PC speaker/headphone properties settings affecting online video playback?

[jthabel]

Hi all,

I've recently uploaded a short narrative project to Vimeo for various film fest submissions. Sent the private link to one of my buddies a while back and he told me the sound mix seemed off ... music getting loud in some spots, sound FX low in others, etc. After some poking around, I discovered that that the issue had to do with enhancement settings on his PC's speaker/headphone properties. He unchecked the "loudness equalization" and I think the "immediate mode" under his speaker/headphone properties on his PC and the issue went away. These settings were unchecked on my PC whenever I created my sound mix in Premiere. What nags me, though, is whether or not this will be a persistent issue with other people who watch the vid. Is this a common problem any of you have seen when uploading or watching a vid online (or anywhere else) with your PC? Or is this something I screwed up and need to address in my sound mix? Thanks.

 

[Rick R]

Unfortunately we can't control the end listener's playback device, which may have be all screwed up with a 'synthesized surround', 'wide' or some kind of bizarre EQ preset or processing. Test mixes on multiple speakers before finalizing and stay away from multi-track formats for the web and mix mono or a narrow stereo sound field... same goes for film festivals.. unless you can audition the playback prior.

 

[Andrius Simutis]

Absolutely a pet peeve of mine! So many setups default to the worst settings. Apple DVD Player leaves Dolby Dynamic Range Compression on by default. What does it do? It drops the volume AFTER a loud noise for a couple seconds. Music is playing, door slams, then the volume drops so you can't hear what the dialogue is and you can tell it's doing it because of the music volume drop. Aaaaargh! Number one complaint from clients checking their DVDs.

 

[jthabel]

Yeah, I always play back my audio output on a few different speaker systems, TVs, etc before saying it's done. It's funny how some sounds will be louder on some speakers -- especially TV speakers -- than on others. It can be tough finding a sweet spot. Not sure if it's something that happens universally, but I've also discovered that whenever there's a driver update to my RealTek sound device in Windows 10, it automatically sets the default enhancement options so that "loudness equalization" is on. Pain in the butt.

 

[Noiz2]

Don't know if this will make you feel better but it happens to big films also. A friend and I worked on a film with a decent budget, mixed in Dolby Digital at a studio and went to a theatre to see it with an audience and they were playing it in mono! We asked, because the theatre listed it as being DD and they said that is how they come sometimes... Which is total BS their playback was screwed up and they didn't want to admit it. We got our money back. I have also seen other films I have worked on in stereo, when they were mixed in DD and one place where the surrounds were blown so they turned them way down.

Once it leaves your hands you have no control.

Actually trivia related. The reason many theatres switched to stereo was because George Lucas wouldn't let them play Empire Strikes Back till they had been certified for stereo playback. He also set up a company to help pay/ loan money to theatres to make the upgrade.