General Chat

I am one of those awkward people who have to go to sleep with noise.

When I have my senile nap I switch on the TV and choose a programme which I can listen to before I nod off.

I set the volume so I can hear what's being broadcast but not too loudly.

Fine until the ad break when the pre set volume rises enough to wake the dead.

Why is it necessary for this? It seems acceptable that broadcasters are happy for me to sleep through the actual chosen programme but not sleep through the annoying adverts.

Yes, I could choose one of the BBC channels but they are boring!

At night I stick ear pugs in and listen to an audio book, out of consideration for hubby.

Just a general gripe and it may only be me but when watching TV with hubby quite often we have to turn down the volume during the ad breaks.

I am sure I will need to wear my aluminium hat shortly so 'they' cannot fry my brain cells.



:-( :-( :-( :-(

It's not just you, Sue. Its one of those things that annoy us as well especially as we (I) tend to have the volume up quite loud anyway.
TBH, If I'm having an afternoon power-nap, I prefer to have the radio on. There's less temptation to open one eye to see what's going on.

Does anyone find that channels have their volume settings different to each other?

I agree entirely Sue.

not just you - I always press the mute buttons for the ads - only one I like at the mo is the muppets one

There have been complaints in the paper about the volume of the ads and yes they are louder. The BBC ads are louder as well.

The irritating thing is on an old TV we had the automatic volume adjust feature which kicked in when the adverts were really loud. On our new TVs this option isn't available......I'm sure the advertisers pay the developers NOT to include this feature.

I have tried every setting for the audio, cinema, sport, normal, speech etc., and not one iota of improvement.

When we are watching children's TV with the grandkids it's exactly the same, hardly conducive to caring for their hearing is it?

I get very annoyed about programmes where you have to turn the volume up almost to full capacity, but you still can't hear the speaking over the background music and noises!

I find this is especially so on the Documentary Channels' programmes and films!
It's like the balance is all wrong!

Very annoying! :-| :-D

I also agree with that, when people whisper we are, as viewers, supposed to hear what is being said or we lose the plot (in both senses).

I thought legislation was brought in years ago - and it was!!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7388473.stm

BCAP makes rules not laws.

The current practice is that ads should not be louder than the loudest sound in the program segment preceding the ad. That deviates a bit from the rule which is technically impossible to implement.

I worked in the ad industry for quite a while. The sound volume and frequency of ads is always a very hot topic and whatever the nominal role of the BCAP and others the issues are always settle at a political level due to the vast sums of money, tax and jobs involved. The few hundred complaints are not very high up the pecking order.

So what can be done?
Some commercial programs don't display ads when viewed later or display fewer ads.
It is quite ez to press the mute button on the handset.
Most effective is to use the noise equalizer built into the TV. It is not a perfect solution but can def result in an improvement.
Here is an example
http://support-us.samsung.com/cyber/popup/iframe/pop_troubleshooting_fr.jsp?idx=390658&modelname=HT-BD1200

The TV makers would love to give viewers the option of automatic muting of ads or at least stop them raising the volume. They can't because the the ad industry would sue them for vast sums for "restraint of trade". Making tvs is n ot very profitable and so Sony, Samsung et al just do what they can get away with.

Some Home Theatre software running on quiet computers has effective ad control.

I can sleep any where loud or not

The adverts are louder as most people
run the loo tidy round or make a cupper during them :-D :-D

Rollo, I think you'll find, had you bothered to read it, that the article I gave a link to WAS about the BCAP rules.

I'm sorry if my use of the word 'legislation' caused you a bit of typing diarrhoea.

I did read it.

Mind your tongue.

Why?

Maggie, I knew about the guidelines BUT do these relate to the 'old' analogue channels?

I ask because of the date of that report and also we have Sky Multiroom so do satellite/cable providers have to follow ANY guidelines?

I to have to sleep with noise, i usually put one of the radio channels on,

the adverts wind me up going up in volume too.

Sue, As it's under the BCAP code (not legislation) I would have thought they were still relevant.

Supercrutch - could you use a timer, the sort you plug in, and set it to switch itself off a few minutes after you would expect you would be asleep anyway. I used to do this at night so that I could fall asleep over a book!

edit - my timer switched the light off!

I have the radio on, and put the sleep timer on.
Radio 4 extra has some wonderful stories/series late at night.
If I forget to put the timer on, and wake up to find the radio still on, I feel I've been robbed of sleep :-(

I would lay awake waiting for the timer.....lololol

I have one of those brains that go into overdrive if there are no distractions :-|

The worse aspect is if I start remembering past events and I can't remember a name or place name or any other trivia. I can't sleep until I resolve the issue. I have been known to get up and google!

Sue (the very sad individual)