theatres and no longer are the home releases adjusted to suit.

[RobertMiller]

In many cases, people ostensibly using stereo sound may as well be using mono sound. Stereo speakers built into a TV that's 20 feet away, or watching a video on their smartphone without headphones; technically these people are using stereo sound but with the speakers so close to each other relative to the listener, it might as well be mono.

I think if you want to make widely accessible audio content, you should be taking this into account. Make it intelligible in mono first, then worry about the rest.

[birksherty]

I watch using headphones and dialogues are still difficult to hear. Now I use vlc method to make them audible.

https://lifehacker.com/how-to-fix-movies-that-are-really-qui...

[mrslave]

How to do this in mpv? Then we'll automate it with a short shell script!

[RobertMiller]

There are a few ffmpeg filters you can use with mpv to get this effect, though you may have to fiddle with their options to get what you want. acompressor or dynaudnorm might be what you're looking for.

https://ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg-filters.html#acompressor

https://ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg-filters.html#dynaudnorm

To use them with mpv you'd do something like `mpv --af=lavfi="[dynaudnorm=param1=value1:param2=value2:param3=value3]" ...`

(make sure the first parameter is preceded by a '=', not a ':' because reasons)

[cvuls]

that would be because headphones are stereo.

[kabes]

I've got the full klipsch THX ultra 2 system (7.2), and I also find dialogues in modern movies much harder to understand than in older releases. I think they should mix in more of the dialogue in the front left and right channels

[micromacrofoot]

considering the vast majority of people listen to movies in stereo, why don’t they include a decent stereo mix?

[loufe]

Christopher Nolan's Tenet was a prime example of horrible stereo translation. I could hardly understand the dialog. I've never changed volume so much during a movie. IIRC he refused to produce any audio mixes aside from those meant for the most premium 7.1 stream theatres. What a shame.

[rhino369]

That mix was garbage even in 7.1. I had to add 10db to the center channel.

[crtasm]

> will produce those results.

If that's commonly the case then whatever is doing the downmix isn't fit for purpose.

I found on Kodi you can boost the centre channel when downmixing, this helped quite a bit for me but I still watch with subtitles.