At some point, sound mixing just went to shit. My partner was in the industry working in post-production and agrees with me. The sfx are loud and the dialogue is not - thus all of the smart tvs and settop devices supporting features like “Dialogue Boost.”
I used to notice it a lot with poorly managed concerts - the singer’s mic would get drowned out by the instruments. I guess all the people who were responsible for that moved to LA.
But now I have a soundbar and two HomePods as speakers, and still turn on subs. And that might have something to do with the number of concerts.
Filmmakers have actually changed the way they capture and mix audio to take advantage of this. They also sometimes abandon TV audio in favor of tuning the sound for high-end setups.
Here is an interesting deep-dive that focuses on Christopher Nolan's filmmaking.
Unpopular opinion: Subtitles detract from the watching experience more than mishearing some words. tv / movies are a visual medium, the image on the screen is primary to it. And it doesn't matter how fast you read, the subtitles still degrade what you get out of watching the show. If your eyes are constantly darting down to the words and then back to the image then you're missing meaningful things that are happening in the image. And the text physically blocks part of the image. And the words appear on screen at a different timing from how the actors speak the words, which further worsens the emotional impact you can receive.
Yes, i agree, dialogue mixing has gotten very bad and it sucks to miss words that are said, but imo subtitles ruin the experience even more
My partner is English as a second language. They’re always on for her benefit. But as I introduced her to Game of Thrones, I realized I was picking up on details that I’d never noticed prior. I can’t imagine watching without them at this point.
Tip: If you don't have surround sound, make sure that you've got your in-app settings/tv settings set up the right way. If you have it set to surround sound, you won't be able to hear shit.
I thought I was going deaf because I struggled to make out what people on screen were saying. Then a friend got a bunch of us together to watch a TV show that was filmed in the 90's and I could clearly understand every single word being spoken. The problem is on the production end.
With all the news about AI... maybe someone can get an AI model that can fix the damn sound so I can hear the words...
Grew up with a partially deaf sister. I cant even game without subtitles. And now spotify has lyrics in real time ? Get the fuck outta here.
My hearing is getting worse as I'm getting older and movies/music/etc are just getting mixed worse and worse these days, so subtitles are something I tend to like more these days, especially after getting used to them with anime too. I'm not too surprised others feel the same way too.
It's so bad with shows like Vikings, where they're doing accents that we're unaccustomed to.
SUBTITLES
BOTTOM TEXT
Ok, boomer.
No, but really, fuckin' same. 😶
Thankfully, I learned to appreciate their incredible glow-up back in the early 90s with Patlabor, Lodoss, Akira, Ice & Fire, Moebius, etc., so it feels less of a personal request and simply a surprising disappointment with whatever film in front of me that doesn't offer it by default... 🤌🏼
Nah I listen to podcasts of British, Australia, and non-native English speakers to train my ear so I don't have to use subtitles.
Also helps that I was a musician for 11 years
