As I’ve gotten older I have become increasingly annoyed the announcers during games. Not because I like or dislike any of them in particular, but because they never shup up, not for a second, both of the talking loud and fast. A 5 yard run in the 2nd quarter for a 1st down is described as if it were the last play of the Super Bowl, followed by a diagram showing why it was 5 yards instead of 10. Seems like it has gotten worse in the past few years.
Years ago I had a 5.1 setup and could just turn down the center channel. Now the TV goes to a soundbar. But I’m wondering if I could connect a digital audio processor in between the TV and soundbar? Could Audacity work?
I would like to hear the sounds of the game, just not the announcers. Especially now that I have a 75 inch TV. It would almost be like being at the games. And when we have live 3d broadcasts…
I know this isn’t the technical solution you are looking for, but a common trick when watching cricket on TV in Australia is to have the TV on for the pictures but the radio on for the sound - because the TV commentators are vapid and constant, and the radio commentators far more restrained. Would that work or are the radio commentators just as bad?
I think it’s much simpler. I was able to do what I want with a 5.1 speaker setup. Just needed to turn down the center channel. The games, most of them, are broadcast with seperate audio tracks. The more I think about this, I’m sure it can be done. There are audio processors that can seperate tracks. But probably $500 plus.
I have the home theater in my living room set up exactly like the OP wants. All voices be it a singer, comedian, news or sportscaster come out of the front center sound bar.
Everything else comes out of the 2 rear speakers or the side bass. I can mute the sound bar during a game and it does indeed feel like I’m at the stadium with the crowd surrounding me. It is quite an effect
In many cases, the radio and TV broadcasts for games are on different delay times, and can be out of sync. I know that some radio sports broadcasts mention that they offer a feed which is specifically synced up with the TV broadcast, but now that many people are watching “live” sports via streaming (rather than over-the-air or cable broadcast), that may complicate the syncing even further.
That was my TV, about that long ago. Sometimes the simplest solution is the best. A $100 5.1 system would not be great for music, or movies, the soundbar I have is probably better, but for sports it would be fine
Thing is, I don’t really have the room, aesthetically, in my apartment for 5 more speakers. But - “Function before form”, I have always said, and I guess I could hide them behind the TV until I am watching a game. Or behind my Van Goghs.
Will hold out for a simpler solution. I have an email out to my brother-in-law, musician with a state of the art recording studio. He might know of a device.
I record football games, and my DVR has a 30-second advance mode, which I use each time a play ends. This allows me to jump from play to play, speeding up the game and avoid color commentary between plays, as well as commercials, time-outs, or other delays and it takes about an hour to watch an entire game. Occasionally, there are hurry-up plays but I can rewind if the play is of interest.
This allows me to watch each play and also avoid much of the announcer’s commentary and I cannot imagine watching a live football broadcast ever again.
I used to use @Princhester’s method for baseball. Worked well with the slow pace of a live game. Generally the radio was 5-10 seconds behind the action which was fine. Once you got used to it. Sometimes the radio was ahead of the vid; that was weird. “Here’s the wind-up; the pitch … swing and a miss!” then we watch the pitcher rear back, knowing what’s about to happen. That’s not nearly as fun.
Definitely agree also with @Dereknocue67; any modern sporting event is unwatchable except if pre-recorded then commercial-skipped during the playback. And excess yakyak skipped. It’s funny in a bad way that football has become worse about pace-of-play than baseball.
Finally as to the OP …
During football (or baseball) I often want the opposite; a way to alter the mix to turn down the crowd enough that the announcers can be understood.
In addition to the certainty that the announcers talk more, and about ever less-relevant non-game BS, than in the Glorious Dayes of Yore I swear the modern style of sound mix is to run up the crowd noise until you’d think the announcers were sitting amongst the crowd, not up in a fully enclosed booth. And with AN ESPECIALLY LOUD-MOUTHED SOMEBODY sitting right behind them sharing his “wisdom” into the broadcast unbidden.
The only thing worse than a continuous stream of drivel is a continuous stream of barely intelligible drivel you need to strain to understand.
ISTM we have found our tech solution here: a cheapo 5.1 system. I too don’t have one, don’t really have room for one, but the good news is I now watch little enough sports I can just put up with the inanity while Doping at the same time.
This is a thing I’ve been complaining about for years. With today’s technology, it should be trivially easy for the manufacturers, broadcasters, and other stakeholders to allow the user to push a few buttons and have the announcers’ channel silenced. HOWEVER, I imagine that neither the network nor its advertisers want this. You won’t be able to hear the announcer tell you who’s guest starring on Georgie and Mandy’s First Marriage this week (CBS would rather you did, I’m sure), nor will you be able to hear the announcer’s anecdote about how he built his brick home with ACME Bricklayers and how you should call 1-800-SHITABRICK today (ACME Bricklayers would rather you did, I’m sure).
I used to do this while watching college basketball games, until the delay between the radio broadcast and TV became too great to make it workable. (Radio broadcaster would be yelling “Swish!” while on TV they would just be inbounding and bringing the ball down the court.)
What they need is an SAP option that is just the crowd sounds without the play-by-play. I’d watch that.
I share the OP’s pain here. This past Sunday was giving me headaches - these announcers never shut the f!ck up. I kept saying “Shut the F!ck Up, Tom Brady!!” These guys probably get paid by the word. There are parts of the broadcast that have become unwatchable (next up, interviews of a coach trying to duck into the locker room at halftime and having to explain what’s going on, and each coach says pretty much the same thing every time).
Will take a look at some of the suggestions here for sure. Hearing Tom Brady, a SF Bay Area native, refer to “San Fran” is making me stabby.
Ah for the days when there was only one announcer. Back around 1950, there was so much dead air time that I could listen to two ball games at the same time. The A’s were broadcast at 990 KHz and the Phillies at 950 and by tuning to 970 I could both games at the same time.