Why does BBC tv sound so bad, why unlimited?

[SouthSIDE Glen]

i find some of the adult channels are plagued with grunts and moans...would a deEsser help here?

Ummmmm....I hate to be the one to break it to you, kcearl, but those grunts and moans are not coming from the TV........



G.

 

[kcearl]

yeah but would a deEsser help??

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

yeah but would a deEsser help??

I've heard of a lot of toys that could help in such circumstances, and even tried a couple, but I gotta admit that a de-Esser was never anywhere on that list. But who am I to judge, bro; whatever launches your (or her) rocket!

G.

 

[nononsense!]

I have received an email from my cable provider UPC. It says the following.....

"There is no interference problems known to us.
We advise you to check your in house cabling and if necessary to replace them with C12 coax cables with metal connectors.
If you still have any problems we could send repair personnel."

Well I never have any problems. The same sound in other homes nearby, in fact everywhere.

It is just the BBC....or is it?

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

I have received an email from my cable provider UPC. It says the following.....

"There is no interference problems known to us.
We advise you to check your in house cabling and if necessary to replace them with C12 coax cables with metal connectors.
If you still have any problems we could send repair personnel."

I may be wrong, but I don't recall anybody here saying anything about "interference problems".

If the problem is with your neighbors as well, then it most definitely has nothing to do with your in-house wiring. It wouldn't anyway, because that would not cause problems just with the BBC channels, and most likely would not cause a drop in audio level as it's main symptom.

I stick by my original diagnosis, that the problem is that your provider is not properly setting the levels at their downlink/distribution station, which is where they receive their signals from all the different sources, combine them into their multiband cable signal and send the signal out to their customers.

There is a secondary possibility that the problem may be with a signal amp somewhere along the path from the cable central office and your neighborhood; perhaps that amplifier that serves your neighborhood's branch of the cable distribution path has problems with the band(s) that the BBC signal uses on the cable.

But either way, the problem and the solution should lie within the domain of your cable provider, and not with the BBC or in your house. That much is almost a certainty. It's not in your house because it's in all your neighbor's houses as well. It not with the BBC because even *if* the BBC - or the satellite they are using for distribution - were sending out a lower volume signal, it's the cable provider's job to take care of that and even it out with the other channels before it gets to you.

G.

 

[nononsense!]

I was not talking about low level signal it is a bad sounding signal, like mud. I will translate your diagnosis and send it to them.

 

[nononsense!]

UPC said that I have to find out more adresses
that have a bad sound. They say it is probably UPC his own fault. But is it? Or does the BBC just have a bad sound.

Here is a video that you can see and hear the Dutch tv and the BBC tv next to each other.
I believe that only 10 people can see that after that I have to pay or something:

http://rapidshare.com/files/243652857/nederland_en_bbc.mpeg

 

[Farview]

Wholly crap! The non-bbc stuff is limited to death and sounds like crap. The BBC stuff sounds like it is supposed to.

It would have been a better comparison if it was two male announcers, but I get the point.

It's hard to tell whose limiters are doing that. The local station could just have some volume hungy moron working the limiters, or it could be that the cable company has the volume of the local station jacked up to the moon and the bbc station is normal volume.

It could be happening anywhere in the chain. You are probably spitting in the wind trying to get it fixed. Only audio guys notice or care about this sort of thing. The cable company is filled with video guys that know very little about audio (I've worked at a cable company) so, even if you could get past the clueless customer service reps and talk to a technician, he would just measure the signal level of the entire video stream and tell you that it was within normal parameters

 

[legionserial]

The non-bbc stuff is limited to death and sounds like crap. The BBC stuff sounds like it is supposed to.

+1

I will go on record to categorically state that I am 100% positive that it is not the BBC causing the problem. I have been watching BBC TV all my life, being that prior to digital TV, and not being rich enough to afford satellite, BBC constituted 50% of the 4 channels available to me. The sound was absolutely fine then, and it's even better now. I am aware of many, many other channels that suck by comparison.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

I'd switch back to broadcast TV, the way God intended it. It's a lot cheaper, there are often fewer commercials to have to sit through, and the only thing that really changes is the number of channels on which there is nothing worth watching. And if you have a signal problem with one of the stations, you KNOW who to talk to.

I don't know what's up over in Europe, but we have been making the Big Switchover to digital broadcast TV here in the states; in fact today is the day the analog broadcasts end. With the new digital transmissions, I now get some thirty channels of programming, including six public broadcasting stations, two weather channels, and one all-movie channel. Some of the stations are now playing what were cable-only TV series in syndicated rerun. It's like basic cable, practically, and every signal is pure digital (I have had no reception problems at all yet with my new HD TV, which has a very sensitive tuner in it, even in bad weather and with just a pair of old US$7.95 rabbit ears hiding in the corner of the room), and, unlike their analog counterparts, the audio levels do not vary all that much from station to station (there is some variance, but nothing like with their analog transmissions.)

If there's nothing on that selection of channels, that's why God created sex, books, music, fire and sports, as something to actually DO.

G.

 

[nononsense!]

The BBC clearly sounds like mud, distant sound.

When some of you say it is a good sound then you are probably very 'proud' on your BBC and used to the sound since childhood.

You have that right.....but be honest it is a lousy sound.

 

[legionserial]

The BBC clearly sounds like mud, distant sound.

When some of you say it is a good sound then you are probably very 'proud' on your BBC and used to the sound since childhood.

You have that right.....but be honest it is a lousy sound.

By that extension my mixes must really suck. I might aswell quit now. I've just discovered my ears have been screwed all this time.

 

[Farview]

The BBC clearly sounds like mud, distant sound.

When some of you say it is a good sound then you are probably very 'proud' on your BBC and used to the sound since childhood.

You have that right.....but be honest it is a lousy sound.

You must be used to that over limited, bass heavy sound on the non BBC broadcast. I did not grow up with the BBC.

I do mix for TV and the one that you like is unacceptable. My clients would make me do it over again if I turned in a show that sounded like that.


The BBC thing sounded like a person talking, the other thing sounded like crap being smashed in your face. It's terrible.

 

[nononsense!]

When you 'really' like the sound of that BBC broadcast and you are not over exaggerating or overly proud on YOUR BBC then it is just a matter of taste.

I can say that most people don't like the BBC far away sound...here in Holland.
But over there in England they do, it's just a matter of taste.

You must see the purpose of the BBC broadcast....
so that you can hear what they are talking about.
It is a very distant sound. We don't like that but they do in England. Strange.

But I don't think you are telling the truth...it is a lousy sound.
But you are proud on your BBC, you have that right but it still is a lousy sound.

I think the answer for my question is:
The BBC sounds so bad because the technicians are bad and nobody dares to complain.

 

[Farview]

When you 'really' like the sound of that BBC broadcast and you are not over exaggerating or overly proud on YOUR BBC then it is just a matter of taste.

I can say that most people don't like the BBC far away sound...here in Holland.
But over there in England they do, it's just a matter of taste.

You must see the purpose of the BBC broadcast....
so that you can hear what they are talking about.
It is a very distant sound. We don't like that but they do in England. Strange.

But I don't think you are telling the truth...it is a lousy sound.
But you are proud on your BBC, you have that right but it still is a lousy sound.

I think the answer for my question is:
The BBC sounds so bad because the technicians are bad and nobody dares to complain.

I'm not in England. I could give two shits about the BBC.

I don't know about Holland, but the standards in america wouldn't allow for such overly limited audio. Each channel has slightly different standards, but none that I know of would allow anything sounding like your broadcast.

I suppose it is a matter of taste, but the Holland broadcast doesn't sound like a real person talking. It is very processed. I'm wondering what music sounds like if the announcers are that smashed.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Whether one thinks it's good or bad is irrelevant; the stations should all be relatively equally good or bad. The fact that there's such a huge difference indicates a problem with the distribution, not the source networks. Sure, one network may sound somewhat different from another as they feed to their uplink, but never by *that* large of an amount, and even if there were such huge differences, it's the provider's job to adjust for that at least somewhat.

With analog cable, these kinds of issues have 9,999 time out of 10,1000 been the provider/distributo; they're infamous for this kind of thing. As Farview said, these guys are not audio engineers, and even if they were, they just don't *care* unless/until they get a critical mass of complaints - and even then only if there is a competing provider their custys can threaten to switch to. Then they'll fix it and bump up the monthly rates because of increased "service costs".

G.

 

[nononsense!]

I think the stations itself have the biggest responsibility. If they sound ok then at the distribution point they only have to use the same standard setting for all the stations.

But listen to the sound....is it the same sound as being broadcasted in England?

If it is the same sound then the BBC is the cause of ME not liking the sound.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

I think the stations itself have the biggest responsibility. If they sound ok then at the distribution point they only have to use the same standard setting for all the stations.

It's not quite that simple. Farview could probably give more accurate detail than I could on this, but there's a whole chain of gear that the signals have to go through at the distributor, with not everything operating the same on all frequencies. For example, different channels are picked off of different satellites and therefore are going through different receivers. Different receivers are cionnected to different compressors, different compressors, etc.

But listen to the sound....is it the same sound as being broadcasted in England?

I have no way of knowing as I am in Chicago, which is nowhere near England. .

G.

 

[Farview]

I think the stations itself have the biggest responsibility. If they sound ok then at the distribution point they only have to use the same standard setting for all the stations.

Each station transmits it signal in accordance with it's own standards, which are shaped by the local broadcast standards and the standards of the transmission companies that the signal is being fed to (the satellite companies and such). Different satellites will only allow certain The frequency that the signal is transmitted will affect the signal.

Each time another company touches the signal, the signal gets changed. The more companies in between you and the broadcaster, the more the signal changes. Every step of the way is an opportunity for someone to change the gain structure. But, again, these are video guys and their only concern is picture quality.


I live outside of Chicago too. Here, BBC America sounds like all the other channels.

 

[legionserial]

When you 'really' like the sound of that BBC broadcast and you are not over exaggerating or overly proud on YOUR BBC then it is just a matter of taste.

I can say that most people don't like the BBC far away sound...here in Holland.
But over there in England they do, it's just a matter of taste.

You must see the purpose of the BBC broadcast....
so that you can hear what they are talking about.
It is a very distant sound. We don't like that but they do in England. Strange.

But I don't think you are telling the truth...it is a lousy sound.
But you are proud on your BBC, you have that right but it still is a lousy sound.

What's this condescending 'proud of your BBC' crap? I guess being a limey I'd be one of the people that's directed at. But I don't even like TV, I rarely watch it. It's no skin off my nose if someone says they don't like the BBC's sound. All I can do is talk about what I hear when I do turn the TV on.

It sounds more to me like you're 'proud of you TV network provider', in that you refuse to admit, despite the testimonies of many viewers and actual professionals, that there might be something wrong at your end.

I think the answer for my question is:
The BBC sounds so bad because the technicians are bad and nobody dares to complain.

And that's just a retarded assessment.