Dolby Volume: The cure for uneven volume from TV, movies, and music

Thanks to Dolby Volume, too-loud commercials, inaudible dialog, overly loud special effects, and inconsistent volume will all be a thing of the past, says Dolby spokesman Craig Eggers.

Dolby Volume improves the listening experience "by leveling the volume across channels and programs while preserving the listening experience at any volume level." To hear Dolby Volume, you'll need to buy a new receiver, like Harman Kardon's AVR 7550HD or Arcam's FMJ AVR600. They're the first two A/V receivers that feature Dolby Volume, but we expect to see it appear in a wide range of TVs, home theater in a box systems, and more over the next few years.

Hardware manufacturers are free to implement Dolby Volume in slightly different ways, and some will offer low, medium, and high levels of the Dolby Volume "effect." So the degree of volume consistency may be user-selectable.

The sophisticated technology measures and controls perceived volume levels to provide a consistent volume listening experience. Eggers confirmed that Dolby Volume is fully compatible with all sources: Blu-ray, DVD, TV, CD, MP3, iPods, FM radio, analog and digital, including, yes, DTS-encoded DVDs and Blu-ray Discs!

But Dolby Volume isn't just about maintaining consistent volume, it also preserves the apparent tonal balance, so even during hushed late-night listening sessions you'll still hear the same bass and treble balance as you would with the level turned up loud.

I haven't heard Dolby Volume yet, but if it works as advertised it really will be amazing. No more mad dashes across the room to turn down the volume when changing sources or discs. I can't wait.

[mail man dave]

Basically a frequency-aware comp/limiter?

[4schler]

I've always wondered why tv and other media sources didn't have some sort of a standard for volume in mastering.

I'm not sure this is a step in the right direction, though. Program-to-program mastering should be the responsibility of the providers, not the consumers - at least in the case of broadcast media.

Still, I'm glad someone (most of all, Dolby) finally decided to at least try to do something about it.

[fcg1502]

My big idea that goes along with this is the ability to single out which sources in a broadcast you want to turn up or down, kind of like a video game where you can turn the commentors up and the crowd down in a sports game. Actually, that is where I came up with the idea. I watch a lot of baseball with a Onkyo 7.1 HTIB (set up for 6.1 due to lack of wall space) and sometimes, when the announcers are annoying the **** out of me, I would love to turn them down and turn the crowd up. It would make you feel much more like you're at the game.

[cyberDJ-2038765336053745013836]

Only Dolby can make this work.
A look-ahead compressor/limiter with a dynamic low-volume EQ curve.
Now I can deal with the volume disparity between MP-3 files and WAV files.

To address 4schler:
If you leave volume control up to the provider, they will continue to use volume as the primary attention-getter. They have no imagination so blasting you out of your seat is how they make their impact.

It's time we, the viewer, take back the volume.

[paskunyak]

This is one of those ideas that when announced, you wonder why no one did it years ago. Obviously loud commercials on TV is the main issue, but I find bad balance between center and left/right front speakers on a number of movies very out of whack. Often the dialogue is coming out of the center much weaker than effects/music front the left/right speakers which drives me nuts. And there is NO balance from one TV channel to another, so surfing is annoying. If Dolby does a their usual good job, this will be an extremely popular add-on.

[alegr]

I dunno, how it's different form other compressors, such as included with Windows Media Player (which they call "quiet mode")?

[borispmchan]

It sounds like some sort of "sound check" featured in iTunes or some compression software found in multimedia speakers to me. It may be a nice idea but it's more likely to ruin the mix.

[Wes#1]

It will be interesting to see if Dolby actually brings out anything substantially new. Signal ompression, and "loudness compensation" (boosting of highs/lows at lower volumes), are are hardly new. Few have worked well; and when they over-compensate, they can sound worse than the original audio. Ironically, Dolby is partly to blame for some of the wild volume shifts on movies broadcast over TV. The Dolby encoding for surround can squelch center channel dialogue when a broadcast is decoded by your TV (or cable box) for plain stereo. Effects and music can sound way out of whack compared to the dialogue you're straining to hear. If Dolby can fix THAT problem, and with variable effect as advertised, then we'll have a gem. The downside is that I don't want to buy a new receiver (or TV) just to get this!

[roysimmons]

I hope this will ultimately solve my problem. I'm 68 years old and wear hearing aids some of the time. My biggest gripe about movies and sometimes TV these days is the soft dialogue between the actors with WAY TOO LOUD "background" music!!! I can't read lips that well and I know I miss out on a lot of the plot. Turning up the volume doesn't help - it just makes that background music louder too. At times, it is better with my hearing aids out, but not much better.
My 2nd biggest gripe is the loudness of fights, shooting, cars, battles etc. and then they go normal for a scene or two. I go up and down and up and down on the volume with my remote. This can be a source of marital conflict. :-)

[raymondo31]

And another thing also ,and I have good hearing,! . A very,bad problem is the background music and sound effects are FAR louder than the dialogue

[drdata2]

What about the rauctious over driven electronic theme and backround music instrumentation some programs like Law & Order CI have switched to this last season. And the stuttered bass backround some CSI franchise programs have developed over cable since moving to digital signals. Both cases are very hard and anoying on "older ears".

[3357]

Good news BUT if dolby doesn't do any better job than it has for movie sound-forget it! We had better sound in movies with 4 track or 6 track mag sound that allowed dialogue to follow the action on the screen rather than locked in to a hard centre channel position.For example, at least if you had 2 or 3 people in a given scene,their dialogue came from their image, helping to recreate realism, rather than a hard centre position that we seem to be stuck with!!!!!!

[ericsimon]

As a producer I'm always hesitant to compress/limit - but I have to, it just sounds "sexier". In non critical stuff it's OK, but the challenge is that, while it lifts the soft passages out of the mud, it stills sounds a bit artificial, and if you listen too long and loud it causes listener fatigue. Basically your ears get tired. Check this out: http://www.dolby.com/consumer/technology/dolby-volume-demo.html I was impressed. Especially the TV audio. The amazing thing to me is that it doesn't color the audio. Looking for a plug in to include Dolby volume in my projects now - anybody? Rock on - Mr. Dolby!

[gospelofjohn1334]

I wonder if it uses "look ahead" compression. There are tons of articles on the internet about "look ahead" limiting and "look ahead" compression. Google those terms and see what I mean. If Dolby Volume is better than the existing technologies which I just mentioned, then great. If not, then what's the point.

[gospelofjohn1334]

CDJ: I fully agree with your comment about how we as viewers (and listeners) must demand "volume justice" ... I hope this feature becomes available for shelf systems too

[gospelofjohn1334]

doesn't a lookahead compressor or expander limiter need a few seconds of "delay" in order to work? i wish i had an email for mr. eggers!