- Staff Notice
I was just listening to a Lord's culture & media debate on BBC Parliament and the topic was dialogue on tv shows.
Several lords were asking why the quality of audio in tv shows has deteriorated so much in recent years and in particular, why so many shows, including high profile ones like Poldark, the dialogue is inaudible with the actors mumbling.
A few issues were raised, as a result:
1. The tv technology of today is very different to the tvs of yesterday. TV is/was called a box, because tvs used to be box shaped.
TVs used to contain large forward facing speakers and audio quality was excellent as a result. Nowadays, tvs are thin, screen sizes are huge and the speakers, such as they are, are small and face backwards in many cases.
2. One of the Lady Lords said that part of the problem is that of elocution and pronunciation. Simply put, younger people do not talk properly and it is hard to understand them.
3. It was raised that director's have a responsibility to ensure that dialogue is clear and that actors do not mumble.
4. David Blunket raised the point that for blind people (and he should know) the issue of clear dialogue is a particular issue for them. They cannot rely on lip reading or subtitles and blind people need clear speech.
5. Many shows have background "music" or effects which drown out the speech. Remember the Prof Brian Cox incident of 2011:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandr…complaints.html
That was just a few of the main points raised.
So, what do think? Can you understand all the dialogue in today's films and tv shows, or do you struggle to hear what is being said due to mumbling, overbearing background noise, or just poor sound quality overall?
Article on the subject here: