Hi,
I have noticed that the new epg for my Thomson HD box now has no volume 
adjustment in the services sector. It also has been markedly reduced in 
volume and now requires that I turn up my amplifier an extra six or seven 
clicks to get anywhere near its original. I've noticed a few posts elsewhere 
about this but no solutions so I thought I would contact SKY by email 
telling them I was not happy and that I would like to know the reasoning for 
this change.
Their reply although polite suggests a "rebuild" and "Housekeeping" and goes 
on to advise how to do this which surprises me as I understood this was a 
feature of the epg and could only be rectified by SKY with an update?
Of course I will try their advice but will wait until tomorrow for now.
Does anyone know if this is likely to work or have any knowledge on this 
sound issue?
tia
Stuart.

In article ,
   Srt  wrote:

> I have noticed that the new epg for my Thomson HD box now has no
> volume adjustment in the services sector. It also has been markedly
> reduced in volume and now requires that I turn up my amplifier an extra
> six or seven clicks to get anywhere near its original. 

[Snip]

> Their reply although polite suggests a "rebuild" and "Housekeeping" and
> goes on to advise how to do this which surprises me as I understood this
> was a feature of the epg and could only be rectified by SKY with an
> update? Of course I will try their advice but will wait until tomorrow
> for now. Does anyone know if this is likely to work or have any
> knowledge on this sound issue? tia Stuart. 

It has no chance of working and whoever gave you this garbage was either
cynically fobbing you off or was amazingly ignorant of the facts. The
technical people at Sky are fully aware of the volume problem and it is on
a list of things to be fixed along with blue borders etc.. I have no idea
if it actually will get fixed though. These issues probably explain why
the epg roll out seems to have stopped.


Bob.

"Srt"  wrote in message 
news:7eu128F2hcomhU1@mid.individual.net...
> Hi,
> I have noticed that the new epg for my Thomson HD box now has no volume 
> adjustment in the services sector. It also has been markedly reduced in 
> volume and now requires that I turn up my amplifier an extra six or seven 
> clicks to get anywhere near its original. I've noticed a few posts 
> elsewhere about this but no solutions so I thought I would contact SKY by 
> email telling them I was not happy and that I would like to know the 
> reasoning for this change.
> Their reply although polite suggests a "rebuild" and "Housekeeping" and 
> goes on to advise how to do this which surprises me as I understood this 
> was a feature of the epg and could only be rectified by SKY with an 
> update?
> Of course I will try their advice but will wait until tomorrow for now.
> Does anyone know if this is likely to work or have any knowledge on this 
> sound issue?

That won't fix your problem. The solution, as you've already found, is to 
adjust your volume on your TV / Sound system.

The reasoning (I'm guessing) is simple. This volume adjustment limited the 
dynamic range of the audio by the same amount as the range of the volume 
adjustment. In terms of realistic audio quality, this is a very horrible 
thing to do.

Put simply, a given film or show has a range of sound levels from just above 
zero (very quiet sounds that have a digital sound level of 1 out of a 
maximum of 65535 - assuming 16-bit audio) to a maximum level that doesn't 
exceed the threshold where things start to distort or amplifiers start to 
get overloaded (if I recall correctly, on a Scart connection, this is 0.5 
volts RMS, and 1 volts peak to peak).

If you have a volume adjustment on the Sky box (which is unnecessary as 
people should have a volume control on their TV or sound system) shows have 
to have their volume range compressed so that the quiet sounds still produce 
an output at the lowest level (the quiet sounds have to be made louder) and 
so that the loud sounds don't distort when this volume is set high (loud 
sounds have to be made quieter). This is called Dynamic Range Compression.

For many, DRC was a blessing, as it meant you could set your volume at a 
level where you could hear the quiet sounds, and the loud sounds wouldn't 
wake up the entire street. But, other people argued that this makes stuff 
sound unnatural and artificial.

The whole reason I purchased a 5.1 sound system was because I got HD, and I 
noticed shows in HD suffered from this volume issue (loud sounds being WAY 
too loud, and quiet sounds been barely audible) far more than SD shows. I 
found myself constantly changing the volume. Hence, I'm quite a fan of DRC 
personally...

In summary, I'm going to speculate that in the era of HD content where 
everyone expects shows to be of a certain quality, it was removed to further 
"improve" the dynamic range of audio, because on paper DRC reduces audio 
quality.

--
Vincent

In article ,
   Vincent <nospam@reply.to.newsgroup> wrote:

> In summary, I'm going to speculate that in the era of HD content where
> everyone expects shows to be of a certain quality, it was removed to
> further "improve" the dynamic range of audio, because on paper DRC
> reduces audio quality.

I quite agree we must stay away from compression where ever possible.
having said that, if this had been done for sound quality reasons its
about the only thing since nicam that has. Most broadcast technology
deliberately makes things worse these days. But I have to say that the
sound level out from my Pace box right after the epg upgrade is painfully
low and a good deal lower than my Bluray player.

On bedroom tvs fed via UHF the sets have to be set to 95%-100% volume and
the hiss level is very noticeable. No, this isn't about sound quality,
this is a cock up. Sky did tell me its on the 'to be fixed' list.

Bob.

"Bob Latham" <bob@sick-of-spam.invalid> wrote in message 
news:508ccb7a7bbob@sick-of-spam.invalid...
> In article ,
>   Vincent <nospam@reply.to.newsgroup> wrote:
>
>> In summary, I'm going to speculate that in the era of HD content where
>> everyone expects shows to be of a certain quality, it was removed to
>> further "improve" the dynamic range of audio, because on paper DRC
>> reduces audio quality.
>
> I quite agree we must stay away from compression where ever possible.
> having said that, if this had been done for sound quality reasons its
> about the only thing since nicam that has. Most broadcast technology
> deliberately makes things worse these days. But I have to say that the
> sound level out from my Pace box right after the epg upgrade is painfully
> low and a good deal lower than my Bluray player.
>
> On bedroom tvs fed via UHF the sets have to be set to 95%-100% volume and
> the hiss level is very noticeable. No, this isn't about sound quality,
> this is a cock up. Sky did tell me its on the 'to be fixed' list.
>
> Bob.

Well I emailed a further "complaint" about this to SKY and will wait to see 
if I get some kind of "Honest" reply - - - -here's hoping.
Stuart.