Is it just me, or is the sound level control all to pot on an increasing 
number of occasions these days?

I don't just mean the advert.s being louder - I mean the voice-over 
announcement that says what's coming next (or whatever) - I'm sure that, not 
at all long ago, the programme material was faded down slightly, but now the 
voiceover seems loud. Sometimes dialogue within prog.s seems to suddenly 
burst, too, and I don't mean just as dictated by the plot.
-- 
J. P. Gilliver                  |  Tel. +44 1634 203298

Essex home SOLD, I hope! (See http://www.soft255.demon.co.uk/home/)

"J. P. Gilliver"  wrote in message 
news:4846d7ed_1@glkas0286.greenlnk.net...
> Is it just me, or is the sound level control all to pot on an increasing 
> number of occasions these days?
>
> I don't just mean the advert.s being louder - I mean the voice-over 
> announcement that says what's coming next (or whatever) - I'm sure that, 
> not at all long ago, the programme material was faded down slightly, but 
> now the voiceover seems loud. Sometimes dialogue within prog.s seems to 
> suddenly burst, too, and I don't mean just as dictated by the plot.
> -- 
> J. P. Gilliver

I agree with you, it is all over the place.  The most annoying thing is 
programme
levels lowered so that people turn the volume up.  Then they get blasted 
when the
volume of the advert goes out at the normal rate.  That's one way of getting 
around
people complaining the audio level is higher.
Most TV has little thought going in to it now.  I also hate the way people 
seem to
just swing the cameras around on a wire.  You can't get to see what is 
happening.
On Britain's Got Talent we hardly got to see the acts - with the picture 
zooming in
and out, swinging about, then a strange way of zooming in slightly left of 
the
subject and stepping so it's centred.
What on earth are people being taught now, is this the trendy new way to 
film things?
It's crap.

In article <g272gr$c36$1@news.albasani.net>, Rob wrote:
> Most TV has little thought going in to it now.  I also hate the way people 
> seem to
> just swing the cameras around on a wire.  You can't get to see what is 
> happening.
> On Britain's Got Talent we hardly got to see the acts - with the picture 
> zooming in
> and out, swinging about, then a strange way of zooming in slightly left of 
> the
> subject and stepping so it's centred.

Perhaps the full title is "Britains TV Programme Makers Have Got No Talent".

Rod.

In article ,
   J. P. Gilliver  wrote:
> Is it just me, or is the sound level control all to pot on an increasing 
> number of occasions these days?

> I don't just mean the advert.s being louder - I mean the voice-over
> announcement that says what's coming next (or whatever) - I'm sure that,
> not at all long ago, the programme material was faded down slightly,
> but now the voiceover seems loud. Sometimes dialogue within prog.s
> seems to suddenly burst, too, and I don't mean just as dictated by the
> plot.

That's automation for you.

-- 
*Everybody lies, but it doesn't matter since nobody listens*

    Dave Plowman        dave@davenoise.co.uk           London SW
                  To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On Wed, 4 Jun 2008 19:16:34 +0100, J. P. Gilliver 
wrote:

> Is it just me, or is the sound level control all to pot on an increasing 
> number of occasions these days?

No and yes respectively. It's all down to the continual lowering of standards
and the couldn't care less attitude regarding attention to detail.
You'd better get used to it.

"Paul Ratcliffe" <abuse@orac12.clara34.co56.uk78> wrote in message 
news:slrng4e7vk.7jh.abuse@news.pr.network...
> On Wed, 4 Jun 2008 19:16:34 +0100, J. P. Gilliver 
> 
> wrote:
>
>> Is it just me, or is the sound level control all to pot on an increasing
>> number of occasions these days?
>
> No and yes respectively. It's all down to the continual lowering of 
> standards
> and the couldn't care less attitude regarding attention to detail.
> You'd better get used to it.
>
>
Just to digress slightly, when our local radio station (BBC Lancashire) hit 
the sound boost button at the beginning of traffic reports, the volume often 
goes *down* for the duration of the report, and then goes louder again 
afterwards! Now call me stupid or what, but I'm sure that the reason for the 
volume boost is to draw attention to the traffic news, not to make it more 
obscure.

In article <g272gr$c36$1@news.albasani.net>, Rob 
scribeth thus
>
>"J. P. Gilliver"  wrote in message 
>news:4846d7ed_1@glkas0286.greenlnk.net...
>> Is it just me, or is the sound level control all to pot on an increasing 
>> number of occasions these days?
>>
>> I don't just mean the advert.s being louder - I mean the voice-over 
>> announcement that says what's coming next (or whatever) - I'm sure that, 
>> not at all long ago, the programme material was faded down slightly, but 
>> now the voiceover seems loud. Sometimes dialogue within prog.s seems to 
>> suddenly burst, too, and I don't mean just as dictated by the plot.
>> -- 
>> J. P. Gilliver
>
>I agree with you, it is all over the place.  The most annoying thing is 
>programme
>levels lowered so that people turn the volume up.  Then they get blasted 
>when the
>volume of the advert goes out at the normal rate.  That's one way of getting 
>around
>people complaining the audio level is higher.
>Most TV has little thought going in to it now.  I also hate the way people 
>seem to
>just swing the cameras around on a wire.  You can't get to see what is 
>happening.
>On Britain's Got Talent we hardly got to see the acts - with the picture 
>zooming in
>and out, swinging about, then a strange way of zooming in slightly left of 
>the
>subject and stepping so it's centred.
>What on earth are people being taught now, is this the trendy new way to 
>film things?
>It's crap.
>
>
Its caused in the main by too many post-it notes over the back glass
dial thingy's on sound desks..

Ban post-it notes and it would all improve;!....
-- 
Tony Sayer

In article <48478b17$1_1@glkas0286.greenlnk.net>,
	Fred wrote:

> Just to digress slightly, when our local radio station (BBC Lancashire) hit 
> the sound boost button at the beginning of traffic reports, the volume often 
> goes *down* for the duration of the report, and then goes louder again 
> afterwards! Now call me stupid or what, but I'm sure that the reason for the 
> volume boost is to draw attention to the traffic news, not to make it more 
> obscure. 

They're probably causing a limiter to kick in.

-- 
Paul Martin

"Fred"  wrote in message 
news:48478b17$1_1@glkas0286.greenlnk.net...
> Just to digress slightly, when our local radio station (BBC Lancashire) 
> hit the sound boost button at the beginning of traffic reports, the volume 
> often
> goes *down* for the duration of the report, and then goes louder again 
> afterwards! Now call me stupid or what, but I'm sure that the reason for 
> the volume boost is to draw attention to the traffic news, not to make it 
> more obscure.

I've not heard the volume change when BBC Oxford has its traffic reports.

Could it be that you are listening on an RDS-enabled radio with TA turned 
on, and the radio is set to play traffic announcements at a lower volume to 
the volume at which you normally listen?

On Thu, 5 Jun 2008 08:01:00 +0100, Fred wrote:

> Just to digress slightly, when our local radio station (BBC Lancashire) 
> hit the sound boost button at the beginning of traffic reports, the 
> volume often goes *down* for the duration of the report, and then goes 
> louder again afterwards! Now call me stupid or what, 

Hello Stupid or what.

The volume change for an RDS traffic report is done by your receiver under 
control of the "there is a traffic annoucement happening" flag in the RDS 
data stream. If the volume goes down that is beacuse that is how you have 
set your receiver up. The transmitted audio level does not change.

-- 
Cheers
Dave.

"J. P. Gilliver"  wrote in message
news:4846d7ed_1@glkas0286.greenlnk.net...
> Is it just me, or is the sound level control all to pot on an increasing
> number of occasions these days?
>
> I don't just mean the advert.s being louder - I mean the voice-over
> announcement that says what's coming next (or whatever) - I'm sure that,
> not at all long ago, the programme material was faded down slightly, but
> now the voiceover seems loud. Sometimes dialogue within prog.s seems to
> suddenly burst, too, and I don't mean just as dictated by the plot.

I very much doubt there is anyone called a "sound man" working in television
anymore. It seems to be held together by compressors and limiters and sounds
awful. Even heavily compressed audio suddenly jumps 6dB in level as someone
downstream of the compressed material brings it up on a fader. Even when I
ran the full output of a music TV station (Mtv 1987) and had to do
everything from load tapes, mix vision, live DVE and mix sound, I could
never have got things this bad. We used something called **PFL** to check
levels. Even when eating my lunch/dinner/breakfast off a plate on  top of
the live on-air vision mixer we could still see the PPM's, vector scope,
waveform monitor and audio phase reversal scope.

Graham

Mtv 1987 equipment:
Sony Betacart with 4 Betacam SP
Cox T8 vision mixer
Questec Charisma DVE
ADO sound mixer
http://tinyurl.com/4l2h3l

In article , Graham 
 writes

>I very much doubt there is anyone called a "sound man" working in television
>anymore. It seems to be held together by compressors and limiters and sounds
>awful. Even heavily compressed audio suddenly jumps 6dB in level as someone
>downstream of the compressed material brings it up on a fader. Even when I
>ran the full output of a music TV station (Mtv 1987) and had to do
>everything from load tapes, mix vision, live DVE and mix sound, I could
>never have got things this bad. We used something called **PFL** to check
>levels. Even when eating my lunch/dinner/breakfast off a plate on  top of
>the live on-air vision mixer we could still see the PPM's, vector scope,
>waveform monitor and audio phase reversal scope.
>
>Graham
>
>Mtv 1987 equipment:
>Sony Betacart with 4 Betacam SP
>Cox T8 vision mixer
>Questec Charisma DVE
>ADO sound mixer
>http://tinyurl.com/4l2h3l

Happy days. I used to watch your output in Bristol St.B's gallery in 
quiet moments (there were quite a few!). What speakers were you 
monitoring on?

In around 1993 I did the tourist trip round CNN in Atlanta. They had 
floors of Betacarts - I've no idea how much storage (nor how many 
players) overall, but it was enormous. A few years later (circa 1999 or 
2000) I went back and those rooms were empty - the whole lot gone over 
to hard disk, presumably.

Regards,

Simonm.

-- 
simonm|at|muircom|dot|demon|.|c|oh|dot|u|kay
SIMON MUIR, BRISTOL UK                                      www.ukip.org
EUROPEANS AGAINST THE EU                     www.members.aol.com/eurofaq
GT250A'76  R80/RT'86  110CSW TD'88  www.kc3ltd.co.uk/profile/eurofollie/

On Thu, 5 Jun 2008 10:42:44 +0100, Graham wrote:

> I very much doubt there is anyone called a "sound man" working in 
> television anymore. 

Oh there is in aquisition and post production. Where things fall apart 
these days is transmission, many stations don't have a human involved at 
all it's all automatic.

-- 
Cheers
Dave.

In news:IpgDFVFNe9RIFwAJ@tigger.muircom.demon.co.uk,
SpamTrapSeeSig  typed, for some strange, 
unexplained reason:

[snip]

: In around 1993 I did the tourist trip round CNN in Atlanta. They had
: floors of Betacarts - I've no idea how much storage (nor how many
: players) overall, but it was enormous. A few years later (circa 1999
: or 2000) I went back and those rooms were empty - the whole lot gone
: over to hard disk, presumably.

A friend of mine in the States used to work (as a sound man..!) at KGO 
News in San Francisco. He gave me the tour back in 2000 and I saw racks 
and racks of VCR's with motorised arms taking tapes out and putting them 
in. It was incredible to watch. When I went back a couple of years later 
it was all gone and the whole lot was on a single rack of servers.

Ivor

"Dave Liquorice"  wrote in message 
news:nyyfbegfubjuvyypbz.k200h51.pminews@srv1.howhill.net...
> On Thu, 5 Jun 2008 10:42:44 +0100, Graham wrote:
>
>> I very much doubt there is anyone called a "sound man" working in
>> television anymore.
>
> Oh there is in aquisition and post production. Where things fall 
> apart
> these days is transmission, many stations don't have a human 
> involved at
> all it's all automatic.
>

Which make this situation even worse, the problem is not in TX but in 
the production office or editing/dubbing suite

In article <48478b17$1_1@glkas0286.greenlnk.net>,
   Fred  wrote:
> Just to digress slightly, when our local radio station (BBC Lancashire)
> hit the sound boost button at the beginning of traffic reports, the
> volume often goes *down* for the duration of the report, and then goes
> louder again afterwards! Now call me stupid or what, but I'm sure that
> the reason for the volume boost is to draw attention to the traffic
> news, not to make it more obscure.

Most RDS radios allow you to set a level for the TP stuff. Which it then
goes to regardless of what you've set the main level too. The idea being
if you've got some gentle music on as background you'll not have to dive
for the volume to hear the traffic news.

-- 
*Indian Driver - Smoke signals only*

    Dave Plowman        dave@davenoise.co.uk           London SW
                  To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ,
   Graham  wrote:
> I very much doubt there is anyone called a "sound man" working in
> television anymore.

Oi. And that's for all of us that read this group. ;-)

> It seems to be held together by compressors and
> limiters and sounds awful. Even heavily compressed audio suddenly jumps
> 6dB in level as someone downstream of the compressed material brings it
> up on a fader. Even when I ran the full output of a music TV station
> (Mtv 1987) and had to do everything from load tapes, mix vision, live
> DVE and mix sound, I could never have got things this bad.

Ah - you mean in 'master'.

> We used
> something called **PFL** to check levels. Even when eating my
> lunch/dinner/breakfast off a plate on  top of the live on-air vision
> mixer we could still see the PPM's, vector scope, waveform monitor and
> audio phase reversal scope.

It's a relatively easy job to balance the junctions on a pop station. The
big problem happens with the vast mixture of prog types on the
'nationals'. And of course it's not helped by being effectively automated.
To do the job properly would need full time balancers for all air time.
And it's one expense the owners have decided they don't need.

-- 
*I pretend to work. - they pretend to pay me.

    Dave Plowman        dave@davenoise.co.uk           London SW
                  To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ,
   Ivor Jones <ivor@thisaddressis.invalid> wrote:
> A friend of mine in the States used to work (as a sound man..!) at KGO 
> News in San Francisco. He gave me the tour back in 2000 and I saw racks 
> and racks of VCR's with motorised arms taking tapes out and putting them 
> in. It was incredible to watch. When I went back a couple of years later 
> it was all gone and the whole lot was on a single rack of servers.

Thames TV had a similar system at their Euston control centre. That's
Euston, not Houston. ;-)  It was Panasonic and IIRC called 'MARC'

-- 
*Warning:  Dates in Calendar are closer than they appear.

    Dave Plowman        dave@davenoise.co.uk           London SW
                  To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ,
   Dave Plowman (News)  wrote:
> In article ,
>    Ivor Jones <ivor@thisaddressis.invalid> wrote:
> > A friend of mine in the States used to work (as a sound man..!) at KGO
> > News in San Francisco. He gave me the tour back in 2000 and I saw racks
> > and racks of VCR's with motorised arms taking tapes out and putting
> > them in. It was incredible to watch. When I went back a couple of
> > years later it was all gone and the whole lot was on a single rack of
> > servers.

> Thames TV had a similar system at their Euston control centre. That's
> Euston, not Houston. ;-)  It was Panasonic and IIRC called 'MARC'

I saw something similar - but with 10" audio tapes - on a film (yes,
really) made at NHK in the 1960s. They had automated their radio playout
since their licence fee brought them in so much more money than they could
spend - so they gave it away to IBM ;-)

-- 
From KT24 - in "Leafy Surrey"

Using a RISC OS computer running v5.11

In article ,
   charles  wrote:
> I saw something similar - but with 10" audio tapes - on a film (yes,
> really) made at NHK in the 1960s. They had automated their radio playout
> since their licence fee brought them in so much more money than they
> could spend - so they gave it away to IBM ;-)

Crikey. Trying to automate the loading of reel to reel doesn't bear
thinking about. ;-)

-- 
*Procrastinate now

    Dave Plowman        dave@davenoise.co.uk           London SW
                  To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article , "Dave Plowman (News)" 
 writes
>In article ,
>   charles  wrote:
>> I saw something similar - but with 10" audio tapes - on a film (yes,
>> really) made at NHK in the 1960s. They had automated their radio playout
>> since their licence fee brought them in so much more money than they
>> could spend - so they gave it away to IBM ;-)
>
>Crikey. Trying to automate the loading of reel to reel doesn't bear
>thinking about. ;-)

When I joined HP in the early 1990s, 1/2" open reel (avec NAB centres, 
IIRC) was a very profitable business, even though the data capacity was 
tiny and the machines hugely expensive. They even made several running 
on 50V, as many telephone exchange manufacturers used 1/2" for 
billing/logging.

Several of the models had automatic lacing (scary to watch), including 
air jets to blow the loose end of the tape round the lace-up path. I 
have a differential air pressure meter from one of the engineers' test 
kits of the time.

I don't remember any attempt at yer actual 1/2" open reel library 
system, although there most probably was one, likely an IBM/US-Gov 
project (IBM: suit, or the sack).


Regards,

Simonm.

-- 
simonm|at|muircom|dot|demon|.|c|oh|dot|u|kay
SIMON MUIR, BRISTOL UK                                      www.ukip.org
EUROPEANS AGAINST THE EU                     www.members.aol.com/eurofaq
GT250A'76  R80/RT'86  110CSW TD'88  www.kc3ltd.co.uk/profile/eurofollie/

"Dave Plowman (News)"  wrote in message 
news:4faac55c93dave@davenoise.co.uk...
> In article ,
>   Graham  wrote:
>> I very much doubt there is anyone called a "sound man" working in
>> television anymore.
>
> Oi. And that's for all of us that read this group. ;-)
>
>> It seems to be held together by compressors and
>> limiters and sounds awful. Even heavily compressed audio suddenly jumps
>> 6dB in level as someone downstream of the compressed material brings it
>> up on a fader. Even when I ran the full output of a music TV station
>> (Mtv 1987) and had to do everything from load tapes, mix vision, live
>> DVE and mix sound, I could never have got things this bad.
>
> Ah - you mean in 'master'.
>
>> We used
>> something called **PFL** to check levels. Even when eating my
>> lunch/dinner/breakfast off a plate on  top of the live on-air vision
>> mixer we could still see the PPM's, vector scope, waveform monitor and
>> audio phase reversal scope.
>
> It's a relatively easy job to balance the junctions on a pop station. The
> big problem happens with the vast mixture of prog types on the
> 'nationals'. And of course it's not helped by being effectively automated.
> To do the job properly would need full time balancers for all air time.
> And it's one expense the owners have decided they don't need.
>
> -- 
> *I pretend to work. - they pretend to pay me.
>
>    Dave Plowman        dave@davenoise.co.uk           London SW
>                  To e-mail, change noise into sound.


Bringing back AGC on receivers might help.

In article ,
   Smolley  wrote:
> > It's a relatively easy job to balance the junctions on a pop station.
> > The big problem happens with the vast mixture of prog types on the
> > 'nationals'. And of course it's not helped by being effectively
> > automated. To do the job properly would need full time balancers for
> > all air time. And it's one expense the owners have decided they don't
> > need.
> >

> Bringing back AGC on receivers might help.

You reckon that worked on audio levels?

-- 
*If God dropped acid, would he see people?

    Dave Plowman        dave@davenoise.co.uk           London SW
                  To e-mail, change noise into sound.

"SpamTrapSeeSig"  wrote in message 
news:IpgDFVFNe9RIFwAJ@tigger.muircom.demon.co.uk...
> In article , Graham 
>  writes
>
>>I very much doubt there is anyone called a "sound man" working in 
>>television
>>anymore. It seems to be held together by compressors and limiters and 
>>sounds
>>awful. Even heavily compressed audio suddenly jumps 6dB in level as 
>>someone
>>downstream of the compressed material brings it up on a fader. Even when I
>>ran the full output of a music TV station (Mtv 1987) and had to do
>>everything from load tapes, mix vision, live DVE and mix sound, I could
>>never have got things this bad. We used something called **PFL** to check
>>levels. Even when eating my lunch/dinner/breakfast off a plate on  top of
>>the live on-air vision mixer we could still see the PPM's, vector scope,
>>waveform monitor and audio phase reversal scope.
>>
>>Graham
>>
>>Mtv 1987 equipment:
>>Sony Betacart with 4 Betacam SP
>>Cox T8 vision mixer
>>Questec Charisma DVE
>>ADO sound mixer
>>http://tinyurl.com/4l2h3l
>
> Happy days. I used to watch your output in Bristol St.B's gallery in quiet 
> moments (there were quite a few!). What speakers were you monitoring on?
>
> In around 1993 I did the tourist trip round CNN in Atlanta. They had 
> floors of Betacarts - I've no idea how much storage (nor how many players) 
> overall, but it was enormous. A few years later (circa 1999 or 2000) I 
> went back and those rooms were empty - the whole lot gone over to hard 
> disk, presumably.

If I remember correctly Tannoy, but not sure of the model. Yes, we used to 
have great fun, especially on the night shifts when no management were 
around poking thier noses in. During the night we mostly played what we 
wanted to hear and they never checked the logging tapes. Best job I ever 
had.

Graham

"Dave Plowman (News)"  wrote in message 
news:4faac8966cdave@davenoise.co.uk...
> In article ,
>   charles  wrote:
>> I saw something similar - but with 10" audio tapes - on a film (yes,
>> really) made at NHK in the 1960s. They had automated their radio playout
>> since their licence fee brought them in so much more money than they
>> could spend - so they gave it away to IBM ;-)
>
> Crikey. Trying to automate the loading of reel to reel doesn't bear
> thinking about. ;-)

In the early eighties, Thames Euston used to run their adverts off of huge 
cassettes containing 2 inch tape. I think it was the same format as the 
Quadraplex AVR2 machines. I think tape was drawn out of the cassette by 
vacuum, but not 100% sure about this I would be interested if anyone knows 
anything more about this. I worked at Teddington and we did not playout 
adverts from there.

Graham

"Dave Plowman (News)"  wrote in message 
news:4faac55c93dave@davenoise.co.uk...
> In article ,
>   Graham  wrote:
>> I very much doubt there is anyone called a "sound man" working in
>> television anymore.
>
> Oi. And that's for all of us that read this group. ;-)
>
>> It seems to be held together by compressors and
>> limiters and sounds awful. Even heavily compressed audio suddenly jumps
>> 6dB in level as someone downstream of the compressed material brings it
>> up on a fader. Even when I ran the full output of a music TV station
>> (Mtv 1987) and had to do everything from load tapes, mix vision, live
>> DVE and mix sound, I could never have got things this bad.
>
> Ah - you mean in 'master'.

We were the source, pres, transmission the lots. We did everything from 
rolling the tape to cuttting it to air. Just two people and often just one 
when the other person went off to make some food. There was not that much 
uniformity in the audio the levels coming off the tapes and of course they 
were being mixed every 2-3 minutes. It did help that most music video's had 
a slow fade so you could adjust the incoming audio level gently on the fly, 
but if time, we used to like to PFL the audio before putting it to air.

Graham

"Smolley"  wrote in message 
news:LtednVxTzO4rptXVnZ2dnUVZ8hidnZ2d@bt.com...
>
> "Dave Plowman (News)"  wrote in message 
> news:4faac55c93dave@davenoise.co.uk...
>> In article ,
>>   Graham  wrote:
>>> I very much doubt there is anyone called a "sound man" working in
>>> television anymore.
>>
>> Oi. And that's for all of us that read this group. ;-)
>>
>>> It seems to be held together by compressors and
>>> limiters and sounds awful. Even heavily compressed audio suddenly jumps
>>> 6dB in level as someone downstream of the compressed material brings it
>>> up on a fader. Even when I ran the full output of a music TV station
>>> (Mtv 1987) and had to do everything from load tapes, mix vision, live
>>> DVE and mix sound, I could never have got things this bad.
>>
>> Ah - you mean in 'master'.
>>
>>> We used
>>> something called **PFL** to check levels. Even when eating my
>>> lunch/dinner/breakfast off a plate on  top of the live on-air vision
>>> mixer we could still see the PPM's, vector scope, waveform monitor and
>>> audio phase reversal scope.
>>
>> It's a relatively easy job to balance the junctions on a pop station. The
>> big problem happens with the vast mixture of prog types on the
>> 'nationals'. And of course it's not helped by being effectively 
>> automated.
>> To do the job properly would need full time balancers for all air time.
>> And it's one expense the owners have decided they don't need.
>>
>> -- 
>> *I pretend to work. - they pretend to pay me.
>>
>>    Dave Plowman        dave@davenoise.co.uk           London SW
>>                  To e-mail, change noise into sound.
>
>
> Bringing back AGC on receivers might help.

Wasn't AGC applied at the IF stage (IE AGC of the carrier). I've never seen 
a radio AGC applied after the detector.

Graham

In article , Graham wrote:
> > Bringing back AGC on receivers might help.

It's never been away.

> Wasn't AGC applied at the IF stage (IE AGC of the carrier). I've never seen 
> a radio AGC applied after the detector.

Yes. AGC works on RF, and since the sound is FM it doesn't make any difference 
to audio levels.

Having said that, you do sometimes see some crazy design choices. The first 
videocassette machines I worked on, the Sony VO-1810 3/4" U-Matic recorder, 
the one with the silver mechanical piano key controls, had a rudimentary 
compressor/limiter in the audio *playback* circuits! It wasn't even switchable 
if I recall correctly. That one had me scratching my head at first - and then 
it had me scratching the printed circuit boards. They sounded much better 
after that.

Rod.

On Thu, 5 Jun 2008 13:19:04 +0100, :Jerry: wrote:

>> Oh there is in aquisition and post production. Where things fall 
>> apart these days is transmission, many stations don't have a human 
>> involved at all it's all automatic.
> 
> Which make this situation even worse, 

Yes.

> the problem is not in TX but in the production office or editing/dubbing 
> suite 

No, the programme leaving the dubbing suite will be correct for that 
genre. Trouble is when placed against a trail, ad or station ident that is 
compressed to buggery the programme sounds quiet. With out a human to pull 
up the programme level a bit and push the trail/ad/ID down your get the 
jarring junctions. If a little thought and ears were used when stuff 
loaded into the playout system things could be a lot better. Programmes 
should be loaded as supplied but trails/ads/IDs should have ear cast over 
them and the levels pushed down such that they don't blast people across 
the room when transmitted.

This a separate problem to that of commentary v music/FX. Personally I 
think a lot of that is down to dubbing suites monitoring at too high a 
level.

-- 
Cheers
Dave.

"Dave Liquorice"  wrote in message 
news:nyyfbegfubjuvyypbz.k20t6z5.pminews@srv1.howhill.net...
<snip>
>
> This a separate problem to that of commentary v music/FX.

Yes, sorry, you are of course correct - my mistake/confusion.

Graham wrote:

> In the early eighties, Thames Euston used to run their adverts off of huge 
> cassettes containing 2 inch tape. I think it was the same format as the 
> Quadraplex AVR2 machines. I think tape was drawn out of the cassette by 
> vacuum, but not 100% sure about this I would be interested if anyone knows 
> anything more about this. I worked at Teddington and we did not playout 
> adverts from there.

Ampex ACR-25 ?

http://www.lionlamb.us/quad/Acr-25b.jpg

http://www.lionlamb.us/quad/ampex.html

All the ITV companies used either that machine, or the RCA equivalent 
during that era I think ?

The IBA would not allow Betacart/Betacam for anything other than news in 
those days. I visited Channel 4 in the mid 80s. They were struggling 
then trying to persuade the IBA to let them use Betacart for their 
animated logo transmission, it was rather OTT to lace up and cue up a 1 
inch C-Format tape for the sake of a 6 second sequence !

It wasn't until Betacam SP appeared in the late 80s along with 
Panasonic's equivalent M2 format, that the IBA started to relax. I don't 
think however the IBA allowed the use of Sony and Panasonic's component 
tape systems for non-news until the D2 and D3 digital tape formats appeared.
LWT, Central, C4 (and BBC Glasgow ISTR) installed a Sony LMS (which was 
a glorified Betacart) with D2 VTRs fitted for commercial and 'short 
form' playout. Thames, as Dave P mentions, used Panny's MARC equivalent.

"Dave Plowman (News)"  wrote in message 
news:4faac4c536dave@davenoise.co.uk...
> In article <48478b17$1_1@glkas0286.greenlnk.net>,
>   Fred  wrote:
>> Just to digress slightly, when our local radio station (BBC Lancashire)
>> hit the sound boost button at the beginning of traffic reports, the
>> volume often goes *down* for the duration of the report, and then goes
>> louder again afterwards! Now call me stupid or what, but I'm sure that
>> the reason for the volume boost is to draw attention to the traffic
>> news, not to make it more obscure.
>
> Most RDS radios allow you to set a level for the TP stuff. Which it then
> goes to regardless of what you've set the main level too. The idea being
> if you've got some gentle music on as background you'll not have to dive
> for the volume to hear the traffic news.
>
>
Thanks, a sensible reply :)

Yes, that's how the RDS radios have worked in my previous cars, the radio in 
my latest car does the exact opposite! I wasn't aware that the traffic 
programme level was adjustable, on my previous cars it's just been 
switchable on or off.

On Fri, 6 Jun 2008 08:49:44 +0100, Fred wrote:

> Yes, that's how the RDS radios have worked in my previous cars, the 
> radio in my latest car does the exact opposite! I wasn't aware that the 
> traffic programme level was adjustable, on my previous cars it's just 
> been switchable on or off. 

RTFM...

Traffic announcments are on/off, normally by simply pressing the TA or 
INFO button. I've yet to find a set were the TA volume is not adjustable, 
the method of adjusting it varies, a common method is to adjust the volume 
when there is a TA happening.

-- 
Cheers
Dave.

In article <4848e801$1_1@glkas0286.greenlnk.net>,
   Fred  wrote:
> > Most RDS radios allow you to set a level for the TP stuff. Which it
> > then goes to regardless of what you've set the main level too. The
> > idea being if you've got some gentle music on as background you'll not
> > have to dive for the volume to hear the traffic news.

> Thanks, a sensible reply :)

> Yes, that's how the RDS radios have worked in my previous cars, the
> radio in my latest car does the exact opposite! 

Have you got a handbook for it? Sounds like it needs setting up. If not,
give the make/model, and someone might be able to help.

> I wasn't aware that the traffic programme level was adjustable, on my
> previous cars it's just been switchable on or off. 

The several I've owned all allow this setting.

-- 
*Lottery:  A tax on people who are bad at math.

    Dave Plowman        dave@davenoise.co.uk           London SW
                  To e-mail, change noise into sound.

"Dave Liquorice"  wrote in message 
news:nyyfbegfubjuvyypbz.k21n3o3.pminews@srv1.howhill.net...
>
> RTFM...
>
> Traffic announcments are on/off, normally by simply pressing the TA or
> INFO button. I've yet to find a set were the TA volume is not adjustable,
> the method of adjusting it varies, a common method is to adjust the volume
> when there is a TA happening.
>
>
WTFAYOA

I'm talking about travel news, not TA, they *can't* be switched off as 
they're part of the normal station output!

HAND

On Fri, 6 Jun 2008 10:58:56 +0100, Fred  wrote:

>> RTFM...
>>
>> Traffic announcments are on/off, normally by simply pressing the TA or
>> INFO button. I've yet to find a set were the TA volume is not adjustable,
>> the method of adjusting it varies, a common method is to adjust the volume
>> when there is a TA happening.
>
> WTFAYOA
> 
> I'm talking about travel news, not TA, they *can't* be switched off as 
> they're part of the normal station output!
> 
> HAND 

<whoosh>

There goes another clueless retard.

On Fri, 6 Jun 2008 10:58:56 +0100, Fred wrote:

> I'm talking about travel news, not TA, they *can't* be switched off as 
> they're part of the normal station output!

Most local stations raise the TA flag when they do travel news and yes the 
travel news is part of the normal station output. If you are listening to 
a station when they raise the TA flag and you have TA selected the volume 
will change to the TA setting. If you don't have TA selected the volume 
will remain unchanged.

As I said RTFM.

-- 
Cheers
Dave.

"Dave Plowman (News)"  wrote in message 
news:4fab1f9899dave@davenoise.co.uk...
> In article <4848e801$1_1@glkas0286.greenlnk.net>,
>   Fred  wrote:
>> > Most RDS radios allow you to set a level for the TP stuff. Which it
>> > then goes to regardless of what you've set the main level too. The
>> > idea being if you've got some gentle music on as background you'll not
>> > have to dive for the volume to hear the traffic news.
>
>> Thanks, a sensible reply :)
>
>> Yes, that's how the RDS radios have worked in my previous cars, the
>> radio in my latest car does the exact opposite!
>
> Have you got a handbook for it? Sounds like it needs setting up. If not,
> give the make/model, and someone might be able to help.
>
>> I wasn't aware that the traffic programme level was adjustable, on my
>> previous cars it's just been switchable on or off.
>
> The several I've owned all allow this setting.
>
>
It's all very confusing this, one polite Dave : ) posting, and one rather 
less civil!

I guess I'll have to RTFM as the other Dave so succinctly puts it.

Thanks all.

"Paul Ratcliffe" <abuse@orac12.clara34.co56.uk78> wrote in message 
news:slrng4i609.2fv.abuse@news.pr.network...
> On Fri, 6 Jun 2008 10:58:56 +0100, Fred  wrote:
>
> <whoosh>
>
> There goes another clueless retard.
>
>
Thank you very much for that incisive and witty snippet.

I'm much more clued up now (about you!).

<plonk>

In article , Mark Carver 
<mark.carver@invalid.invalid> writes
>Graham wrote:
>
>> In the early eighties, Thames Euston used to run their adverts off of 
>>huge  cassettes containing 2 inch tape. I think it was the same format 
>>as the  Quadraplex AVR2 machines. I think tape was drawn out of the 
>>cassette by  vacuum, but not 100% sure about this I would be 
>>interested if anyone knows  anything more about this. I worked at 
>>Teddington and we did not playout  adverts from there.
>
>Ampex ACR-25 ?
>
>http://www.lionlamb.us/quad/Acr-25b.jpg
>
>http://www.lionlamb.us/quad/ampex.html
 From browsing around those links, I discover Ampex is in Chapter 11 (as 
of April 08). Great shame, although they're bullish about it:

<http://www.ampex.com/reorganization/reorganization.html>

Regards,

Simonm.

-- 
simonm|at|muircom|dot|demon|.|c|oh|dot|u|kay
SIMON MUIR, BRISTOL UK                                      www.ukip.org
EUROPEANS AGAINST THE EU                     www.members.aol.com/eurofaq
GT250A'76  R80/RT'86  110CSW TD'88  www.kc3ltd.co.uk/profile/eurofollie/

"
Fred 

<plonk> 
"

Says it all really. No great loss.

"Paul Ratcliffe" <abuse@orac12.clara34.co56.uk78> wrote in message 
news:slrng4irpi.2vk.abuse@news.pr.network...
> "
> Fred 
>
> <plonk>
> "
>
> Says it all really. No great loss.

Intolerant fucktard.

On Thu, 05 Jun 2008 08:34:31 +0100, tony sayer wrote:

> Its caused in the main by too many post-it notes over the back glass
> dial thingy's on sound desks..

... and luvvies who think "lining up at zero level" means setting
all the sound desk fader notches right next to the '0' on the graduations.

I kid you not.  True tales 0.775

G.

-- 
  
gareth at lightfox dot plus dot com

In article ,
   Gareth  wrote:
> .. and luvvies who think "lining up at zero level" means setting all the
> sound desk fader notches right next to the '0' on the graduations.

In an ideal world...

-- 
*I yell because I care

    Dave Plowman        dave@davenoise.co.uk           London SW
                  To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Mark Carver wrote:

> Graham wrote:
> 
> > In the early eighties, Thames Euston used to run their adverts off
> > of huge  cassettes containing 2 inch tape. I think it was the same
> > format as the  Quadraplex AVR2 machines. I think tape was drawn out
> > of the cassette by  vacuum, but not 100% sure about this I would be
> > interested if anyone knows  anything more about this. I worked at
> > Teddington and we did not playout  adverts from there.
> 
> Ampex ACR-25 ?
> 
> http://www.lionlamb.us/quad/Acr-25b.jpg
> 
> http://www.lionlamb.us/quad/ampex.html
> 
> All the ITV companies used either that machine, or the RCA equivalent
> during that era I think ?
> 
> The IBA would not allow Betacart/Betacam for anything other than news
> in those days. I visited Channel 4 in the mid 80s. They were
> struggling then trying to persuade the IBA to let them use Betacart
> for their animated logo transmission, it was rather OTT to lace up
> and cue up a 1 inch C-Format tape for the sake of a 6 second sequence
> !
> 
> It wasn't until Betacam SP appeared in the late 80s along with
> Panasonic's equivalent M2 format, that the IBA started to relax. I
> don't think however the IBA allowed the use of Sony and Panasonic's
> component tape systems for non-news until the D2 and D3 digital tape
> formats appeared.  LWT, Central, C4 (and BBC Glasgow ISTR) installed
> a Sony LMS (which was a glorified Betacart) with D2 VTRs fitted for
> commercial and 'short form' playout. Thames, as Dave P mentions, used
> Panny's MARC equivalent.

ITN used ACR in the early 80s.

-- 
Ashley

On Sat, 07 Jun 2008 23:23:44 +0100, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

>> .. and luvvies who think "lining up at zero level" means setting
>> all the sound desk fader notches right next to the '0' on the
>> graduations.
 
> In an ideal world...

Complaint from new (freelance) editor in one of the suites yesterday:
"This PPM is completely useless! The levels change when I move this red
fader."

G.

-- 
gareth at lightfox dot plus dot com