Why Are You Yelling At Me!

Maybe I’m the only person annoyed by announcers screaming at me.  I don’t think that’s the case but I don’t hear anyone complaining.  It makes me wonder if this is just an age thing.  I wouldn’t think so, I mean, among millennials, parents yelling could be considered child abuse so that demo must be attuned to yelling and its ill effects.

There was a time (What?  You want “once upon a time”? “It was a dark and stormy night?”) when announcers were trained to speak with their audience(s).  The thinking was that he/she was a guest in the home of the viewer and that he/she should be conversational – talking like a friend.

I can recall live commercials in all sorts of shows from Ed Sullivan to Milton Berle to Playhouse 90 and GE Theater.  In those commercials, the announcers actually did behave like friends.  You can go back and search for “cast commercials” to watch a few.

The best example I can find is an episode of GE Theater where Don Herbert, aka Mr. Wizard, is doing a sort of commercial demonstrating the development of General Electric jet engines.  Even through the noise, Herbert is conversational in nature, talking with the viewer instead of at us. You felt like he was a friend.

https://archive.org/details/GeneralElectricTheaterCommitted
(16:10 In)

Fast forward to today and what the heck happened?  Was it Billy Mays?  Did his screaming/yelping so bake his infomercials into viewers’ minds that standing out by being annoying became a requirement for any commercial?

Was it that the commercial had to be louder than anything around it?  There’s a lot to that.  And, of course, that led to The CALM act – legislation against the laws of physics and psychoacoustics.

Here’s the funny thing – it’s possible to yell softly.  I’m talking about the type of yelling where the talent speaks in an overly loud manner then his/her level is controlled so that it’s within FCC modulation limits If the level is controlled, how do we know that someone is yelling?¹   Without going into great detail, the larynx develops different levels and ratios of fundamental and harmonic tones depending on the amount of air being pushed past.  It’s the same as overblowing a horn The harmonics can get heavy and rough so that yelling gives a far different takeaway to the viewer than normal conversation.

Bottom line, yelling often makes the listener think you are angry at him/her.  And that said, why would I want to make someone angry while I’m telling him/her something I want to be believed? 
I want to take this one step further.  I sense this type of delivery in other “to-camera” presentations, too.  Newscasters.  Standups.  Sportscasters.  Sportscasters.  And did I say sportscasters?

I have a theory about why.  At one time, television worked with some pretty wide lenses.  (I saw that eyebrow go up…but hang with me.)  We did it for a number of reasons, not the least of which was the dolly.  A move on a long lens often put shake in the image as the pedestal rolled across the floor.  That meant using wider lenses so the cameras could make hot dollies.

Enter the zoom lens.  Dolly is out, zoom is in.  Why should they dolly?²  Instead, the cameras are parked – sometimes even locked off – in positions that produce a pleasing perspective, reduce the chance of shooting off the set, keep the cameras at a distance that would allow equipment and cables to pass in front, lessen the visible motion of the presenter’s eyes when reading a prompter, and otherwise satisfy the set designer’s vision.

If you look at some of the productions, it’s obvious that the camera is back and zoomed in for the proper framing rather than set up close and zoomed back.³  It’s usually a pretty long distance.  So, what happens?  The presenter is imagining that he/she is talking to someone 15 or more feet away.  That presenter doesn’t think about that lapel/lav/boom mic that’s, at most, a couple of feet away, tucked nicely out of frame.

The psychological effect on the presenter is that he/she tries to do his/her best to communicate to that imaginary viewer behind the lens – a long distance away.  The voice becomes strident and loud and becomes unfriendly.  Friendly or not, it’s not the least bit inviting.

If you want to prove it to yourself, first look at dramatic dialog and commercial breaks with the CALM Act in place.  When two actors are a foot apart, talking to one another, the voice characteristics are such that the laws of congress get blown away by the laws of physics.  If, by chance, the segue to a commercial break is to a standup presenter,that presenter will sound louder, dialnorm, BS1770, be damned.

If you listen to that same commercial running in a newscast, the level is probably indistinguishable from the preceding presenter’s delivery.  Go figure, eh?

What to do about it?  Well we could do nothing.  I mean, who cares how people feel about a presenter or product on a subliminal level?  We could keep in mind camera distance and work with presenters – of which there are many more and most with little real education about audio – to get them to talk in a more conversational tone.  Talking more conversationally won’t lower the station’s modulation level; you’ll still be as loud as before but with a smile rather than a frown.  It might even move an additional 2012 Honda Civic off the lot or attract a couple more viewers to a newscast. 
Just sayin’.

 ¹ https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/05/140506094441.htm

² If you don’t know the difference between a zoom and dolly, check this   https://youtu.be/AKOxbCx1LNc

³If you start with that “perspective distortion of wide lenses", we’re going to get into it.

Stay Calm, Take Your Drugs, and Do Parodies Right

Let’s pass a law to regulate physics.  Oh wait, we already did.  I wrote about it in 2012, the passage of The CALM ACT. If you want to call it by its full name, that’d be Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act.  This was Congress’ response to complaints to them and to the FCC about commercials being “too loud.”  You can read the act and my earlier blog for more but the bottom line is that this is another great example of congress pandering to its constituents rather than explaining to them how sound “works,” how ears “work,” and that some things can’t be mitigated

Well, it’s 5 years later and, guess what?  It isn’t working.  Millions of dollars of equipment was installed to manage sound levels of commercials while TV viewers thought that engineers were purposely “cranking up the gain” on the sound during commercial breaks.  Note that it doesn’t address sound levels in programming.

When I say it isn’t working, I mean that you can still hear plenty of excessive loudness in commercials – yes, even with everything in place.  So, what’s the deal?  Well, the first is the finger pointing.  With about 18 percent of Americans watching television over the air, it’s hard to deal with the other 82 percent who view via cable, satellite or other delivery systems.  Stations blame networks and cable carriers. Networks blame stations and cable and all the rest of the permutations that go along with it.

I have confirmation from two cable systems and one satellite service that they have all of the equipment in place.  Also have confirmation from 2 Chicago stations.  But the deal is that you are deemed compliant if you have the equipment installed.  That’s it.  Can a station get fined if they ignore the rule?  Only if they don’t have the gear.  If they do, it may be misadjusted.  And who’s to say what’s “louder?”

The whole thing ties back to “dialnorm” which originated in the Dolby laboratories.  It evolved to ATSC A/85 here.  Europe’s involvement got it to the ITU as BS.1770.  If you’re having trouble sleeping, check out the latest version here.  The craziness in all of this is that if you complain, the commission will send a letter to the station.  The station can then reply with, “Our equipment is in place and operating.  We adhere to algorithm (insert your favorite here) and that algorithm was in use while processing the signal at that time.  Our operator deemed that the audio from Dan’s Used Cars and Aquarium Supplies was within the prescribed limits.  That’s it.  They’re right; you’re wrong.

Now what brought all that up was a series of spots I heard more than once.  I think you’re familiar with the practice now – buying spots that bookend a break (first and last commercial in a pod).  One, for a soft drink is particularly annoying in the first place but it’s clearly in violation of the CALM act, at least psychoacoustically.  And they bought positions 1 and 6 (may be 1 and 8 or 9 in some breaks) just to bug me.  You say, “Buck up.”  Yeah, you’re right.  But again, the point is, you can legislate against the laws of physics but they don’t have to follow your legislation.

On to topic two.  Europe may have gotten something right with their rules for advertising pharmaceuticals over the air.  By and large, it is severely limited.  The thinking is that doctors should know what is good for you.  You, however, can’t process all of the information necessary to choose a particular drug or treatment.

Our FDA decided in 1997 that people should know about what’s out there.  OK, I get that.  But many drugs have scores of side effects that have to be managed.  Yet, big pharma can get folks really revved up about results that might be attained when using an advertised drug.

Courtesy, venividivelo.com

The latest I saw pictured a man, woman and child riding bikes down a lane then through a covered bridge and to a picnic gathering in a field.  The audio went something like,

Anncr: (VO) Troubled by fast-growing nose hair?  Yamusbenuts finally brings relief.  Bill and Janie both suffer from it but are now leading almost normal lives with one daily dose of Yamusbenuts. 

Anncr Voice 2 Interrupts (VO) Yamusbenuts has had limited human tests.  There is no certainty that your case of nose hair will respond to Yamusbenuts.  Yamusbenuts has been found to cause loss of hearing, sight or taste.  Some test subjects have lost sense of touch.  Some have died for over 3 months.  Hangnails and difficult breathing are common.  Do not eat bread or calamari or breaded calamari while taking Yamusbenuts.  If you are pregnant or plan to become pregnant, ask your doctor before taking Yamusbenuts as your unborn child may be born with extended nose hair.  Your neighbor may develop poor driving habits from your use of Yamusbenuts.  Do not pet sheep or goats.  Always take Yamusbenuts on a full stomach.  

And, of course, as the music swells, mom, dad and child are handed food-filled paper plates.  They smile, nose hair-free while a super pops on, "See our Ad in Barbershop Monthly"

Seriously guys.  10 second description and 50 to 110 seconds of disclaimers?  Cut it out.

And that brings me to the last item on today’s agenda:  Parody music.  Let me say it succinctly, if you don’t know how to do it, don’t do it.  You look like idiots. That includes writing lyrics that don’t fit the rhythm of the original song exactly.  Can’t do that?  Get a different song (or get a different job).  Addition of notes or changes in the melody?  If you have to do that, it's, again, the wrong song.  Either pay the rights fee, find something that’s public domain, or do something that’s far enough away that it hints at the original without trying to imitate it.  And on a related item, the phone “rhythm” is the US is XXX-XXX-XXXX.  It’s not XX-XXXX-XXXX.  It’s not XXXX-XX-XXX-X.  Just sayin’.  But Kevin James says it better.

Nits and Brickbats

Here’s a little collection of those tiny things that just bother me.  In the big picture, all is well.  I’m having fun.  But, again, sometimes you just get frustrated by the little things – the toothpaste caps in your life.

Help desks.  Phone “help desk” service that makes you enter your account and other relevant information to get to a live person only to have them ask for your account number and other relevant information.

Lower-third promos that never disappear and ruin a low-key scene.  As Kelly rolls on the bed with her new spouse, whispering sweet nothings and a confession to a murder in a barely visible scene, I really don't want to see a "Kong vs Zork" promo flying around in the lower third at full brightness.

Ads that take control of my device.  Site hosts and app makers:  You're on notice.  I'm fed up with a page that takes over my tablet and does not allow control of it until the ad has played completely.  That is just plain wrong.  Sure.  Play the ad.  But when I "X" it out or tap the "Back" icon or the "Home" icon, my device should be able to head there instantly.  Yeah.  You gotta make money...but it's MY machine.  I'm allowing you in. 

If I open my front door and invite you into my home, would you go raid the refrigerator without asking?  You know what, I bet you would.  But while you had the door open, if I told you to stop, would you at least do that?  If my good ole "TV" wouldn't allow me to change channels until a commercial had played, it'd have a 10½D right through it.  So...cut it out.  Oh, and when I "X" out a screen, it should close out right then and there.  And it shouldn't launch another page with another X; it should just close out.

Professionalism on the air.  I've had a long-running bet with myself.  Just seeing how long it will be before a radio newscaster makes it through an entire newscast without an error...even a 5 minute one (which is about two-and-a-half without commercials)  Since I entered into this self-wager a few months ago, I've listened to scores of newscasts on at least 20 different stations.  I've heard blundered words, wrong pronunciations, wrong actualities and the terms, "make that," "rather," "that should be," and "let me try that again" a multitude of times.  Not one has made it through without a mistake. 

All I can figure is the good ones left for the mountains to look for John Galt.  Note to the rest of you: c'mon.  No on-the-fly (we used to call it rip and read) casts. For the short length of most newscasts, you can read the thing at five-of and play it out straight up.  And if you flub, then go live.  Wait.  Are you already doing that?  Then you need to be in another business.

Long running scripts.  It's kind of funny.  With early computers, RAM and storage were at a premium.  Coders wrote tight, compact code.  You can make a lot happen with a few lines.  Then everything began growing - processing power and speed, available RAM and memory storage.  Along with that came demand for more features.  That took more coders.  But look at the landscape - more coders, like more MLB teams means the average coder (player) isn't as good as the average coder of earlier years.  Combine that with cheaper RAM and storage and you get bloated code. 

Same thing happened to smartphones.  Apps of 9 or 10k back in the buggy whip days.  Now a 50MB app is no big deal.    And what's that have to do with long running scripts?  Well, the same thing happened with bandwidth.  Sorta like widening a road.  Make the trip twice as fast and people will move twice as far away.  With broad bandwidth, page scripters (or their marketing bosses) feel it's OK to stuff everything down the Internet pipe that will fit, and then some.  So a JavaScript or other piece of bloatware gets sent down with the page request.  And, if that's not bad enough, the page won't finish loading till they deliver that wondrous piece of commercial information, whatever it is.  Cut it out.

The CALM  Act.   Note to Congress, the commission, the private corporations and stations involved in passage of - and enforcement of - the CALM act.  Do you think you've made things better?  The problem is still there.  So is it A.) Faulty algorithms, B.) Improper deployment and operation of the audio management hardware and software, C.) A bad idea because, once again, laws of physics don't take into account the human mind where, in this case, psychoacoustics plays games.  Regardless, I’m still cranking audio levels up and down.  More on the CALM Act here.

Another political thought:

Donald Trump is taking a lot of heat from the media while, at the same time, delighting many of his followers.  It's shaping up as a real mess for the 2020 election.  However, there is one thing that he could do to ensure his re-election:

DONALD TRUMP

Good morning, ladies, gentlemen, other.  I'll make this short. 

This morning at four AM, the FBI, under the direction of the Justice Department arrested Heather and Rachael from Credit Card Services. 

They have been transported to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba where they are being held without bail, charged with 450 million counts of violation of the do-not-call regulations and the same number of attempts to defraud


Followup, 08/04/17:  The FCC is on the move.  They haven't found Heather or Rachael but this particular fine may wake some people up.  https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-346059A1.pdf

Everyone! Stay CALM! I'm in charge here. - Alexander Haig

The CALM Act. 

 

I really didn’t think I’d see a lot about it but it seems the CALM act is everywhere. Yes, today’s the deadline for implementation and, no doubt, tomorrow the Notices of Apparent Liability will start flying.

 

I’ll be up-front with you:  I’ve written about this before and about the futility of passing laws about anything that starts with “psycho”, in this case, psychoacoustics, especially when trying to rely on machines to control the outcome.  Might as well outlaw a disease; in a similar vein, it doesn’t matter since physics behaves as it does and doesn’t pay much attention to congress.

 

More on that later.  I want to discuss this little thing called compliance.  You see, not only must stations comply with the rules, they must document their compliance.  A number of operations maintain programming for 90 days after airing.  Others, as much as 2 years.

 

The 90 days is the minimum retention period and during that time, the station must be able to provide any segment of the broadcast day to an inspector or government representative should they request it.

 

That means that if a viewer challenges a telecast – maybe he/she heard a commercial that was too loud – the commission can come back and say, “Give us 5 minutes on either side of the commercial and the commercial, itself.  Oh, and send the log of the dialnorm on the audio.”  Huh?  Yep.  You have to be able to step up and provide the data/metadata that supports your claim that you were legal at the time.

 

Stations are keeping the logs for longer and longer periods because of the possibility of complaint.  But wait, there’s more.  It’s not just CALM compliance.  It’s everything else.  Closed captioning?  You don’t want to be challenged.  Political ads?  Same thing.  Contests and all else, too.  You really want to be able to pull up the goods, send ‘em off to the commission with a note like, “See?!”

 

That’s a “fur piece” as Bob Shreve used to say on the SchoenlingAll-Night Theater, from the old audio or VHS loggers.  It requires much more.  And, son of a gun, there are a couple of devices out there that’ll do it and more.

 

Last nite, a bunch of us got the inside scoop from Ken Dillard at Digital Nirvana, Inc.  Now I don’t know how they decided on that name – maybe it means somebody with all 1’s on their bank account number.  That aside, these guys make the Monitor IQ box.  Yes, there are others out there.   This box is particularly intriguing.  It can do it all.  And more.  Ken explained how it integrates with sales, programming, legal, and engineering.  First, you can watch all the stations in the market.  Then, as it archives, you can pull up any segment and look at it – content, captioning, CALM, and (in metered markets) ratings.  

 

You have to think about watching a sportscast running against other stations in the market and easily spotting what keeps folks around and what drives them away…overnight.  This is not a cheap box, but given all the new rules and the fines that can be incurred, it’s cheap insurance.

 

And now for my favorite topic:  the audio, itself.  Let’s all pick dialnorm -24.  Cool.  Our processors are going to take everything to -24.  That’s cool, too, but, first do they really know what’s going on around them?  When Martha and John are whispering sweet nothings on the porch swing, should the processing really take the following commercial down to that level?  As it brings it up, it creates a different mood.  Is that OK with the advertiser?  How does it change the spot?  And what happens to the louder one after it?  Oh, and did I pay for a particular level of modulation when I bought the commercial time?

 

Let’s go farther.  What if (as I’ve written about before) the mix has an overabundance of highs or lows?  What are you going to do?  The system says dialog is the benchmark.  Well,  just the simplest look at an oscilloscope while listening to dialog tells you that there isn’t a 1:1 relationship between the actual power in a piece of audio and the apparent loudness.  But that’s exactly what we’re asking a processor to look for and act upon.

 

So, when that 5.1 mix comes barreling through and totally masks the dialog, what’s going to give?  Well, as they say in the retirement home, “Depends.”

 

And that means that every mix is different and it’ll be the psychoacoustic elements that will cue the viewer as to whether the sound is balanced from scene to scene.  Once again, you can process it like crazy but until you can teach the machine to listen like a human, it’s going to get it wrong a good part of the time.  Check the link below.  Read it closely.  If you don’t see any problems, you didn’t read it closely!

 

And when you realize that most of the ATSC parameters for CALM and dialnorm are based on those developed in Europe (including France, the folks that gave us SECAM), you also know that it means stations will be compliant – and still sound bad.  How do I know?  Take a trip to London, Frankfurt or Rome.  Listen.   Case closed.

 

But, compliance is the goal so, congratulations to all the techs who have been slaving over the past months to get their stations to that point.  We’ll be listening...on receivers...all of which will vary and will interpret audio and its metadata differently, thereby creating a [vastly] different listening experience for each receiver owner.

 

ATSC’s CALM and DIALNORM

NAB 2012

NAB is probably the largest collection of professional gearheads in the world.  The absolute latest, some still prototyped and demonstrated only after the sales engineer bows his/her head in prayer, broadcast goodies emerge there. 

As you would expect, given the continuing convergence of broadcast and “new” media, all those Oreos and sodas are there, too.

Things have changed.  Duh! But this year was especially significant.  It wasn’t a great anniversary like ’06 for quad tape.  No single revolutionary product like Red in 2007.  Instead, it was a year of, well, for me, realization and for the industry, one of maturation.

Here’s my take:

First, I saw hundreds of boxes to do thousands of things.  Convert anything to anything with a BNC in/BNC out black box.  Seriously.  I think I saw one that had ATSC in and black coffee out.  Then, if you look a little further, you find out that a lot of the same things that you buy black boxes for can be done in the digital domain with software.  One case, one processor (or multiple processors) with ins and outs and you don’t need any of the little black boxes at all.  It’s interesting to see which manufacturers are looking at software solutions compared to those looking to sell hardware problem solvers.  

Imaging devices:  Unless I get an assignment that calls for day-in, day-out shooting, I’m gonna rent. It’s changing so fast that you make a commitment, sign the papers, and before delivery, the XV3 is out, replacing the XV2.5 you just bought. 

I will say this – images are just plain gorgeous.  The range of the sensors is so wide (claiming up to 13 f/stops) that they’re presenting new challenges to the receivers/monitors…and working at 20-30 fc of light.  Lenses have caught up with HD and the definition and resolution are terrific.  And it's funny seeing a jib floating around with apparently nothing on it - only to see a DSLR  anchored to the baseplate.

Of course, a couple of things you can’t do anything about – depth of field is depth of field.  HD shortens it and that’s that.  But add a little extra light, get a couple more stops down, and you get your DOF back.  And, speaking of lighting, the LED luminaire is mature.  You can shoot with cool, low power lighting just about anywhere.  [After the fact note:  when you increase the sharpness of the "sharpest" area as with improved lens and sharper sensor, depth of field apparently goes DOWN.  But it depends on what you're viewing it on.  A hi-def image has lots more apparent depth of field when viewed on an NTSC receiver.  That's because the maximum sharpness is much less - so the sharpest image appears less so,, more like the slightly out of focus portions of the image just to either side, in distance from the lens, of the actual focused distance.]

One thing remains the same – the use of lights to control the resultant image.  LED’s don’t eliminate the need for multiple instruments (you can’t dump a bunch of LED’s onto a ceiling and shoot away expecting different results compared to doing the same thing with incandenscents,  fluorescents, or HMI’s).  But whatever you do, it’s a lot cooler and easier.  Hang a two pound panel and you’re shooting f11 at 15 feet – and for 3 hours on a battery.  Awrighty then.

3D.  Don’t sell that flatscreen just yet.  Sony, among others, demonstrated their glasses-less 3D.  This is for large screen.  I’d rather they called it 2.5D.  Nothing really came off the screen at me like when the Creature from the Black Lagoon scared the pants off me in a theater.  And while the gathered crowds oohed and ahhed at first, there was a bunch of sotto voce grumbling as the demo ended.  Same with Dolby’s version.  They suffered some additional problems, a bunch of high-end artifacts that spoiled the motion.  If you have HD with glasses, well, good for you.  Not a lot of programming but you’re an early adopter.  As for glasses-less…wait for the .1 version if you know what I mean.

Workflow:  Nobody wants to sell you just a camera.  Or a switcher or storage by itself, either.  They want you to use their entire system for “workflow”.  It’s the only way to ensure quality.  Well, that’s what they said!  It ain’t true.  If there’s any interface problem, either software or one of those boxes I talked about will solve it.  Speaking of switchers.  Ha!  They’re not.  They’re video program managers capable of controlling multiple feeds with multiple layers (and in multiple languages).  And they’re smart enough to automate a lot of what a TD once did.

Audio:  Both AES and IP audio abound.  In fact, once audio goes into the digital domain – which can be a USB microphone or hard disc audio – it doesn’t have to leave until it reaches the final audio amp or transmitter input.  I saw a guy named Hum out in front of the convention center begging.  He’s pretty well out of business.

An interesting thread was talk regarding the CALM Act and most of the techies laughing at the fact that, once again, trying to pass legislation to control laws of physics doesn’t work.  And speaking of the CALM Act, Rules:  The big concern was text-to-speech in the EAS rules.  Breaths were bated in anticipation of the commission’s announcement that would reinstate the TTS rule that they eliminated in the Fifth Report and Order.  It didn’t happen.  OK.  It did, but they waited until after the event.  None too soon since April 23 is the deadline.

Worth the trip?  Absolutely.  If you have to stay current, you have to make it out there.  I had some assignment and was looking for some particular gear.  Even if I hadn’t, well, it’s still so doggoned much fun just lookin’ at the goodies.