The speech in movies is very low

cns00 · October 15, 2015, 2:28am

i recently bought wd tv pal (WDBPUF0000NBK). i know my question has been asked many times. i want to know if proper solution has been found

I connected wd tv to network switch and I connected my smart tv to network switch then I connected wd tv to smart tv with hdmi cable. i have sony bravia smart tv

If I play a movie by connecting external hard disk to smart tv and use media player of tv to watch movie or I connect laptop to smart tv with hdmi cable and I watch movie on smart tv then the audio in movie is normalized. I can hear the people speaking in the movie clearly when tv is on volume 20 to 30

I noticed that if I play movie on media player of wd tv then the people speaking is very low and I can’t understand what they say when tv is on volume 20 to 30. I have to raise volume of tv to 100 to be able to hear the people speak. Suddenly the sound effects of movie play and it becomes very loud so I have to lower the volume. The people start to speak so I again have to raise volume to 100

Here are links about the issue:-

I don’t know. I think the fault is from the wd tv firmware. It is screwing up dolby digital sounds and not normalizing them properly

There is setting in wd tv called “dynamic range control”. It was off. Yesterday I was watching a movie called gone girl. I had to make tv volume 100 to hear the people speak in some parts. I then turned on dynamic range control and set it to max as one of the links said. also my tv has option “sound enhance”. it was off. i turned it on. That improved the speech and I could clearly hear the people speak when tv volume is 50 to 70

Gone girl is a new movie so it uses the new dolby digital and it seems the firmware of wd tv is screwing it up. I then watched just go with it. it is an old movie so it uses the old dolby digital. The speech on it was perfect and I could clearly hear the people speak when tv volume was 20

What do I do? I need to be able to hear the speech perfectly in all movies regardless if they use old dolby digital or new dolby digital when tv volume is 20. Should I buy a sound bar and use speakers of sound system instead of tv speakers?

JoeySmyth · October 15, 2015, 5:27am

cns00 wrote: What do I do? I need to be able to hear the speech perfectly in all movies regardless if they use old dolby digital or new dolby digital when tv volume is 20. Should I buy a sound bar and use speakers of sound system instead of tv speakers?

Buy a 5.1 Surround System … mine has Volume Control levels for all speakers …

Adjust the volume level of the “Center” speaker which is where the “Speech” comes from.

(eg. my setup [rear surround speakers are behind my chair] … Left Front =7 / Right Front=7 / Center=10 / Left Rear=5 / Right Rear=5 / LFE~Subwoofer= 8)

note: this applies for all Dolby Digital Audio and DTS Audio movies i have

p.s. TV Speakers Audio is cr@p and bad at downmixing 5.1 channels to “Stereo” … invest in some / at least … “modestly priced” external audio equipment and enjoy heaps better audio

cns00 · October 15, 2015, 5:27am

thanks for your reply. around how much will it cost and what are some good ones?

i dont need something very advanced with many speakers. a few will do

as i said the fault is from the firmware of wd tv. take for example the movie 47 ronin. if i copy it on external hard disk then i connect hard disk to usb of my tv and i play it on media player of tv then the sound is perfect and normalized and the speech is clear when tv is on volume 20. same thing if i play 47 ronin on my laptop and connect laptop to tv by hdmi

i bought synology ds215j and put my movies on it. wd tv reads the movies from disk station and plays them on tv. when i watched 47 ronin using the wd tv media player i couldn’t understand the speech because it was quite low. i had to raise tv volume to 100 to understand the speech. setting the dynamic range control helped and made the speech understandable but it’s still not perfect

what exactly is going on? is the firmware of wd tv screwing up the speech of movies that use dolby 5.0 and dts? if i buy an external sound system then it will get the screwed up audio with low speech volume as input from the wd tv. will it fix the speech and out the speech with high volume? or will it just output the same screwed up audio with low speech volume?

JoeySmyth · October 15, 2015, 5:27am

one thing you haven’t said (so, i dunno if you’ve tried this or not)

Copy 47 Ronin to your external hard disk and then connect it to the USB on the WDTV (not the USB on your TV)

does that sound any different ?

I’m not blaming the Synology, but maybe it’s doing something funny behind the scenes … transcoding ?

anyways, try the above suggestion to eliminate the synology and test.

For an Audio System … at least 5 Speakers (Front Left, Front Right, Center, Surround Left, Surround Right) + 1 Subwoofer

Cost ? gOOgle

cns00 · October 15, 2015, 5:27am

it’s the same thing if i connect ext drive to wd tv or wd tv reads from my synlogogy. both are low. it is as i said: the firmware of wd tv is screwy

i just compared 47 ronin on my tv on volume level 24 by playing it on laptop connected to tv on one hdmi port and wd tv connected to tv on other hdmi port

the 47 ronin on laptop was much clearer and louder than the 47 ronin on wd tv

can u please do a small experiment for me? play a movie on your laptop by connecting laptop to your tv by hdmi and hear how it sounds on your sound system. next play that same movie and play that same part on your wd tv and hear how it sounds on your sound system

keep the same volume settings when u play on laptop and on wd tv. play a new movie that used dolby digital 5.0 or dts

compare how sound is on wd tv and on laptop. your sound system should output both with the same loud clear volume and not wd tv has lower volume than laptop

try it with old and new movies and tell me what u find

JoeySmyth · October 15, 2015, 5:27am

I don’t own a Laptop to “compare”

I have a WDTV Gen 1, WDTV Live, WDTV Live Hub, 2014 WDTV Media Player and just recently a Raspberry Pi 2

I dont use ANY of them via the TV Speakers … all are connected (via Optical [Toslink] to my Audio Receiver)

AC3 5.1 (Dolby Digital) and DTS 5.1 … perfect speech audio levels with all of them (old and new movies)

cns00 · October 15, 2015, 5:27am

how exactly did u connect your sound system?

did u connect it to your wd tv by using optical cables?

what is the sound system that u have? plz give me a link so i see what u have

JoeySmyth · August 16, 2019, 9:11pm

WDTV connected to TV via HDMI cable
WDTV connected to Teac DVD / Audio Amplifier Surround System via Optical [Toslink / SPDIF] cable
WDTV settings … Setup > Audio/Video Ouput > Audio Output > Digital Pass-Through via Optical

Super Simple Setup

Used this setup about 7-8 years ago with the WDTV Gen 1 … worked great then, still works great now with the latest WDTV

And, i must admit … i’ve been using a Raspberry Pi2 lately with this SAME setup

(had to buy a $20 HDMI to Optical convertor * because the Pi doesent have Optical) but … it work’s fantastic !

(same deal with RPi2/Kodi “Settings” … you have to enable “5.1 Pass-Through” )

*

here’s a nicer pic of my RPi2 case (which i really like)

cns00 · October 15, 2015, 5:27am

nice

i want to ask u must the surround sound system be 5.1 to solve the problem?

there is surround sound 2.1 setup. will this work?

or it must be minimum surround sound 5.1?

JoeySmyth · October 15, 2015, 5:27am

if you want a 2.1 setup then use your TV … (5.1 is the ‘recommended’ setting for Surround Sound)

anyways … remembered i had an Asus Notebook with HDMI to compare

Here’s a 6 Ch (5.1) test file which i use as a ‘reference’ to make sure all speakers are working (and to adust vol levels)

http://www.mediafire.com/download/6aackx4lrnwd0on/5.1+DolbyDigital+Test+Tool.mkv

I used the same file on the Asus Notebook and WDTV … now the Asus Notebook in the video below , yes the “overall” volume is louder … because the notebook has it’s own volume control

But the video demonstrates that all channels (ignore the sub ch) are working at the same volume level connected only to the TV

http://www.mediafire.com/download/owwafcy5y3llw1t/AudioTest.mkv

Now, if your 47 Ronin movie (and/or others) have very low ‘speech’ [the Center Channel] then it’s the way the file was encoded …

Now that i recall, i remember giving the folks a couple of movies to watch (they only have a TV) … i remember them complaining that one of them had very low speech … so i had to re-encode the audio gain and boost the vol level.

Personally, i’ve had some movies where i could barely hear anything from the Rear Speakers … so i use the test file to check if they are working … if they are, then my setup is ok and it’s the movie file

The only way to individually adjust volume levels is by using an external Audio Receiver

cns00 · October 15, 2015, 5:27am

you said

JoeySmyth wrote:

I used the same file on the Asus Notebook and WDTV … now the Asus Notebook in the video below , yes the “overall” volume is louder … because the notebook has it’s own volume control

when i connect my laptop to tv by hdmi i cant use volume control of laptop anymore. i have to use volume control of tv

you also said

JoeySmyth wrote:

Now, if your 47 Ronin movie (and/or others) have very low ‘speech’ [the Center Channel] then it’s the way the file was encoded …

no. it’s not about how sound audio is encoded. i told you i played the same part in the same movie using 2 different sources on my tv speakers. when i played it from my laptop the sound on tv speakers was perfect. when i played it from wd tv on tv speakers then the sound was lower

i noticed that the overall volume is lower when i play movie from wd tv. playing a movie on tv volume 30 from laptop is much louder than playing same movie on tv volume 30 from wd tv. that is only for the new movies that use the new dolby

what if i buy a soundbar like http://i.i.cbsi.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim//2010/04/02/KEF_HTF8003.jpg and use it? will that normalize the sound coming from the wd tv and fix it?

JoeySmyth · October 15, 2015, 5:27am

cns00 wrote:

when i connect my laptop to tv by hdmi i cant use volume control of laptop anymore. i have to use volume control of tv

really ? i can still control the volume level on the Asus Notebook (running WIn7) connected via HDMI to the TV

I have no idea if a “Soundbar” will solve Your problem.

a friend of mine has a Samsung Soundbar, and ‘speech’ sounded fine with his WDTV

personally though, i thought the overall ‘sound’ from the Soundbar lacked the dynamics of a dedicated 5.1 Surround Audio Receiver

anyways, i’ve run out of suggestions and ideas … good luck

cns00 · October 15, 2015, 5:27am

you have been very helpful thanks

i will ask around in shops and tell u what happens

cns00 · October 15, 2015, 5:27am

i went to an electronics shop. i told them my problem. they told me to get my wd tv and try it there before i buy anything. i said ok. i went there today

first i showed them 47 ronin playing on my laptop which was connected to smart tv and then i showed them 47 ronin playing on wd tv. they saw how i had to raise volume to 100 to hear ok

they then got a sound bar and tried it. it didnt work. the sound bar outputted the same messed up volume and i had to raise volume to 100 to hear ok

after that they tested wd tv on a home theater system with surround sound. the sound quality was better and no need to raise it to max

i bought http://www.lg.com/hk_en/home-theater-systems/lg-BH9540TW. on monday they will come and install it