Screen Rant » tv commercials

Exciting New Stargate Universe Trailer

Rob Keyes — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 23:13:45 +0000

For the Stargate fans out there dying to have an ongoing series back on the air to watch, hold on just one more month!

Until then, to help you get your Stargate fix, we have the brand new trailer for the upcoming Stargate Universe series. This one is something you definitely need to see and I think it’ll help bring in fans of old and new to the long-running sci-fi franchise.

Check it out after the jump…

Stargate Universe (SGU) is about a team, who through the new discovery of the purpose of the “ninth cheveron” on the Stargate device, end up travelling across the known universe onto a ship of the Ancients. The ship is named Destiny and she was constructed millions of years prior by the infamous Ancients with the purpose of planting Stargates many different galaxies. Our protagonists are trapped on this ship and unable to take over its controls, and we follow them on their new journey encountering new locations, new species, new cool tech and of course, new bad guys.

Now, watch the trailer and see what you think:

Thanks to this trailer, for the first time, I’m genuinely very excited to see this show. Prior to this point, the stellar cast members had me sold on giving the new series a shot but this trailer has me anticipating the show’s premiere more than ever.

Last year, when we were first hearing the major info on this new series in development, Stargate masterminds Robert C. Cooper and Brad Wright emphasized the idea of doing something new and fresh, not re-hashing what had been done for a long time before. David Howe, president of the then-called Sci Fi channel also had this to say:

“This is an opportunity to reinvent this franchise and make it relevant to a new generation… We really don’t want to be more of the same. It’s going to build clearly off the existing franchise but with a cast that gives it a younger vibe.”

Some of the scenes from this trailer looked amazing and the production quality was so much better than from what we saw in the prior SGU trailer from back in April. It looks to me like SGU may be the perfect show to restart the franchise, capture a new audience, and appease the Stargate veterans.

I’m excited to see actor Robert Carlyle on a regular basis along with the rest of the impressive cast. We can also expect some nice cameos from our favorite characters of old.

Do you dig the new trailer? Can this show top SG-1 and Stargate: Atlantis?

Stargate Universe airs its premiere October 2, 2009 on the SyFy channel.

Source: Phoenix Rising, SyFy

Should Television Ad Volume Be Equalized?

Bruce Simmons — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 21:20:49 +0000

Back in March of 2008, I went on a tear about the loud volume of commercials on our television sets.

We all know it, but networks say it isn’t so. Television stations drink the fruit punch and then say that ads are not louder than the program, but that they only sound louder. Duh!

Technically they are correct – just like the statement that it’s not the flame that hurts your finger, it’s the heat generated by the flame. Sorry TV guys, but the source is the source and that’s that. You can use whatever words you like, but you still look the fool trying to make us think you’re right.

Looking into why TV ads are louder, I discovered that advertisers take advantage of what is called mid range tones from the dynamic range compression process. By this process, louder sounds get reduced a bit while the quieter sounds are usually not affected. In the end, this compression increases the average level of sound and the effective result is that the show becomes louder.

There is one tiny control in place, but it doesn’t seem realistic. This control or practice says that no television ad will ever be louder than the loudest part of any show you watch. That means if I watch a show that talks about growing grass, the ads should be pretty quiet. I watch a show on historical military conflicts, and I’m going to be in for a wild auditory ride come commercial time.

Networks and advertisers further insult our intelligence by making the newest excuse that ads seem just that much louder because ads come on when, traditionally, a show is at its quietest moments – i.e., just before a commercial. Give me a $%^&ing break.

Regardless of what any network says in their tech-speak, as far as my perceptions go these fracking ads are louder than the shows and that’s that. The more you try to tell me otherwise, TV guys, the more daft in the head you look.

The FCC has even said that volume is a personal preference and we should contact stations to inform them of the loudness. Oh, like that’s worked real well so far.

There Are TV’s Out There For This

In January of 2007, Dolby Laboratories, Inc. demonstrated Dolby Volume, an audio-processing technology that deals with the sounds we perceive and works to eliminate variability.

TV’s with this feature were supposed to start showing up on the shelves sometime in 2008. I haven’t followed that up enough to know if those TV’s are currently out there.

There Was Help On The Horizon

Representative Anna Eshoo, D-CA, presented a bill last June to regulate commercial volume. Eshoo is a member of the House Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet. The bill is the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act, aka CALM. There were 63 co-sponsors in the House of Representatives and two in the Senate.

This tells me that we definitely are not alone and the issue is obviously gaining enough ground in political arena’s to generate their focus. Albeit, good job Eshoo!

In her words about television commercials: “It really turns you off, makes you think, ‘I’ll be damned if I give them any of my money.’ “

Why Are TV Ads So Danged Loud?

Bruce Simmons — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 19:09:48 +0000

The other day someone was trying to tell me that TV commercials are much louder than the shows we watch, but I couldn’t hear them over the ad that was playing on the television at the time.

In fact, it’s not just on television any more. I was watching a Supernatural episode from the CW website and was assaulted with ads that were much louder than the show through my own computer – and that’s what got me going on today’s Screen Rant.

TV Commercials Are Too Loud, But Don’t Ask The TV Stations About It

Television commercial volumes (I’m using TV as my common reference) are too loud and without a doubt, we know it, but according to your local television station, they effectively insult us by telling us we are wrong.

Call a television station and ask why their commercials are louder, and they’ll tell you they are not louder, they just sound louder. WHAT? OK, so then these words are not bold, they just look bolder. Gimme a break. Our perceptions, and thus, the reality of the situation is that commercials are louder, regardless of what any techno wiz mouthpiece says and that’s that.

So How’s it So Loud If It Isn’t?

The reason we get “blasted” at commercial time is determined by how the audio levels are recorded when creating their ads. Affectively, the process is called dynamic range compression, or “compression” for short. Compression is applied to reduce sounds that get recorded over certain levels while the quieter sounds do not get reduced. In the process, the advertisers take liberal advantage of the mid range tones to exploit our senses, since those aren’t affected as much.

To sum it up, compression is used to increase the average level of sound, effectively making it louder.

The FCC does not regulate the volume of television programs and commercials, though it continually receives consumer complaints about broadcast sound levels and back in 1984 the FCC determined that there was no effective way to control loudness, so they have left us to our own devices and they do not regulate the volume for TV or the commercials we get assaulted by but there is some control in place since broadcasters are required to limit the peak power used to send out their signals.

The only impact that snippet has for us is that a TV commercial will never be any louder than the loudest part of any TV program. I guess that would suck for the advertisers if I were to find a show about grass growing but if we watch a show with lots of gunfire, the advertisers will languish in the affects and we’d be doomed to that level of volume for any ads we get.

So when I was blasted with the ads during Supernatural, it was the effect of all the salt filled shotguns going off that allowed the advertisers to blast me with their own salt, of sorts.

Is Anyone Out There Hearing Our Complaints?

The FCC says they do not regulate the volume of commercials. They go on to say that a commercial being too loud is a judgment call with each individual listener. The FCC says we should “contact the station involved, and identify each message of concern by the sponsor or product’s name and by the date and time of the broadcast.”

Yeah, that sounds useful… seeing how well THAT’s worked to date.

So who really is on Your side?

I am. I need to invent a TV remote that you leave pointed at the TV and it will adjust the volume accordingly, but until I invent that, who is on our side?

Even though advertisers are seemingly unaware that folks are abusing the mute buttons at ad time, Magnovox tried something that didn’t seem to pan out and Dolby has something new coming on the market.

According to the sales pitch (Which was probably louder than the show it was on with) Magnavox’s Smart Sound, which has been around since 1992, truly reduces the loudness of commercials. But various bulletin boards around the internet don’t seem to support that aspect one way or the other. My guess is since no one seems to jump out and say, “HEY, this works, buy it”, then it’s probably a perception more than a result.

But something new is coming at us:

Back in January of 2007, Dolby Laboratories, Inc. demonstrated Dolby Volume, an audio-processing technology designed to address the annoyances of inconsistent loudness in broadcast TV.

It models how we perceive (THANK YOU DOLBY!) audio to eliminate the variable loudness when changing channels or programs while still delivering a vibrant audio experience at low volume by dynamically compensating for the human ear’s lower sensitivity to bass and treble sounds.

In other words, it keeps the perceived aural spectral range consistent when the levels abruptly change; like when a loud commercial appears or the viewer changes channels.

See, someone does care … even if it took 20 years. According to press reports from last year, they said this product could start showing up on the shelves in late ‘07 to early ‘08.

Until then, we just keep pounding the remote ‘mute’ or volume keys, steadily draining the batteries in the conspiracy to make us buy more batteries for our remotes! (But that conspiracy is for another time.)

Sources: MSNBC, Associated Content, Dolby.com, SF Gate and thanks to
XO Wave for the image