Why are special feature and trailers louder than the feature film?

[Underworld54]

I find myself having to bump the volume down during special features and trailers, why is this? Shouldn't everything be recorded and put on the disc at the same volume level?

[ZoetMB]

Yes, but the reality is that since the advent of digital audio, the metering has been very poor. Also there's a difference between a loudness meter and a VU meter, but even that's moot because most digital audio meters register only peaks.

There are standards for trailers, but only when projected in movie theatres. There are still level differences, but it's much better than it was some years ago when the trailers would have levels beyond the threshold of pain.

One of the problems is that everyone wants their piece of whatever to be the loudest so that it "stands out". What they don't realize is that if someone is either holding their ears or is fumbling with a remote to lower the volume, then they're not paying attention to the message.

Dolby does sell devices to producers that measure loudness, but not everyone uses it.

But the AES is looking at this again across the entire chain for both broadcast and home media. They've set up a committee, although these committees can take years to come up with new recommended practices or new standards.

[Underworld54]

Originally Posted by ZoetMB

Yes, but the reality is that since the advent of digital audio, the metering has been very poor. Also there's a difference between a loudness meter and a VU meter, but even that's moot because most digital audio meters register only peaks.

There are standards for trailers, but only when projected in movie theatres. There are still level differences, but it's much better than it was some years ago when the trailers would have levels beyond the threshold of pain.

One of the problems is that everyone wants their piece of whatever to be the loudest so that it "stands out". What they don't realize is that if someone is either holding their ears or is fumbling with a remote to lower the volume, then they're not paying attention to the message.

Dolby does sell devices to producers that measure loudness, but not everyone uses it.

But the AES is looking at this again across the entire chain for both broadcast and home media. They've set up a committee, although these committees can take years to come up with new recommended practices or new standards.

Very good information, thank you! I thought maybe there was something whacky with my set-up.

[Truewitt]

Originally Posted by Underworld54

I find myself having to bump the volume down during special features and trailers, why is this? Shouldn't everything be recorded and put on the disc at the same volume level?

The actual encoding of the file will make some difference here too. Most special features are legacy codecs and the film itself is HD audio. How these are handled in decoding and by the receiver often result in the legacy ones being louder. Try it with feature audio between HD and legacy and you will probably notice the difference there as well.