The pupose of this is to improve the way the feature is presented, by allowing projectionists to raise their faders up to, or near to, the recommended settings. Previously, excessive trailer volume had caused projectionists to lower the faders and rarely were they raised back up for the feature.

I have two questions, if anyone cares to respond:

1) Are your faders going back up? Has the TASA committee's work in lowering the upper volume limit of domestic trailers helped?

2) Now that Trailers are down to 85 dB, are the Screen Adds and Policy reels still at the point that trailers were at 2 years ago? In other words, are the Screen Adds and Policy reels ruining the progress TASA is making with Trailers?

If you have experienced any Screen Adds and / or Policy reels that are significantly louder than the trailers they are playing with, and you can tell me the "name of the product", a brief description of the piece in question, the theatre showing the piece, and the feature it was playing prior to... You can e-mail me directly if you have all that information, or mention it here at Fabulous Film-Tech. The info I get here is invaluable... and damn it, I put it to good use. Really.

Thank you in advance.

THXfully Yours,

 |  IP: Logged

My complaints with trailer loudness in general goes to the optical analog track in particular. I have seen some trailers in the past where the analog track is loud to the point of being very edgy and shrill. I can only guess the advertisers are pulling the same stunts that people in TV commercial advertising do --blast you out during the commercials.

I have noticed some improvements with regard to movie trailers being played back in digital sound. In the past few months it seems their level of loudness is more on par with the average volume level of the film playing.

Hopefully this problem with trailer loudness will get cleared up completely. I've been to more than a few theaters where master fader settings were dropped down to really low levels thanks to loud trailers and spot ads. If the fader is not up to a good point, the movie just has a wimpy quality in the sound department and will have more people "waiting for the DVD" to where they can crank it up properly on their home theater systems.

John F. Allen wrote somewhere that if you want to get an audience's attention, play the ad a little softer, as opposed to louder. I've tried it and he is absolutely correct! When I go into an auditorium with a lot of people that are chatting and the show starts with loud trailers, people keep talking! When the trailers are at a lower volume, everyone turns around and starts watching the show. Isn't the entire point here for the customers to watch and pay attention to the previews and ads? The trick works!

Seriously Ted, get the TASA committee into a properly calibrated auditorium where the feature plays properly at 7.0 and run some trailers at 3.5 for them. Maybe that will make them understand that a db here and a db there just doesn't matter. The sound mixers of these trailers know all too well on how to compress the sound and sweeten it so that it sounds louder regardless of what any meter says. 75db is a must and is perfect.

I don't think that have trailers at the same level of the feature is a good conquest.
Do you really want to play trailers at the same level of "Godzilla"??
I think that peole wants to chat and find their seat without going crazy with Dolby!!
Brad, I also play policy at 3.5 and film trailers at 4.0. Feature stay at 6.3/6.5 (reference level for my theater is 6.3, not 7.0 for tech problems!!).
This because my automation allow this.
Before that I discovered that people went out claiming for volume level...

I know that many theaters plays trailer in MONO to have a reasonable level.

And, having the Dolby Digital "broadway" trailer at 6.3 after 10 minutes of 3.5 policy and 15 seconds of black leader (for chenge lenses and/or make a little stop before feature) has a different result!!!

Two reasons for this, IMHO:

1. To help make so trailers and ads don't play so loud.
   
2. To combat against kids who like to turn the fader up after I leave the site.
   

In the past I have noted that the volume of trailers hasn't been as loud but I think it has tapered off. Still too loud but better than it was. I think they could go down a bit more.

I'd say they need to go down another 3 dB. That's the minimum difference that your average person can notice without having to "try". People CAN tell the difference between 1dB but only if they are listening closely enough. If you are trying to convey a message (that you are doing something to solve this problem) you should change things so that people will notice the difference without having to be told.

 |  IP: Logged

John,
I have been told that if you set up your B chain, as mentioned above, and get the best A chain set up on your scope possable. Then all you have to worry about is making sure that your DTS unit is outputting 250mv for each channel. Setting the actuale preasure levels off of source disc can actualy throw things off I have been told.

86dB for surrounds?
79dB for subwoofer?

I know 82dB for split surrounds (to have 85 when together) and 91 for Subwoofer.

Is it correct?