Ugh, I hate that so much! Especially since I sometimes like to fall asleep to a movie I've seen many times before and at the end just drift off to the sound of it.

"Whisper whisper whisper EXPLOSIONS AND YELLING whisper whisper whisper" is probably my least favorite style of sound mixing.

I like to be able to hear the quiet parts without the loud parts bursting my ear drums, thank you very much!

[–] PM_Your_Nudes_Please 17 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

You may want to see if your TV has a “night mode” in the audio settings. It’s basically just an audio compander, (combination of compressor and expander.) It expands the quiet parts to be louder, and compresses the loud parts to be quieter. It destroys any kind of dynamics that the director intended, and can cause some difficulty with intelligibility if there’s lots of background noise, (because the noise is getting expanded too!) But for watching things at night, it’s almost a must for dynamic movies.

Some brands call it headphone mode, because headphone users also frequently complain about dynamic audio too; They turn up to hear the quiet parts, then get their ears blown off during the loud parts.

[–] Viking_Hippie 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Sounds like exactly what I need, thanks! I'm watching on a tablet on the bed next to me, but if it's available on TVs as a mode, it's probably available for VLC on Android too.

It destroys any kind of dynamics that the director intended

Fuck their intentions lol. Having a huge gulf in loudness is good for two things only: jump scares and Michael Bay type movies trying to impress you with how loud things go boom. Both are just annoyances to me at the best of times and keeping me from falling asleep at the worst.

can cause some difficulty with intelligibility if there’s lots of background noise

That might be a drawback, though. On the other hand, who keeps in a lot of background noise in the first place? Morons and amateurs, that's who! 😛

Some brands call it headphone mode, because headphone users also frequently complain about dynamic audio too; They turn up to hear the quiet parts, then get their ears blown off during the loud parts.

Yup, I know that all too well as a daily headphones/earbuds user for the last several years, maybe even a decade..

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I highly recommend using Nova video player. It's an android video player specifically made to handle movies and series. It's got everything you neeed from automatically downloading each movie /episode poster, description, subtitles, got audio boost and night mode. And oh, I almost forgot to say that it's an open source project and it's available on f-droid.

It's a shame that the app is barely known, so if you enjoyed it, please share it.

[–] Viking_Hippie 2 points 8 months ago

Will give it a try for sure 🙂

[–] Plopp 3 points 8 months ago

You're talking about a regular compressor with make up gain. An expander makes the quiet parts even quieter. Compressors compress the dynamic range (which is what you'd want in this scenario), expanders expands the dynamic range.