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David Brodbeck wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid:496A8E0C.6020301@gull.us" type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Drew Tomlinson wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">OK, I have to ask. Now while I agree that sending "all the signal to
the rich neighborhoods" is silly, there certainly appears to be
occasions when commercials are much louder than the programming.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->
My guess is the peak level is no higher, but that they're compressing
the dynamic range so that more of the audio is at peak loudness. This
is perceived as louder and "punchier" than uncompressed audio, because
our idea of how loud something is is related to the average level more
than the peak level. Also, if you're watching a movie, movie
soundtracks often have dialog and such at a fairly low level so that
they have room to go louder for things like explosions.
Sometimes commercials also use Dolby Pro Logic encoding to send audio to
the back channel speakers, if you have surround sound.
Now, in the case of locally-inserted commercials on cable TV systems,
there may actually be a difference in peak level. I've noticed that
most cable TV systems do a really incompetent job equalizing the volume
levels between channels and between locally-inserted content and network
content.
</pre>
</blockquote>
They typically do compress the audio up to maximum volume, so they talk
at the same level as the explosions.<br>
I believe they also spread the audio over a wider spectrum to get yet
more volume out of it.<br>
<br>
They are trying to get you to still hear it when you leave the room.<br>
<br>
I *heart* commercial skip ;-><br>
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