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by mbreese 166 days ago
I think a good chunk of it has to do with the TVs themselves. I don't have any extra sound system attached to my TV, so I'm working with whatever sound comes out of the TV itself. As TVs get thinner, speakers also get smaller, and focused downwards. So we're using tiny speakers that are pointed indirectly towards me.

I could probably fix over half of the problems I have with TV audio with a decent sound bar, and a good one is a decent percentage of the cost of a brand new TV.
1 comments
JumpCrisscross 166 days ago
> think a good chunk of it has to do with the TVs themselves

I have a thin TV. I have to turn on subtitles for modern films. For older movies from the same streaming service, however, I can understand everything fine.

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mbreese 166 days ago
Silly question -- for the older movies, have you seen them before?

If one of the arguments is that the people doing the sound mixing know the audio/words so they are oblivious to the difficulty that a new viewer will have understanding the words, it's also possible that a repeat viewer might also have similar biases with older media.

I can think of half a dozen different other reasons why there's a difference between older and newer media. I don't think it's just one thing. I do think differences in thin TVs is one factor, but not the only one. I have a few different generations of LCDs at home. I generally can understand spoken words better on my oldest one. It's also the thickest, so it should have the largest speakers.

But, I think another factor is the digital audio profiles. If you're mixing for just stereo (or even mono), you're probably going to get an easier to understand audio track. If you're mixing for surround-sound (and not listening on a 5.1 external receiver), the TV is going to have a more difficult time and the viewer is probably going to get a lower-quality audio track compared to a track mixed specifically for just two channels.

But, at least I now have a project -- I'll pull an older movie from Netflix that I haven't seen to test my theory...

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JumpCrisscross 166 days ago
> for the older movies, have you seen them before?

Mostly no. (Not a big movie rewatcher.)

> can think of half a dozen different other reasons why there's a difference between older and newer media

Would love for someone to study this. I think I can eliminate TV, streaming provider and my self as variables, given, again, highly non-scientifically, I've personally noticed the difference with those held constant.

That said, I'm researching sound bars to see if the TV speakers are part of the problem.

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