What's up with DVD sound levels?

Cafe Society
1

I hope this is in the right forum; it’s not about the actual films, more the media they are stored on.

Whenever I am watching a DVD late at night I turn the sound down quite low so I don’t wake anyone in the house up. Unfortunately, I spend most of the time turning the volume up and down - if I have the volume at the right level for the speech, whenever any music or sound effects come in I’m frantically turning the volume down! The when the music/explosions die down I can barely make out what the people are saying.

If I have the volume up higher it seems OK, but why are the sound levels so varied when the volume is turned down low?
The DVD player I use has a speech enhancement feature (which doesn’t work very well btw) and I’ve seen players with background noise reduction; why do players need these? Can’t the DVD makers just set the sound at the right levels before they sell them?

The TV I watch films on isn’t connected to any home theatre sound system, but if it was would the speech come out louder from the centre speaker, thus solving the problem?
Does anyone else suffer from this / find it annoying?

Tuco.

2

DVDs are recorded with their base audio levels somewhat lower than most audio components. As a result, they end up with a somewhat larger volume range.

3

Some players have an option to boost the vocal-audio levels, this only works if the vocals are on a separate track to the other audio (I think). Check out your players manual.

4

I had the same problem.

Let me guess. Big scenes with music are too loud. You turn it down and then when it is just people talking you have to turn it back up. Right?
Then I got a home theatre surround sound system and that problem went away.

The center channel made a huge difference.
ON some DVDs you may be able to go into sound set up and choose an option like stero or even mono sound, instead of 5.1 surround sound. (the defalut choice for most disks) That may help but not evey disk is going to have that option.