Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcvax!ukc!dcl-cs!nott-cs!pyr1.cs.ucl.ac.uk!william
From: william@pyr1.cs.ucl.ac.uk
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Re: VCR comercial eliminator
Message-ID: <44000023@pyr1.cs.ucl.ac.uk>
Date: 2 Sep 88 13:55:00 GMT
References: <257@ivucsb.UUCP>
Lines: 26
Nf-ID: #R:ivucsb.UUCP:-25700:pyr1.cs.ucl.ac.uk:44000023:000:1391
Nf-From: pyr1.cs.ucl.ac.uk!william    Sep  2 13:55:00 1988


Something I would like to see marketted is a device that you can
plug into the speaker circuit that will normalise the output volume.
If I am watching a film late at night, nothing annoys me more than 
having to constantly tweek the volume down when ads and screams come
on, and then having to bump it up to hear all the low volume whispering
that goes on the rest of the time.  The film "Poltergeist", which was
shown over here late one evening, was virtually unwatchable for people
who have to be careful of overloud volumes at night.

I reckon that it should be fairly easy to devise something that can
maintain a constant average volume over, say 3 to 5 seconds, and throw
in a maximum amplification level so that it doesn't try to boost up
complete silence.  I would be interested to know if anyone has tried
this sort of thing, because I don't know how irritating the effect
would be.  I would imagine that a "slew rate" of "normalised volume
in 5 seconds" would be pretty unnoticable.  It is really just a kind
of high pass filter!

			... Bill

************************************************************************
Bill Witts, CS Dept.     *    Nel Mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
UCL, London, Errrp       *    mi ritrovai per una selva oscura
william@uk.ac.ucl.cs(UK) *    che la diritta via era smarrita.
william@cs.ucl.ac.uk(US) ***********************************************