# Low audio volume on some OTA channels



## stevel (Aug 23, 2000)

I recently hooked up an antenna to my HR10-250 and I get lots of new channels. What I have found, though, is that some of these, particularly the SD equivalents of the analog channels, have extremely low audio volume compared to the versions coming from DirecTV. The "HD" channels, and SOME of the "simulcast" SD channels, are fine. I use the optical audio connection from the TiVo to my A/V receiver. I have no idea what to do about this. Thoughts?


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## rifleman69 (Jan 6, 2005)

That's "normal" on my end. ABC, CBS, and NBC are all quieter via the antenna (ota) than through the satellite.


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## litzdog911 (Oct 18, 2002)

There's not much you can do, other than ride your volume control. For some reason many Dolby Digital broadcasts have lower audio than their standard PCM 2-channle audio counterparts. The worst offenders are local HDTV channels that switch to 2-ch audio for their commercials, which really boom in loud. Fortunately we can skip our commercials, but you still need to keep your finger poised on the volume control.


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## TyroneShoes (Sep 6, 2004)

I have an audio volume leveler from Terk ($35) and a JVC "digital" D402 AVR, which has a setting called "midnight mode". Together, they keep volume levels all perfectly to the same output level, although they (on input) can vary as much as 20 dB between different channels at different times. Before this I was constantly adjusting volume levels. On "CSI:Miami" the dialog would be too low to hear, while the "re-enactment" vignettes they were bookended with would knock me out of my chair. Now I never reach for the remote, even when the channel has changed.

This is a universal problem, and has been for decades, but DT has aggravated it somewhat, as has the advent of hundreds of channels from the vendors. Also, digital TV has a lot more dynamic range to work with, and some producers take advantage of that.

In my TV market OTA DT channels usually are all 4-6 dB below their analog counterparts, and local commercials are usually 3-6 dB louder than program (I did a comprehensive study of this for my work). That's on average...some of them are much worse. A lot of the problem has to do with embedded audio, which local stations either have no control over, or find it difficult to match their systems to. Also, there is a lot of confusion over the dialnorm, compr, and dynrng settings for AC-3 audio, not to mention DD settings and downmixing. But even if the local engineers are both trained and motivated, keeping levels consistent is much more difficult than you might imagine. That's why I fix it at the consumer end.


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