You have questions. I have some answers.
Q: It seems that on pretty much every show there is “music” in the background, I would prefer to call it noise. The “music” often drowns out the speech and makes it difficult to hear and is very frustrating. Is there a cure for this, please?
A: This question is asked more than any other here (including in several letters lately), and I have been answering it often for close to 20 years. And your dilemma doesn’t just involve TV. Not long ago, Ben Pearson of SlashFilm wrote a detailed discussion of why movie dialogue can be hard to hear in theaters as well as on your home screen. Some of the reasons Pearson covered included filmmakers deliberately making the sound difficult for artistic reasons, mumbling actors trying to be naturalistic, how the sound team is treated when a movie is being made, filmmakers’ lack of knowledge about getting good sound, ever more complicated movie technology, and the differences needed when mixing a movie’s sound for theaters, streaming and home theater systems. Among other things, Pearson concluded that “if the processes of capturing, creating, and shaping great sound were better understood throughout the industry, substantial steps to improving those processes could be implemented.” You can read his whole article at slashfilm.com.
All those problems can affect your TV, too. And with music, keep in mind that the show has paid for that music and wants to highlight it, and the show’s makers often believe the music adds to the drama of a scene. Considering the speed at which TV shows are often made, the sound may have been mixed hastily and imperfectly. Or the broadcaster may not have been careful with its audio settings. Then wonder about the audio quality in your TV set, since it’s long been argued that some TV speakers are not up to the task of modern sound. Or you may need to look at the TV settings to see if they let you reconfigure the audio. My TCL television sets come with an audio setting called “dialog enhancer” to help with this problem.
Suppose, though, that you have a home theater or other external speakers but still have difficulties. A decidedly low-tech solution may be moving the speakers in relation to where you sit, so you’re not getting too much sound from a too-near source. Hey, it helped at the House of Heldenfels. (Another low-tech idea: turning on closed captions, as many readers have suggested.)
The music vs. dialogue problem also declined when we made the switch from speakers to a sound bar. When I talked about this once before, a reader recommended a speaker from Zvox called the Accuvoice, which uses a hearing-aid type technology to pull dialogue out of the soundtrack. (Again, it may be that your TV also has a setting like that.) But even with a home theater or a sound bar, you may have to work with the settings to find the best balance. And, as one commenter noted on CNET.com some time back, if you’re watching a show in 5.1 and your sound system is 2.1, you’re going to have to “do a combination of settings to get it right” – and while that may solve the dialogue problem, it’s still not fancy 5.1 sound.
Finally, there may be human factors. We older folks are less accustomed to a loud music mix than younger viewers who grew up with it. Zvox, for that matter, has said that “Baby boomers listened to LOUD music when they were young. For the first time in the history of the United States, there are 95 million people over the age of 50 … and many of them have some degree of hearing loss.” While some readers have said the problem is not in their hearing, another said his test “found serious hearing loss.”
These and other issues up to an ongoing challenge for us as consumers, one that as I said has gone on for decades. As with any changing technology, we have to be ready to make adjustments – and expect more adjustments when our entertainment delivery systems move on.
Q: Can you please tell me when "Yellowstone" Season 4 will be available on Peacock? Will "1883" stream on Peacock or another service?
A: I have mentioned before that finding "Yellowstone" can be confusing because it airs first on the Paramount Network but does not stream on Paramount+. Instead, as you noted, its streaming home is Peacock, and that's where you will find the fourth season of "Yellowstone" beginning on March 28. However, "1883," a prequel to "Yellowstone," is streaming on Paramount+.
Q: I have been trying to find the name of a movie starring Rock Hudson and Tony Franciosa. Hudson was developing a new car and Franciosa comes into the picture and there is a scene where they contact the owners of the cars and recall them so that they can get them all back to the manufacturer. I checked all the movies Hudson and Franciosa made and this doesn't come up at all.
A: There is a 1978 miniseries called "Wheels," or "Arthur Hailey's Wheels" because it is based on a Hailey novel. It involves an auto company, and Hudson and Franciosa are in the cast. One of my references says it was originally a 10-hour production but cut significantly later when the ratings for a rerun were low; the last six hours were edited down to two! I am not sure where to find it, in either cut, but I hope that having a title can help your search in the future.
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