Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Trailers are too loud

This is topic Trailers are too loud - the smoking gun in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Peter Mork (Member # 1336) on 10-23-2004, 03:36 AM:

A while ago on this forum I noted in passing the fact that trailers (in America, at least) generally seem to play TOO LOUD. Everyone knows that, right? I said I knew there'd been a move in the industry a few years back to curtail this excess loudness, but that it had seemingly been "nipped in the bud".

But lo, a fellow poster responded with this:

quote:
By the way Peter, TASA has been going quite well since June of 1999 when the Trailer Audio Standards Association became the law. The MPAA has been enforcing an upper volume (average) limit since then. It started at 87 dB in 1999, and has moved to 86 dB, and currently it is at 85 dB. It was not nipped in the bud, it bloomed into a success that won a Technical Achievement Academy Award to two fellows from Dolby, and a very nice chap from Disney.

Well, that shut me up. But wait - what are we to make of this?:

This comes from a current trailer, wouldn't you know. Surely a track where the two halves merge together and leave little islands is what you would call OVERMODULATED. Eh?

Again, I say - nipped!

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 10-23-2004, 03:42 AM:

quote:
The MPAA has been enforcing an upper volume (average) limit since then.

Is the entire trailer like that? You could blow the roof off of the building and still be under the limit if you have a minute of silence after that.

Was the trailer submitted to the MPAA?

Posted by Peter Mork (Member # 1336) on 10-23-2004, 04:26 AM:

Yes to both questions.

I think one of the ways they cheat is by compressing (removing the dynamics from) trailer sound, in a way they never would when mixing a feature. Makes everything sound louder, even if technically they don't break the MPAA's guidelines. But c'mon - the track above is out of bounds anyway. Call the cops!

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 10-23-2004, 05:56 AM:

Daryl is correct in that the loudness meter has to do with the loudness over a period of time.

As a percentage of the total track your segment shown is insignificant.

Nothing said that loud "stings" and such were not allowed...just that the average level for the whole thing can't be loud. There is nothing in the processess that says one can overmodulate and distort the crap out of the signal. As far as the optical track is concerned...it is going to top out at 94dB for SR and 91dB for the rest (perhaps a bit more in the low frequency department).

Again, the TASA program never said you couldn't have extremely loud sections but that the overall level couldn't be loud. Thus, if your segment of film were to represent say a significant portion of a 10-second length trailer, then it would most certainly fail to meet the current established level. If it were part of a 3-minute trailer, then it would contribute to its level rating but would be relatively insignificant.

TASA does not say that you can only have but so many segments above a certain level either....thus a longer trailer can more loud passages than a short one...since as a percentage, each passage contributes less.

But as Daryl states, for each loud passage you are going to have to balance it out with a more quiet one.

I wonder if the green (or red) rating strip is also factored in to their number since it almost always has no sound [Smile]

Steve

Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 10-23-2004, 10:54 AM:

Where is this mystery thread that you have quoted? Why start a new thread for the same subject?

Posted by Peter Mork (Member # 1336) on 10-23-2004, 11:12 AM:

It's not really on the same subject. It's the discussion of cyan tracks that got slightly off topic.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 10-23-2004, 12:22 PM:

The trailer volume program is a flop. I have a feeling all the measurements are being done on instruments and making it look good on paper, but nobody is actually listening to the way they sound in an auditorium!

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 10-23-2004, 12:37 PM:

Agreed, it doesn't seem to have really accomplished anything. I still have to play trailers lower. Commonly 4.0 - 4.5 for trailers. Features still at 7.0

The previews should NOT be more powerful than the feature.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 10-23-2004, 04:01 PM:

Note, too, that not all trailers are approved by the MPAA, so they can do whatever they want with their soundtracks. Does anyone else remember the disaster that was the "Y Tu Mama Tambien" trailer? That's what got me started on playing trailers at 4.5 (optical only) and features at 7.0 (digital, if available); this was with CP500s.

For some reason, the problem seems less bad in mono houses; in one place where I fill in from time to time, we play trailers at 5.5 and features at 6.5 (this is with a Kelmar system, not Dolby) and it sounds fine. This is a manual booth, but adjusting the fader isn't a problem at all in a single-screen house.

Personally, I don't really care about the "trailers too loud" issue anymore. As long as the trailers aren't too much different from one another, it's easy enough to come up with a workaround to adjust the fader between the trailer and feature. This is easiest with the CP500, but those using other processors who need an automated way to do this would do well to check Brad's "Tips" page.

Posted by Jason Miller (Member # 2341) on 10-23-2004, 04:30 PM:

personally, I like the DTS-6AD trimming feature that allows you to individually trim all the different sound playbacks. you set the volume for the movie, and set trims up during trailers. the automation pulses the processor to activate the trims at the start of the trailers, and turn it off at the start of the movie.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 10-23-2004, 05:09 PM:

But then you're stuck with the lousy sound quality of the 6AD! [Razz]

Posted by Peter Mork (Member # 1336) on 10-23-2004, 06:03 PM:

Like a lot of people I have too much to do to jockey trailer levels. So they end up playing loud, and I end up fielding complaints about it.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 10-23-2004, 06:44 PM:

NATO just passed a new resolution recommending trailer levels go down to 84db. They say if it isn't done, they will recommend to members that they take steps to lower the volume manually.

I say that isn't good enough. Obviously they don't realize how busy a multiplex projectionist can be. How about recommending that the members toss the trailers in the garbage? (You and I know that nobody would really toss them, but the threat might get the studios attention at least.)

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 10-23-2004, 06:56 PM:

Taking the whole 30 seconds or less per screen/feature to adjust the volume (1 minute if you're not in the booth and you move slow) has got to be faster than the time it takes to field complaints. If you've got too many screens to do it manually, you'd best get yourself some automation anyway, and ANY automation can be made to control the trailer/feature fader given just a little bit of thought.

quote: Jason Miller
personally, I like the DTS-6AD trimming feature that allows you to individually trim all the different sound playbacks. you set the volume for the movie, and set trims up during trailers. the automation pulses the processor to activate the trims at the start of the trailers, and turn it off at the start of the movie.

The trims suck big hairy ass since they're just that, trims. They should all be presets like a CP-500/650.

If you use the trims everything is thrown off when you get a feature that has a hot or cold mix such as xXx or say Sea Biscuit.

I use the 6ADs trailer trim feature up until xXx came out which I had to turn down by about 2.0 of the master fader. That left trailers nearly inaudible, whereas they were fine (matched to normal features) before.

Between the first showing and the second showing opening day I rewired the automation to trigger the remote fader to be used as the trailer fader instead. This allows it to behave like any Dolby processor, having a fixed fader setting for trailers.

I still use the non-sync trim out of necessity.

Using the built-in trailer trim is just inviting idiot staff to jack with the settings when they get features that are too loud or quiet, which IMHO is bad since there are too many settings in the 6AD that are accessible without the password that will mute the sound (or output test tones) without warning/confirmation.

quote:
But then you're stuck with the lousy sound quality of the 6AD!

Even though I agree that the 6AD's SR emulation also sucks ass, I've never found it too be an issue with 6ADs in mainstream houses since a non DTS print is rare and us Canadians are good little people who return discs with prints.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 10-23-2004, 07:12 PM:

Ah how quickly you forget it's not just the SR emulation that sucks ass, it's the "matrix decoding" too. (I put it in quotations because it is that pathetic.)

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 10-23-2004, 07:16 PM:

Matrix decoding of what? I wasn't limiting 'SR' to just the noise reduction. Just like it says on the 6AD, 'SR' refers to noise reduction and matrix decoding. Including the wonderful fallback to folding down the stage channels to mono.

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 10-24-2004, 12:39 AM:

Nah, the CP500/CP650s presets suck ass too. Panastereo got it best...it always remembers where the fader was last set on a format by format basis. You don't have to reset the presets just adjust it and you are done.

Steve

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 10-24-2004, 03:34 AM:

The DFP-D3000 also has a level memory feature for trailers and feature films... one of many good ideas they had which are probably doomed just like the format is. Another one was the non-sync fade in/fade out which I really like and I don't understand why other processors don't have that.

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 10-24-2004, 08:01 AM:

The DFP-D3000's fader memory (if my memory is correct) is on a trailer by trailer basis...that is it will recall what a specific trailer volume was set to.

As to Non-Sync fades...many processors do that. Panastereo included.

Steve

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 10-24-2004, 03:34 PM:

Geez, you guys and your processors wars. If you were installing CA21 automations, none of that would matter because you would have all of that control...and more.