Comments on: Loud TV Commercial Volume Has A New Enemy

By: MarK

MarK — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 00:43:48 +0000

All tv commercial are crap and don’t make sense.
should boycott whatever they are adverting.
Commercial are a total B.S.

By: Emmett

Emmett — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 21:53:34 +0000

I totally agree with you, I live in a board and care facility and like to watch my televison in my room after most of the others have gone to sleep in their rooms around mine. Well if the TV program is at a level and my TV’s volume is set so I can hear it but not folks out side my room, when the commercials come on so loud they wake up the others. If I use a set of headphones to listen then when a commercial comes on my ears get blasted. All the networks are telling me is that they want to make the $$ from the advertisers and to heck with us and our wants or needs beyond supplying a program in between the $$commercials.

By: E. L. Sanborn

E. L. Sanborn — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 17:40:23 +0000

Pls notify me of followup comments via e-mail.
Thank you!

By: E. L. Sanborn

E. L. Sanborn — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 17:39:03 +0000

I am middle aged. I have always lived in single-family houses – until recently. I moved into an apartment complex, believing my life would be simplified. The first time I sat to enjoy some tv, I adjusted the volume level of my program to respect the comfort of neighboring tenants. All was relaxing and enjoyable UNTIL the first commercial. The volume was
so loud, it made me jump! Quickly I had to scramble for the remote to
silence the UNINVITED BOOMING NOISE! Irritating! Irrational! Irreverent! Wealthy backers spawning these “Noise Problems” (aka commercials) must understand that instead of winning-over the paying-public to their product(s), they are actually inflicting personal injury.
Definition of “INJURY:” Any permanent or semi-permenant disturbance or damage of structure or function of any part of the body caused by an external agency. Such agency may be mechanical, thermal, electrical, chemical or radiational.

By: Karl

Karl — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 20:09:25 +0000

I hate all commercial, if not even more the LOUD ones. I measured the sound commercials for car dealerships in decibles (sorry if I can’t spell)
and it ranked at really loud! ( I can’t remeber the decible level ). hopefully the law will pass soon.

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 05:08:30 +0000

Add me to the list of Loud Commercial Haters. Number one on my list is “Magic Jack”

As a hobby I call their 1800 numbers during the commercials and scream at their sales people. I doubt it makes a difference but if everyone did it, it might;)

By: Mike

Mike — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 22:08:30 +0000

Add me to the list of Loud Commercial Haters. Number one on my list is “Magic Jack”

As a hobby I call their 1800 numbers during the commercials and scream at their sales people. I doubt it makes a difference but if everyone did it, it might;)

By: Katy

Katy — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 15:21:18 +0000

I absolutely agree. I thought legislation had been passed and that we would enjoy the change effective 1/1/10 or soon thereafter. Frustrating!

By: John Lough

John Lough — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 13:51:56 +0000

Finally someone who understands

By: New Year Resolutions for the Rest of You | Baby Boomer Going Like Sixty

New Year Resolutions for the Rest of You | Baby Boomer Going Like Sixty — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 17:58:00 +0000

[...] make commercials the same volume level as programming. [...]

By: Bruce Simmons (Brusimm)

Bruce Simmons (Brusimm) — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 14:49:26 +0000

I hear ya Mike Lowe. I used to own a VCR that noted commercials and during playback would automatically fast forward through the commercials. Sigh.

By: Mike Lowe

Mike Lowe — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 07:44:56 +0000

I purchased a Mitsubishi TV almost 20 years ago that had a volume maximized control in the setup options. Unfortunately, that was the only TV set that I have ever seen that had this option. The GOOD OLD Days, I now know what that phrase means!

By: Sam

Sam — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 03:29:06 +0000

You bet I agree, TV commercials are so loud and it’s made me furious for years. I TiVo everything whenever possible and forward through commercials because of that reason. I feel as though I am being screamed at – which is not the way to sell me something. If I’m forced to watch TV, I immediately hit mute when commercials begin.
“An ad can’t be any louder than the loudest part of the television program it’s being played in.” .. That is interesting and explains everything. So if there’s one scene with loud action, yelling, dramatic music etc., the commerical can be as loud as that moment.
To any of you, such as Michael at SRS, I would welcome any technology that adresses this. I would pay $100-200 more for a TV which allowed me to pre-set the volume of commercials or a similar solution. I would pay $50-100 for a device to plug into an existing TV. However, I feel any attempt to regulate commercial volume would be met by unbelievable oppostion and pressure by the multi-million dollar commercial industry.
I’m glad the issue is on someone’s radar though!

By: jeremy

jeremy — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 01:07:29 +0000

so your saying that if we do something like buy the dvd ans those sales are to good then we will have to watch comercials there. this has to be a joke i understand that the economy is bad and what not but if they want to make it better maybe they should stop hounding us to buy things that are just flat out crap this goes for the movie industry the tv industry and most importantly the goverment industry cuse man you want to get feed a bunch of crap just look at our goverment.

By: Traxiz

Traxiz — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 22:39:24 +0000

There are commercials during shows?!?

By: Bruce Simmons

Bruce Simmons — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 21:14:47 +0000

Mike, sometimes you have to because the commercials are sometimes better than the show you think you turned on.

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 19:52:30 +0000

You guys watch commercials? I have DVR, I haven’t watched a commercial in years.

By: Bruce Simmons

Bruce Simmons — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 19:02:18 +0000

Michael… thanks for chiming that in. Your technology was one of 2 noted that is looking at defeating this issue, along with TV sets equipped with DOLBY’s Volume.

The sad part is that there are only 2 viable options out there for such a prevalent issue right now… besides the remote in your hand and speaking with your wallet and buying DVD’s instead.

A PREDICTION: I haven’t seen it yet, but I’m willing to bet that someday, if DVD sales take over cable subscriptions, that we’ll see ads on DVD shows. Someday… egads, ads are in places now you’d never think of 10-15 years ago.

OK, I depressed myself with that one!

By: Michael @ SRS

Michael @ SRS — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 18:29:19 +0000

I work for a company called SRS Labs, and we are so annoyed by loud commercials that we created a technology called TruVolume that is now being built-in to several new TVs, it automatically regulates TV volume and maintains a steady and consistent listening level regardless of the content. This technology works, and it works well. In fact so many people have expressed interest in this technology that we’ve announced that we will be building a device that will plug into existing TVs that does the same thing.

The Calm act is a great start, and i think its fantastic that its bringing attention to this common annoyance, however, there are limitations to what this legislation could fix. It won’t fix volume fluctuations between channels, it won’t regulate volume of internet / streaming content, it can’t regulate the volume fluctuations on DVDs… the problem will continue to exist. The only true remedy is having SRS TruVolume built-into your TV, set-top-box or having the SRS MyVolume Adaptor.

Learn more at the SRS Web site at http://www.srslabs.com.

By: Andy S

Andy S — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 18:26:04 +0000

I’m finding that I tend to DVR more of my favorite shows and skip the commercials.

As for Congress “not having time for this issue” well that is complete and utter BS. If Congress can find the time and resources to examine whether college football should have a playoff system because some senator’s team in Utah didn’t get a bowl bid, then they have time for this.