Have you ever noticed... ?

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I've noticed that certain DVDs have a weird little echo sound, especially noticeable with the voices. The best way to describe it is as if you're talking into a plastic bucket. It doesn't sound quite that bad, but that's the best way I can describe that little echo type sound. I don't think it's the setup since only a few DVDs have this issue. I've played around with all the settings and nothing makes a difference, and I'm aware that if you don't mute the TV while playing the surround sound speakers it can produce an echo - so that's not it. I'm not talking about DVD-Rs or ISOs, these were bought from Amazon (not talking about a private seller on Amazon) at full price. The ones that I have noticed this with are the Firefly DVD (region 4) box set, and Twilight Eclipse (region 2).

Could it simply be that the sound guys who worked on the tv series or the movie did a poor job of capturing or editing the audio? Were the DVDs badly encoded? Am I the only person in the world who has ever noticed this? Any thoughts? lol

 

[sparky77]

I've noticed that in quite a few movies that the voices from the center channel have a reverb effect through the mains and surround channels, often times distractingly loud to the point where it muddies up the dialogue. Can't think of any recent movies off the top of my head, but I know there were several fairly recent ones.

 

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Why do you think that is? Was the movie like that or is it just the DVD. Do you think it would make a difference if I bought another DVD with another region code, or maybe a blu-ray version.

 

[sparky77]

I think it's a sound engineers attempt at creating ambiance with dialogue, and all it dose is muddy up the sound if it's too loud.

 

[Pyrrho]

It could still be the setup, even though you only notice it on some DVDs. Different voices are at slightly different frequencies, so a problem may exist with some voices but not others. It could also be affected by the other sounds in the mix. Do you still have the problem when you play things "straight", with no special processing?

Really, without knowing more details, it is impossible to say what your problem is. It could be the mix on the DVDs as you seem to think, or it could be some processing you are applying to it (adding reverb is something that is probably quite common in some of the DSP modes), or it could be that your speakers or acoustics are causing the problem.

In my case, I have never noticed anything like what you are talking about, but I do not add special processing to the sound, and I have great speakers. I also do not have the specific DVDs you mention, so I obviously cannot rule out the possibility that the makers of those DVDs were incompetent fools.

 

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It's difficult to describe, and I'm not sure I described it right. I think the best way to describe it is a sort of vibration to the voice, it's especially noticeable with male voices. Female voices are softer, so it's not as noticeable. If I play the disc with my laptop using headphones I get the same effect. If I play it on the TV, using just the TV speakers and with surround speakers turned off it's the same. The more I play around with it, the more I get the impression that it's just the way the DVD sounds.

The next question I should probably ask is: have you ever had any issues related to audio on a DVD to do with voices that you think have something to do with how the DVD itself was encoded? I read a review of the blu-ray edition of Twilight Eclipse and they didn't mention any issues with the audio. Perhaps I should get the blu-ray edition just to see if I notice the same thing, but it's not really first on my shopping list, though.

 

[j_garcia]

I've never experienced this except when the TV is on at the same time.

 

[KEW]

Does your sound go through the TV before your receiver?
If so, I had a similar problem and it turned out that the default setting on my Panasonic plasma was some BS surround sound setting .
This sounded worse than what you describe on most programs, but figured I'd throw it out there just in case.

 

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The sound goes directly from the blu-ray player to the receiver via an optical cable, video goes directly to the TV via an HDMI cable. And yes, the TV is muted when I play DVDs. The male voices have a slight buzzing sound on the DVDs I mentioned.