We all know the modern complaint: movie sound sucks now unless you have a high-end sound system. Frantically turning down the volume after turning it up to hear the dialogue only to need to turn it up again can be frustrating. Now, this doesn’t solve the underlying problem, but why not have a “Volume A” and “Volume B” you can easily set and toggle between with the simple press of a button?
This would be possible to DIY if ‘smart’ TVs weren’t DRM’d pieces of shit.
You could actually do this with some of them. I know Vizio TVs can’t, but iirc LG and Samsung can be controlled via Home Assistant. Google TV as well, and anything with Apple Homekit.
There’s also the option of sticking an IR or RF transmitter on an esp32 and using that without connecting the TV to the Internet. There are some off the shelf devices that can do it and can also be flashed with Tasmota or ESPHOME.
Building my own smart devices is a hobby of mine. I’m even working on a HAL9000 system for my home (with 15% less mental illness).
Eh, it’d be tricky in case of misses. Usually there’s a vol+ and a vol- not really any vol(int) api to set it to a number. You could spam vol+/vol- to get to the right number, but it’d occationally miss one and start drifting.
They do?
It’s called “mute” and it toggles between 0 and whatever you had it set to last. 😌
I’ve had a few tv/stereos in the past that had a half mute as well. Press mute the first time and it cuts the volume in half, second press mutes completely, then third press restores full volume.
The old kenwood car cd players had an “att” button that instantly dropped the volume to background noise. It was fucking awesome and I used it all the time. I want that button on everything that makes noise.
“turn down the music, I can’t see we might be lost”
I came in here to comment this! Back in the day it was perfect for when I was bumping my subs hard and had to turn into a neighborhood, or if a cop pulled up to a light you were bumping at.
It was a lifesaver for sure!
Here is my preferred solution that will never happen:
Divide all media audio into separate tracks for dialogue, music, sfx, etc., and let the users control the volume of each separately. To avoid having an easily ripped pure music track, perhaps premix the other tracks in at 10% or so (in a logarithmic scale) and make that the minimum volume of any track other than music.
My problem with that is how far can you go? Will artist integrity shatter? Will people mod Thomas the train on movies? Will we get those god awfull billion page settings?
I guess I’m not understanding your concerns. People with artistic skill can already do anything they want to any audio they want. (Note: that was Way before all this AI junk existed) And I don’t really see how this affects that much.
As for settings, I’m thinking three/four sliders. Much less than a graphic equalizer. It’s just volume control.
How loud specific things are in comparison to other sounds is one of the things that a director dictates to set the mood for their movie. We all agree that it’s gone a bit far with most things nowadays, but having something be piercingly loud or eerily quiet can be used really well, and if everyone from Tommy Teenager to Granny Gertrude can alter these settings with a TV remote and zero knowledge on maybe what they’re even doing (“I thought I was changing the volume and now the people don’t talk anymore!”) it would greatly diminish the director’s ability to control that.
