Trigger

I notice that when playing my DVDs on a DVDRom or on a setup where the DVD player is hooked up directly to a TV with only stereo speakers - the sound is whack. Like things that are supposed to be deligated to the center channel are really quiet (dialogue) while the music and background noise are deafening. Are there any workarounds to such a problem? Here's 2 scenarios...

1. Pioneer 10x DVD Rom with Hollywood decoder... 2.1 speaker setup... motherboard soundcard - crystal blah blah... Sound is very bad (sound is also bad when using 4.1 setup which is common for PCs).

2. Samsung 709 DVD player hooked up to a 19" Sony via S video cable and stereo audio connects. The TV has only 2 speakers and doesn't have a center channel out.

I don't care if it doesn't sound all that great on scenario 2, I bought my sick father a DVD player to help him cope with cancer pain (keep him occupied on other things)... he complains that he can't hear the dialogue most of the time. He doesn't want to hook it up to his stereo system which is in another room than the one he spends most of his time in. Are there ways to circumvent or port the center channel sound to the only 2 speakers?

In my case (scenario 1), I have great speakers, but I can't hear the dialogue very well - same goes when using the 5.1 or 2.0 dolby surround sound from a given DVD. Any way to circumvent this obstacle? Software decoder with better sound options?

Thank you in advance for any help.

Andy Kim

Hi Trigger,
Sorry to hear about your Father's situation...I hope he's doing better.

Anyways, this is a common problem that people run into and it has to do with how movie soundtracks are mixed. When you go to the theater, the soundmixers try to make the sound as realistic as possible. So if you were talking to a friend in real life and then all of a sudden the car down the road blows up, its going to be really loud! They try to duplicate this by making the explosions in movies as realistic as possible which means its going to be very loud.
If you were fighting on the beach in the battle of Normandy like in Saving Private Ryan, the dialogue level is going to be mute in comparison with the explosions around you.

The movie soundtracks today have such an enormous dynamic range. You will have sounds that are as quiet as whispers and explosions that are as loud as hell.
When you reduce the volume because you don't want to hear the explosions at 100%, you also unfortunately turn down the dialogue.

Unfortunately, that's the way movies are...
fortunately there is something that you can do to help the situation.

1. Practically all DVD players have a feature called "Dynamic Range Control" (DRC). What this does is reduce the dynamic audio range of the soundtrack. It will reduce the loud sounds and increase the quiet sounds so things are more balanced.
Turn this feature on within your DVD player menu. (look into your manual to see if your player has this and how to turn it on)

2. Some DVD player's have VSS modes that are used to simulate surround sound with just using 2 speakers such as in a stereo setup. If your DVD player has some of these, try them out. Some of them do wonders to increase dialogue levels and reduce dynamic range.

Note: the signals or flags that tell an upcoming explosion sound to be reduce by "x" dB's when the "Dynamic Range Control" feature is ON is encoded on the DVD and works only with Dolby Digital (no DTS). So if a DVD disc doesn't have these signals or flags and wasn't encoded when mixing the soundtrack, it is not going to reduce anything whether you have the DRC ON or OFF.
Another thing is that the effectiveness of the DRC. Some people say that they can hear a difference with it ON while others have said that they can't hear any difference at all.

Well, I hope this helps and let me know whether any of these options worked or not.
Andy