audio problems

[moonwhistle]

I've noticed this for a while but when watching a film, the dialogue is consistently way too quiet compared music and effects. It's impossible to find a volume level where I can hear the dialogue without everything else being way too loud. I've given up and taken to using headphones or turning on subtitles.

My TV's speakers are crap like most are so I tried using a subwoofer thing with attached speakers but it's only a marginal improvement. I'm using my laptop plugged into my lcd tv via hdmi to watch stuff. I've tried fiddling with the TV sound menu with no success.

I know many modern films are mastered really badly but is there an easy solution to this other than buying new speakers?

Thanks.

[dvdx2]

You need dedicated speakers and at least a DD 5.1 set up, connected to an amp. Then you can adjust your centre speaker by +1, +2 etc until balanced. I think my setup has around +6 in the centre for dialogue.

[Lyris]

Seconded - TV speakers are fine for watching the news and Judge Judy, but get a speaker setup, or at the very least, a soundbar if you can't fit that.

I'm surprised the dialogue is actually inaudible though, which TV?

[moonwhistle]

It's a Samsung 32" LCD. The sound is pretty bad, marginally better with some pc speakers and subwoofer. I think the problem is that most films are designed for surround sound. I don't have any interest in getting a bunch of bulky speakers just so I can here people talking. I've messed around with the sound compression on VLC and it is possible to balance the sound better but it's time consuming.

[dvdx2]

I don't have any interest in getting a bunch of bulky speakers just so I can here people talking

audiophile of the the year, goes to......

lol

['Press Start']

It's a Samsung 32" LCD. The sound is pretty bad, marginally better with some pc speakers and subwoofer. I think the problem is that most films are designed for surround sound. I don't have any interest in getting a bunch of bulky speakers just so I can here people talking. I've messed around with the sound compression on VLC and it is possible to balance the sound better but it's time consuming.

Can you turn the laptops HDMI audio out to stereo? What about fiddling with your HDMI audio out options on your laptop. I know DVDs players have such options.

[Baseley09]

Get a soundbar lad, something like the Sony HT-CT660 that can decode HD soundtracks.

[grain-flavour]

Got to be a duff tv. If anything getting a surround sound/soundbar will make it even more difficult to get the balance right due to the amount of tweaking available.

[CMcK]

I use my televisions built in speakers for watching films and have set my Blu-ray, HD-DVD and Tivo to only output stereo audio. Makes the audio from your TV far better balanced then.

[moonwhistle]

I don't think the tv has faulty speakers. Videogames sound perfect as do documentaries. It's just films that have loud sections that drown out the dialgoue. Thanks everyone for the advice so far. I don't really want to spend ?300 on speakers. I can't find any options on my pc for audio output via hdmi. My pc is the only thing I connect to it other than consoles.

[wakka]

Try fiddling with the audio output settings in whatever app you're using to play back videos (e.g. VLC, Mplayer). It sounds like it's trying to output for surround sound.

[PaTaito]

Two words.....dynamic range.

Look for a setting in windows etc.

[moonwhistle]

Two words.....dynamic range.

Look for a setting in windows etc.

Yeah I found this:http://lifehacker.com/5920290/how-to...en-really-loud

It works pretty well but it seems you have to go through it every time you watch anything as it won't save the settings. At least it's better than it was.