Satellite TV Forum

[cbromell]

We are having trouble with the volume of the sound from program on difference stations. Some stations the volume is quite loud and we only have to set
our volume control to 20. Other channels the volume is so low we have to put the volume control to 47. can you help us? Both our tv's are doing this.
I have checked with others in this area who use Bell Express and they are having the same issues.

[dishgawd]

I agree.... the people at good old BEV (Bell ExpressVu) seem to have nothing better to do then to annoy their hi-paying customers like us by hitting the volume button whenever a commercial comes on.... also true to other channel volume levels. I can't understand in this day and age with all their technology that they can't regulate the output db levels to make all programming the same. I am at this moment sending them an email about this problem along with some other issues (no programming info for instance).... stay tuned....

[c.s]

Same issue here. I really notice when going from BBC News SD to City TV HD. Huge volume increase. It's especially annoying now that the "down volume" button no longer works on my remote, and the ExpressVu remote doesn't know my particular model.

Chris

[Admin]

Two common problems here:

1. Different volumes for each channel. This is something that the provider (Bell) can adjust at the head end for each channel, but the engineers really can't be bothered. If there are one or two channels that are really too loud, then by all means, complain to Bell.

2. Loud commercials. Commercial producers compress the audio on purpose so that their commercial gets attention from the viewers because it's louder. Kinda like how modern music has turned into a compressed mush to get better airplay on radio stations compared to music produced a decade ago. Looks like they got your attention and their tactic worked! Complain all you want, but commercials=money for television/cable channels, I doubt anything going to change in this regard until enough people put pressure on the advertisers.

Part of the problem is, they're reprocessing signals from a variety of different sources, and its difficult to keep all the levels set similarly. It gets even more complicated when your TV provider (Bell/Rogers) has to do program substitution.

The engineer needs to make adjustments for each channel's audio level, unfortunately it involves time and effort to perform these adjustments. A good retired audio friend of mine is paid by a major cable TV provider to listen in on all their channels with his scope and analysis equipment, and reports any deficiencies to the engineers. He gets to watch TV and get paid for it!