There is millions of people who "don't want to have a proper 5.1 audio setup". It is the director's problem, optimise for the masses, not people who can afford to setup a cinema system in their home

Where do you draw the line? If you use a soundbar, someone else is complaining because they use their built-in speakers. But if you optimize for that, someone else is using their laptop speaker on the train.

What really pisses me off with this "argument" is that the audio information is all right there, which you would know if you bothered to read the second half of my comment before getting all pissy.

5.1 audio (and the standards that superseded it in cinemas) all have multiple audio channels with one dedicated to voice. If you have a shit sound system, the sound system should be downmixing in a way that preserves dialogue better. Again, the information is all right there as there is no stereo track in most movies, your player is building it on-the-fly based on the 5.1 track. It's not the director's fault that Netflix or Hulu is doing an awful job at accounting for the fact that most of their users are listening on a sound setup that can barely reproduce intelligible speech.

I draw the line at "people watch stuff on TV and cannot hear any dialogue".

I don't need to have a doctorate on audio / put in thousands of dollars into a hobby I don't want to hear dialogue in a movie without rupturing my eardrums by an action scene.

If everything is there, let's optimize for people like me, and let people like you mess around with the settings for your home cinema.

Nah, I have a good sound setup and I don't want to be watching movies with less dynamic range because some people are using their shrilly built-in TV speakers with their children screaming in the background or $5 earbuds.

If you don't want to have a proper 5.1 audio setup, it's not the director's problem, it's the media player. Audio compression, center channel boosting, and subtitling are things that media centers have been able to do for decades (e.g. Kodi), it's just that streaming platforms and TVs don't always support it because they DGAF. Do look for a "night mode" in your TV settings though, that's an audio compressor and I have one on my receiver. If you are using headphones, use a media player like Kodi that allows you to boost the center channel (which is dedicated to dialogue).

people watch stuff on TV and cannot hear any dialogue

did you read anything I said or do you just want to complain?

have a doctorate on audio / put in thousands of dollars into a hobby

Good news then, a more-than-decent 5.1 setup can be had for ~500 €. A decent soundbar for a few hundred.

and let people like you mess around with the settings for your home cinema

I can't if the audio source is fucked up because directors have been forced by studios to release with low dynamic range.

My whole point is that your audio goes Master -> 5.1 channels -> downmixer -> your shitty 2.0 channels speakers and my audio goes Master -> 5.1 channels -> receiver -> my 5.1 setup.

You're asking the master to change to fit your needs. I'm asking the media players to fix their fucking downmixers because that's where the problem lies. Leave the studio mastering alone god damn it.

Nah, I have a good sound setup and I don't want to be watching movies with less dynamic range because some people are using their shrilly built-in TV speakers with their children screaming in the background or $5 earbuds.

If you don't want to have a proper 5.1 audio setup, it's not the director's problem, it's the media player. Audio compression, center channel boosting, and subtitling are things that media centers have been able to do for decades (e.g. Kodi), it's just that streaming platforms and TVs don't always support it because they DGAF. Do look for a "night mode" in your TV settings though, that's an audio compressor and I have one on my receiver. If you are using headphones, use a media player like Kodi that allows you to boost the center channel (which is dedicated to dialogue).

There is millions of people who "don't want to have a proper 5.1 audio setup". It is the director's problem, optimise for the masses, not people who can afford to setup a cinema system in their home

So you're advocating that the whole industry cater to the lowest common denominator instead of simply having people who don't want to waste money on audio setup just activate certain settings?

You do realise the masses are mostly using tinny TV speakers and cheap wireless earphones to watch movies, don't you? Catering to them means compressing the audio to their small dynamic range, so now any sound system that is better than a TV speaker will sound just as shit.

people watch stuff on TV and cannot hear any dialogue

did you read anything I said or do you just want to complain?

have a doctorate on audio / put in thousands of dollars into a hobby

Good news then, a more-than-decent 5.1 setup can be had for ~500 €. A decent soundbar for a few hundred.

and let people like you mess around with the settings for your home cinema

I can't if the audio source is fucked up because directors have been forced by studios to release with low dynamic range.

My whole point is that your audio goes Master -> 5.1 channels -> downmixer -> your shitty 2.0 channels speakers and my audio goes Master -> 5.1 channels -> receiver -> my 5.1 setup.

You're asking the master to change to fit your needs. I'm asking the media players to fix their fucking downmixers because that's where the problem lies. Leave the studio mastering alone god damn it.

No, they're advocating for sensible defaults. Just because you're an enthusiast doesn't you're the market. Being supported is great, but believing you deserve to be sppecially catered to at the expense of the maajority is real smug bullshit.

WHY are you getting down voted despite giving clear suggestions on how to get around this problem for people without a 5.1 surround sound setup?

Does night mode fix mumbly american actors who are unintelligible at any volume?

Nah, I have a good sound setup and I don't want to be watching movies with less dynamic range because some people are using their shrilly built-in TV speakers with their children screaming in the background or $5 earbuds.

If you don't want to have a proper 5.1 audio setup, it's not the director's problem, it's the media player. Audio compression, center channel boosting, and subtitling are things that media centers have been able to do for decades (e.g. Kodi), it's just that streaming platforms and TVs don't always support it because they DGAF. Do look for a "night mode" in your TV settings though, that's an audio compressor and I have one on my receiver. If you are using headphones, use a media player like Kodi that allows you to boost the center channel (which is dedicated to dialogue).

It should reduce the difference between the quietest sound and the loudest sound in a movie, but if an actor doesn't speak clearly in the first place, I don't think it helps much.

Yeah, that's what I was getting at - many new / recent movies have such poor election that it's hard to tell what they're saying.

Nah, I have a good sound setup and I don't want to be watching movies with less dynamic range because some people are using their shrilly built-in TV speakers with their children screaming in the background or $5 earbuds.

If you don't want to have a proper 5.1 audio setup, it's not the director's problem, it's the media player. Audio compression, center channel boosting, and subtitling are things that media centers have been able to do for decades (e.g. Kodi), it's just that streaming platforms and TVs don't always support it because they DGAF. Do look for a "night mode" in your TV settings though, that's an audio compressor and I have one on my receiver. If you are using headphones, use a media player like Kodi that allows you to boost the center channel (which is dedicated to dialogue).

Broooo, did you just say 500 as if that was cheap? Damn. That's what a whole ass tv costs.

Expecting for sound volumes to be somewhat balanced in a tv or generic player is not too much to ask, I don't care if a surround 5.1 or 9.1 system would have it sound right, because stuff shouldn't be fine-tuned for specialised gear, stuff should be fine-tuned for general usage and specialised gear should have in-house tweaks to make it work well.

You got it backwards and you sound pretty elitist. I get what you mean with general usage audio programs not fine tuning properly, but you are asking 90% of the population or programs to tweaks their systems so that they work for things fine tuned for 5% of the population/systems. You do see how that sounds pretentious, right? That's how it reads at least.

Nah, I have a good sound setup and I don't want to be watching movies with less dynamic range because some people are using their shrilly built-in TV speakers with their children screaming in the background or $5 earbuds.

If you don't want to have a proper 5.1 audio setup, it's not the director's problem, it's the media player. Audio compression, center channel boosting, and subtitling are things that media centers have been able to do for decades (e.g. Kodi), it's just that streaming platforms and TVs don't always support it because they DGAF. Do look for a "night mode" in your TV settings though, that's an audio compressor and I have one on my receiver. If you are using headphones, use a media player like Kodi that allows you to boost the center channel (which is dedicated to dialogue).

Broooo, did you just say 500 as if that was cheap? Damn. That's what a whole ass tv costs.

Expecting for sound volumes to be somewhat balanced in a tv or generic player is not too much to ask, I don't care if a surround 5.1 or 9.1 system would have it sound right, because stuff shouldn't be fine-tuned for specialised gear, stuff should be fine-tuned for general usage and specialised gear should have in-house tweaks to make it work well.

You got it backwards and you sound pretty elitist. I get what you mean with general usage audio programs not fine tuning properly, but you are asking 90% of the population or programs to tweaks their systems so that they work for things fine tuned for 5% of the population/systems. You do see how that sounds pretentious, right? That's how it reads at least.

people don't like spending money, and it's the entire problem. Visuals people will shell out money for a great TV, but then complain that the audio is terrible. Really people need to invest in both. If you are watching a movie on an expensive TV but didn't do anything for audio, well then of course it won't sound good. TVs aren't designed to have good audio. They give you a speaker to be able to listen to something, but it's a small cheap one or two in the back.

Fact is that for movies it's a video and audio, and people should be thinking about both. People don't need to go spend another 500 bucks on a 5.1 system, but even a cheapo sound bar for 150 is going to sound better - because they made it for audio. It's an audio device. I have zero surprise that people can't hear things well from a device that is meant to display visuals first.