When watching television, I often hear an odd audio modulation when coming back from commercials, or at the very end of a show. It’s most audible during long applauses, where it sounds like *“whish”*ing sound effect, followed by a second or two of odd-sounding applause, as if the bass is filtered out.
My home receiver is a Dish Network PVR box, though I believe I’ve heard this effect on a Comcast cable box as well.
What is this phenomenon? I’m sure that I’m not just hearing it, so I assume others have noticed it as well. Is some sort of data being modulated into the audio signal that some kind of set-top box uses?
If I’m reading the description right, this is the exact same thing that bugs me. Yet nobody else seems to hear it. It only happens on certain stations, but with a variety of shows. But normally only serials or sitcoms.
The way I’d describe it is almost like you’re listening through some kind of tunnel. It lasts only briefly.
That tunnel description is just what I’m talking about. It’s almost as if the sound source moves rapidly away from you, then snaps back while maintaining volume.
My aunt’s digital cable does that, if you’re talking about what I think you’re about. It’s so huge and obvious but they never notice and don’t seem to know what I’m talking about.
I always thought it was the TV itself. Mine had one of the automatic volume adjusters (or I think they call it smart volume) that’s supposed to keep the tv at a constant volume.
If that indeed is the case, it doesn’t work worth a damn.
I’m starting to think maybe this is one for The Master. I wanted to post this so many times in the last year, but figured I was the only one to hear it. Maybe I’m not crazy after all. A little disturbed, but not crazy!
Well at least I’m not alone in this. My girlfriend thinks I’m nuts, but then again, she doesn’t notice things like lossy audio compression that much, either.
Someone reading this must know someone in broadcasting. Any thoughts?
Well, since I have analog cable and I never hear that, and presumably our channel selections overlap considerably, one must conclude that it’s an artifact of digital cable.
Digital cable uses digital compression of the audio signal, which is prone to very odd-sounding errors, especially at boundary conditions where the lossy compression codec (encoding/decoding algorithm) being used doesn’t have the necessary information in the buffer of past data upon which to build the proper audio output.
In layman’s terms, it’s a twisted sort of “echo” of the imminent/recent switching event between feeds. It’s kindof like an audio equivalent of those little pixelized blips you sometimes see at random moments in parts of the screen… that’s a video codec pixel error propogating to surrounding pixels.
You see a lot of artifacts in digital cable and satellite, both in the audio and in the video. In many cases, I find it horribly distracting, and not only because I know how it works and know that it doesn’t have to be that way… but because they want to charge me more for lesser quality.
I don’t know whether this is the same thing, since I have analog cable.
Back in the 50s, when stereo recording was new, some older mono LPs were re-released with “simulated stereo,” which was achieved by splitting the signal and playing them back out of phase. The result wasn’t really stereo, but a really annoying sort of tunnel-like, echo-like sound.
I hear that type of sound in some commercials. Until recently, I could identify a Target commercial by the quality of the music, though lately they’ve been sounding normal. There’s also a local commercial with a woman’s voice that has that same effect, like she’s at the bottom of a well.
I don’t know what causes the OP’s problem (i havn’t personally noticed it on my cable… but it’s not digital either)… but the commercials you refer to is most likely a result of piss poor recording and/or copying of the master tape sent to the local cable company/station/network.
I notice it more on ‘local’ advertising… but there’s been a few National Brand commercials that are of absolutely HORRID quality… makes you wonder where they’re spending thier money at.
This effect isn’t out-of-phase audio or other types of attempts at stereo separation. I, too, recognize when commercials use this. This happens mainly, as noted, in sitcoms and the like, and always about 2-3 seconds after getting back from commercial.
I find it hard to believe that any audio codec could glitch up for so long and in such a manner. This does not sound like a MPEG audio compression artifact.
I forgot to mention that I also have analog cable. I’ve noticed that I most often hear it at the end of a sitcom rerun when the applause begins. I’ve heard it on other occasions, but that’s when I remember hearing it most often.
I too have heard this, usually watching The Daily Show, during the music-and-applause coming back from commercial. I have DirectTV with Tivo PVR.
I believe what is being heard is just (as mentioned above) an artifact of the digital codec. Because “white noise” sounds (such as applause, water noises or cymbals) require higher-than-average bandwidth(and the preceeding audio was silence), the codec is probably dynamically changing the bandwidth being used for audio encoding, and what you are hearing is the audio artifacting varying as the bandwidth changes.
Just a note, but I’ve noticed that on sitcoms when they’re rerun on cable the credits are sometimes sped up so fast that they are unreadable. Could this sound be a by-product of this speeding up process?
