Background Noise (on tv programs).

Every single program that I watch is totally destroyed by some insane background noise. It is mostly not just music, but either some torturing of musical instruments or just an insane inserted noise.

It can be a cooking program or a battle program, but still the producers ruin it by inserting an incredible noise onto the tape. Who wants to have their noise inserted on top of the Battle of Stalingrad ? Surely the noise of action is good enough.

When people are speaking, to drown out their voices with some insane row is downright disgusting. Sometimes an old gentleman is sitting in his room relating his experiences in WW1 or WW2 and the cretins who produce the program drown his frail voice out with some infernal racket. Other times even the program presenters commentary is drowned out by this attitude to destroy everything a person says with some unimaginable racket.

We have Gordon Ramsay sitting at a table speaking to his clients in a restaurant and the noise inserted on the program is so great that you cannot hear what they say.

On many occasions, I have to kill the program to stop my brain from blowing a fuse trying to listen to what is being said.

What a development of modern education, to drown out people's speech with a variety of insane sounds when it is simply unnecessary and ignorant to do so ! This obsession to ruin a program with noise is not apparent when the Queen or Prime Minister are talking.

The world of silent films where the piano goes berserk has long gone, we can actually hear peoples voices and the sounds of action today providing the program producers will not drown them out with a variety of incredible noises.

[OLD BOY]

Originally Posted by Wittmann

Every single program that I watch is totally destroyed by some insane background noise. It is mostly not just music, but either some torturing of musical instruments or just an insane inserted noise.

It can be a cooking program or a battle program, but still the producers ruin it by inserting an incredible noise onto the tape. Who wants to have their noise inserted on top of the Battle of Stalingrad ? Surely the noise of action is good enough.

When people are speaking, to drown out their voices with some insane row is downright disgusting. Sometimes an old gentleman is sitting in his room relating his experiences in WW1 or WW2 and the cretins who produce the program drown his frail voice out with some infernal racket. Other times even the program presenters commentary is drowned out by this attitude to destroy everything a person says with some unimaginable racket.

We have Gordon Ramsay sitting at a table speaking to his clients in a restaurant and the noise inserted on the program is so great that you cannot hear what they say.

On many occasions, I have to kill the program to stop my brain from blowing a fuse trying to listen to what is being said.

What a development of modern education, to drown out people's speech with a variety of insane sounds when it is simply unnecessary and ignorant to do so ! This obsession to ruin a program with noise is not apparent when the Queen or Prime Minister are talking.

The world of silent films where the piano goes berserk has long gone, we can actually hear peoples voices and the sounds of action today providing the program producers will not drown them out with a variety of incredible noises.

Well, that's not Virgin's fault, but they do provide subtitles that might help you to understand what people are saying under the cacophony of sounds!

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

Well, that's not Virgin's fault, but they do provide subtitles that might help you to understand what people are saying under the cacophony of sounds!

I know it is not Virgins fault, my post was to generally solicit comments on the problem from other members. I am not alone in this, the web is full of such complaints. National Institutions and MP`s have been involved over the years.

While and if you can read the subtitles quick enough, you are missing the visual.

Just a general comment post.

[Mad Max]

Originally Posted by Wittmann

Every single program that I watch is totally destroyed by some insane background noise. It is mostly not just music, but either some torturing of musical instruments or just an insane inserted noise.

It can be a cooking program or a battle program, but still the producers ruin it by inserting an incredible noise onto the tape. Who wants to have their noise inserted on top of the Battle of Stalingrad ? Surely the noise of action is good enough.

When people are speaking, to drown out their voices with some insane row is downright disgusting. Sometimes an old gentleman is sitting in his room relating his experiences in WW1 or WW2 and the cretins who produce the program drown his frail voice out with some infernal racket. Other times even the program presenters commentary is drowned out by this attitude to destroy everything a person says with some unimaginable racket.

We have Gordon Ramsay sitting at a table speaking to his clients in a restaurant and the noise inserted on the program is so great that you cannot hear what they say.

On many occasions, I have to kill the program to stop my brain from blowing a fuse trying to listen to what is being said.

What a development of modern education, to drown out people's speech with a variety of insane sounds when it is simply unnecessary and ignorant to do so ! This obsession to ruin a program with noise is not apparent when the Queen or Prime Minister are talking.

The world of silent films where the piano goes berserk has long gone, we can actually hear peoples voices and the sounds of action today providing the program producers will not drown them out with a variety of incredible noises.

Ok Fred......

[Rewrew]

Originally Posted by Wittmann

When people are speaking, to drown out their voices with some insane row is downright disgusting. Sometimes an old gentleman is sitting in his room relating his experiences in WW1 or WW2 and the cretins who produce the program drown his frail voice out with some infernal racket. Other times even the program presenters commentary is drowned out by this attitude to destroy everything a person says with some unimaginable racket.

As we get older we tend to loose hearing preferentially in the part of the audio spectrum that encompasses speech. If you are listening to the audio via your TV's built in loud speakers the problem is compounded. The sound mix is probably prepared by engineers with younger ears and a better sound system than we are hearing it on.

Some audio systems are designed to work around this issue and have a speech boost setting to lift the speech component relative to the background noise. My Yamaha RX-V673 amplifier/receiver has a setting called "Dialogue Lift" for us oldies.

[nodrogd]

Nothing is ever simple. On TV its music over this, & music over that. They are doing it at more & more live sports events now as well. But decide you actually want some music on & put on the radio, what do you get! DJ's talking over everything & advert breaks that go on longer than the music in between.

Originally Posted by nodrogd

Nothing is ever simple. On TV its music over this, & music over that. They are doing it at more & more live sports events now as well. But decide you actually want some music on & put on the radio, what do you get! DJ's talking over everything & advert breaks that go on longer than the music in between.

If it was just music and not at the decibel level of a jet engine, I would not mind, but 80% of the time it is not music, just a damned unintelligible, disjointed noise that drowns out speech and destroys concentration. No logic in it at all, simply a random racket.

It does not matter whether a frail old guy of 100 years old is talking in his sitting room, or some incredible battle is taking place with all the normal battle noise, they even have to insert an accompanying unimaginable din on top of it.

No wonder the German entire 6th Army surrendered at Stalingrad, it was not the Russians who forced them to give up, it was the infernal racket of background noise that blew their minds into burbling submission.

I often cut out the sound in sheer desperation, to stop my brain from seizing up or biting lumps out of the coffee table in utter frustration. For many years I have frantically looked for the band in all the blood and guts battle scenes, but unlike the red sports car in Ben Hur, I have not yet spotted them amidst the mayhem.

There was a rare and lucky occasion when I did spot a guy knocking the hell out of a piano mounted on a Jeep whilst the US Marines were storming Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima. He got the Congressional Medal of Honour for bravery.

Where such highly paid cretins get their impulse to do this malpractice and completely wreck every program transmitted, I cannot possibly comprehend.

[Stuart]

As this is not a problem specific to Virgin, I've moved it to a more appropriate forum. I've also changed the title to make it clearer.