Audio levels

[Wulf]

I can't recall if this has ever been discussed before, but is anybody else bothered by the audio of the show?

I never noticed this while it was on TV, most likely because I was younger with perfect hearing and no need to ever be quiet, but lately my biggest issue with rewatching episodes is the audio.

I have to crank the volume up to understand the characters speaking and at that level all the various sound effects are rather loud. A minor problem if I want to watch it without straining to hear after the kids are in bed, without the other effects being disturbing.

It does it on a few different TVs, and doesn't matter if I'm watching them on my computer or through my PS3. Other shows are comfortably mixed, so it's not (just) my sound setup.

Does anybody else notice this or am I just weird?

 

[JoeD80]

Babylon 5 is done in Surround Sound so that is possibly related. I don't have a good speaker setup to test this theory. The DVDs do seem awfully quiet to me as well.

 

[Jan]

The only thing I've noticed for certain is that when the show aired I used to be able to hear the links 'breep' but now I almost never do. I just figured it was age.

 

[Wulf]

Hmm. I wonder if anybody's uploaded their old VHS rips from way back then to compare against.

I don't think I'd want to scour the depths of the internet to find such things, but it would be neat to see if something was lost going to DVD.

At least I'm not alone, either in age or poor speaker arrangements.

 

[JoeD80]

The episodes on Vudu are the original fullscreen versions (with the exception of four or five episodes) which I downloaded recently and started watching to see the original CGI and composites in full. I haven't done a side-by-side comparison with the audio on the DVDs though; that would be interesting.

 

[estube]

I just downloaded this. Thanks for sharing :drool:

 

[Looney]

I know I have mentioned this elsewhere, but listening to the streaming on Go90 with earbuds I swear I am hearing back ground stuff I've never heard before. Little beeps and so on and even things in the music.

 

[hypatia]

Although I've never heard an episode that way, I have noticed that earbuds/earphones really do let you hear a lot more detail.

 

[KoshFan]

I'm having a completely different experience with audio this time through the show, but for an equally complete different reason: my partner is partially deaf, and so we're watching with the close captioning. The challenge for me is to remember to watch the show as opposed to reading it. My guess is that even if we had superior quality sound, my sweetie wouldn't hear the links and the door beeps anyway.

 

[Looney]

Well I am loving every minute on Go90. I think maybe it is a combination of earbuds and I've been able to play it through some surround sound. I had it on while I was doing some work and I was just listening in the background. Points of Departure, 2.1, was the episode. Sheridan is questioning Kalain. In the background there is a sound that seems like we're supposed to assume it is general station ambient noise. It is not a new effect, but the scene is pretty quiet, as is this background sound, and it sounds like there is either a thunderstorm going on or a battle going on in the distance under their conversation. I was just a great audio moment for me so I thought I'd share. Just be glad I am limiting these updates because I am hearing all kinds of stuff in every episode.

 

[hypatia]

You tempt me to push aside my ever-growing list of unwatched DVR programs to re-watch B5 again.

 

[Looney]

Tell me about it. Have you ever seen the sketch comedy show The Birthday Boys? There is a bit where they talk about how there are too many shows out there and it is maddening to try and keep up. So there is yet another show for you to watch.

But yeah it is funny how I have all of these shows I want to watch, but I also want to go back and re-watch B5 again and again. Sometimes I just love to watch and focus on the background action to try to notice something new.

 

[hypatia]

Yea, b5 is worth revisiting I haven't seen it in years. I don't have it in DVD form. And, at the risk of making some enemies, I honestly think that the writing has gotten a lot better on television in the last 10 years or so. FAR better in the last 20. And I think JMS had a part in that. He seriously rose the bar, as they say, in American television. BBC shows frequently used story arcs but american television virtually never did. Especially in science fiction.

But, darn it. Mr Robot, Orphan Black, Dr. Who and other BBCA productions, The Black Mirror, Game of Thrones... and I haven't even started on the Discovery/Science channel gems like "Through the Wormhole", "What on Earth" and "NASA's unexplained files" and all of their Universe and space shows.... I don't have enough time to type everything I'm watching already. And I"m trying to be less of a t.v. junkie so the DVR has maybe 30% space left. :guffaw:

 

[Looney]

I don't have enough time to type everything I'm watching already. And I"m trying to be less of a t.v. junkie so the DVR has maybe 30% space left. :guffaw:

Same boat and I got rid of cable TV in 2010. Everything I watch is through Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and Go90. :thumbsup: Unfortunately there is still too much. And unfortunately I can't get Go90 on my TV, just phone and tablet.