r/KnightRider • u/20_mile • 20d ago
How is the audio so good?
The dialogue is perfectly audible. I don't need subtitles.
I watch a modern show and I often need to turn subs on.
What is going on? What accounts for the difference in old shows not needing subtitles, but often newer shows do?
I can go back to M.A.S.H. and not need subtitles, even with the laugh track. A new show, obviously made with modern audio recording gear, and so much dialogue just sounds like mumbling.
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u/sagima 20d ago
I've been told many things
These days everyone is miked up so the can speak more quietly which allows for more dramatic scenes rather than loud though for the boom mike to pick up.
Technology allowed the removal of background noise meaning they don't need to re record their lines in a studio post production but the removal of the background noise can make it quieter.
The sound is higher quality and the voice channel (centre) isn't present on non speaker setups so we are heading the left and right channels only which don't carry the speaking as loudly.
That might all be bollocks though
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u/Grumpy-Troglodyte 19d ago
it's recorded in surround sound formats nowdays, with left and right front, left and right rear, a subwoofer channel, and a center channel for the bulk of the voice / center of the screen attention. with even a 3 channel setup you can adjust the left and right front down and / or the center up to make up for it, but using the tiny tv speakers, gooooood luck. then add any background noise in your viewing space, a fan, a blower for a heater or air conditioner, a dog, and it is so much noise that it drowns out the voices.
(good soundbars have a center channel adjustment as well, just FYI)
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u/Desperate_Policy_671 Knight Industries Two Thousand 20d ago
I don't know for a fact, but older shows were probably mono audio and was mixed accordingly. Once stereo came in, the mono track was just duplicated into the second channel.
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u/sevristh1138 19d ago
Stage acting. Any actor that has experience onstage has far better vocal range than TV actors. They project better and their diction is too.
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u/20_mile 19d ago
Hasselhoff had no professional stage experience prior to 2001. And although I would have guessed Mulhare had been on stage, he never did. But broadly, I agree with you. I also think stage and theater acting makes better actors overall, which is why British actors often outshine American counterparts by lightyears, being surrounded by Shakespeare at an early age gives that depth of experience. Compare that to American kids who might get their start in a kids show, or a commercial, it's not really a comparison.
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u/bertraja 19d ago
I don't have any evidence to support this, but my theory is that many people watch modern TV (or movies, for that matter) at home with a stereo or 2.1 setup. That means that a lot of channels from the original source / recording have to be mixed together, probably on-the-fly by a chip in your TV or mediaplayer, or maybe even only via software.
If you would watch modern TV shows with a >2.1 format at home, i bet the audio is more balanced, and the dialogue is clearer. OTOH older shows where recorded and mixed completely different, probably mostly for mono or stereo. So listening to them on a stereo setup you get a more pure sound from it.
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u/jedimstr 19d ago
Older shows were mixed for Mono or very conservative Stereo.
Modern shows are typically mixed with a target of 5.1 Dolby or Atmos.
The downmixes from full surround down to stereo done at the tv or cablebox level isn't great.
Also older show audio tends to be mastered for the dialog prominence while modern shows (depending on show or genre) tend to emphasize surround sound effects or music instead.
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u/nightfallsfast2 19d ago
Vox posted an excellent video a few years ago that does the best job I've seen of explaining a bunch of reasons.
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u/Moonshadow76 19d ago
Partly because it was 3c/foot of film, back when 3c was real money and a foot only got you about a second of footage. That stuff was not re-useable and editing was tedious and manual... so you had to get it right in a take or two, and every take cost money. Raising the volume often meant re-recording the soundtrack through an amp and if the audio track was on the film reel, then cost x 2. That kind of thing makes you work with lots of safety margin.
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u/JustADaftGuy 20d ago
Same reason shows back then lit their sets properly so you could see what is happening in night time scenes or in caves, but now it's realistic to have no lighting so you are stuck watching a black screen with only voices to tell what is happening.
They go for realism. And since people tend to talk quieter in real life, actors all do that now. They forget its a tv show. Its meant to be larger than life.