Forum for former BBC staff

Forum for former BBC staff
http://www.ex-bbc.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl >> News and Comment >> Mumble mumble http://www.ex-bbc.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?num=1455294832 Message started by chris west on Feb 12^th, 2016, 4:34pm

Title: Mumble mumble
Post by chris west on Feb 12^th, 2016, 4:34pm

It's that mumbling again, or is it just my pensioner's ears? Watched the first episode of Happy Valley, and lost a large amount of the dialogue. Is it to do with the recording, or is it a naturalistic throwaway style of delivery that directors seem to favour? Did the BBC listen the last time, I'm thinking of Jamaica Inn?

Title: Re: Mumble mumble
Post by Trevor on Feb 12^th, 2016, 5:10pm

Or is it caused by the dreadful rear-facing speakers used in modern flat-screen televisions which means the top end of the audio spectrum, which is where inteligability is held, is lost? It probably sounded fine in the dubbing theatre but put high quality sound through rubbish speakers and it'll sound rubbish. Just a theory.

Title: Re: Mumble mumble
Post by Dickie Mint on Feb 12^th, 2016, 8:52pm

Nope. It's the indie producer or director who thinks mumbling is in! It's not, and it's totally against the BBC Code of Practice; which good old auntie doesn't even acknowledge now!
Proof: It was mainly Sarah Lancashire, and several people on another forum noticed it.

Richard

Title: Re: Mumble mumble
Post by Roundabout on Feb 13^th, 2016, 8:46am

Of course it's really the viewers' fault isn't it. I mean if they can't be bothered to get state of the art loudspeakers and audio systems! And of course if they have to watch the increasing amount of rubbish drama featuring dysfunctional people who actually do mumble in extremis then so be it. Come on!, don't bother! Get a life and like me stop watching BBC drama and start using the TV for what it was intended...entertainment and information. We all have enough troubles in our lives at times without this stuff on TV. As long as there are big audience figures for this trash the Beeb will go in making it.

Title: Re: Mumble mumble
Post by WG on Feb 13^th, 2016, 10:28am

My tv sound bar is quite good(i.e. a little better than the tv speakers)-and it has three "noddy" default eq settings-speech-movie and music-but I constantly find myself changing these when watching different genres of programming--whereas I hardly ever need to change the treble/bass on my portable radio. So what's going on in telly sound dept. then?

Title: Re: Mumble mumble
Post by chris west on Feb 13^th, 2016, 2:55pm

Thanks for the replies, it's some comfort that it may be the source material rather than my ears.

Title: Re: Mumble mumble
Post by Administrator on Feb 14^th, 2016, 4:05pm

Followers of this posting should also keep an ear open on this post in the 'Sound' section....

Title: Re: Mumble mumble
Post by alanh on Feb 16^th, 2016, 10:16pm

I've just watched Ep1 of this and I couldn't agree more. Alright I have " modern TV with flat speakers" as mentioned above but even with volume right up, so much dialogue was lost. However when the programme finished, I was glad my "flat speakers" didn't get blown away with title music. I can imagine the old PPM hardly moving for ages and then hitting 6s!

Title: Re: Mumble mumble
Post by apcwmwl on Feb 17^th, 2016, 3:11pm

Of course it's the production!! I couldn't understand dialogue either - but with all the adverse crits of episode 1, why didn't the beeb send it back to the production house for re-dubbing. We ex drama SS would never have let this kind of quality escape to the airwaves, and probably would have ended up with fist fights with production! Vote with your ears - avoid!!!!

Title: Re: Mumble mumble
Post by Dickie Mint on Feb 17^th, 2016, 8:51pm

I always make a complaint referring to the Production Guidelines. The more we complain............
From this
" If a programme generates a significant number of justifiable complaints, Audience Services will ask productions to re-mix the sound at their own expense."

And for the programme makers there's a tutorial here!

Title: Re: Mumble mumble
Post by chris west on Feb 18^th, 2016, 5:14pm

Thanks once again, good to have views from professionals who know what they're talking about. Interesting that every guidelines page contains the message "Sound problems are the single most consistent topic of viewer complaints", so the BBC evidently knows about it. The only inference can be that it doesn't care.I would think that at this time, the old mothership needs all the support she can get.

Title: Re: Mumble mumble
Post by Russell_B on Feb 18^th, 2016, 7:23pm

This is a subject dear to me as someone who throughout his life has emphasised quality in all I do.
My interest in high quality sound was a major influence in my aspiration to join the BBC at a time when it was admired throughout the world for its programme quality in most areas, and its at that time, wonderful technical research, particularly into loudspeaker design. At that time there was nothing commercially available which came near the quality of BBC monitors from about '65 to the late 70s.
I left the BBC in the early 70s because shift work did not agree with my constitution, and by the end of the decade was starting to be concerned about its staff's usage of intonation, it being often inappropriate, and I had often at that time wondered if the BBC had a 'Weird intonation department'.
I am afraid that that was only the start of a downhill trend in almost all areas, and sound quality has now plummeted to the level at which it is widely denigrated on many audio sites. When I left I became a programme maker, deriving actuality and mixing and editing to final programmes.
Although now retired, and with declining hearing, I have worked on loudspeaker design since about '85, and in recent years produced my best, which I use at home in my studio.
On occasions the SQ from the BBC is so poor that I would swear that there is no energy coming from my tweeters, (above 1.8KHz that is), and very often mic, positioning is so bad that proximity effects are predominant, they masking the presence range with excessive bass.
This problem is marked on R4's Today, BBC2 and BBC4, in the latter music often being too high in the mix, maybe only a couple of dB below the speech. I always mixed it by at least about 8 to 10 dB down.
Unfortunately the lowering of standards applies to many other aspects of the BBC, and I prefer what it was when its logo was written in Italics.
Often the mixed-in music, probably from CDs, is so obviously better quality than the added programme content, that it contrasts massively.
A well know owner of a major loudspeaker company has complained to me that the BBC no longer uses sound engineers; I do not know if this is so, but I am of the impression that the BBC uses fresh graduate trainees to make cheap programmes, and that these do not have the necessary experience to know how to produce good sound.
My own system at home is now so good that CD quality is way above all broadcast SQ. I also have a recording made by another loudspeaker manufacturer in the BBC anechoic chamber before it was demolished, and my system reproduces it extremely well, showing that my own speakers are also good on speech.
The BBC will have to change drastically if it is to justify its position of receiving its funds by compulsory licence fee, which at the moment seems to go largely towards paying excessive salaries to 'celebrities', rather than actual content of programmes..

Title: Re: Mumble mumble
Post by Russell_B on Feb 19^th, 2016, 9:39am

There are other factors to consider with this problem.
Most TV news uses lavalier electret condenser mics, and these have a mid range response boost. But worse, their positioning is very compromising of that performance because they are often placed under the chin, and so are off the axis of the vocal top emitted from the mouth. Ridiculously this is made worse still by they being often directed downwards so that the mic's. treble polar response is directed at the contributor's lap.
The bandwidth of the telephone was chosen a long time ago to give a maximum intelligibility, and is 300Hz - 3400Hz which is commercial speech bandwidth.
I would guess that most TV viewers do not have Hi end sound equipment, and use the usual small speakers on the TV, and this may slightlyl ameliorate the difficulty because of their reduced bass response.

Title: Re: Mumble mumble-BUT -Night porter--excellent
Post by WG on Feb 29^th, 2016, 9:44am

If I may add another post -the sound quality of the recent Night Porter -sundays BBC1 is excellent-proving it IS possible to get it right all of the time?

Title: Re: Mumble mumble
Post by WG on Mar 1^st, 2016, 10:07am

Re MY POST above-this of course should read NIGHT MANAGER!

Title: Re: Mumble mumble
Post by John on Mar 1^st, 2016, 7:32pm

I knew what you meant and agree.

Title: Re: Mumble mumble
Post by Russell_B on Mar 1^st, 2016, 10:54pm

There other factors in this intelligibility problem.
Over the last 40 or so years there has been a dialectical shift, and English is also now spoken by large portions of non native people, this being an influence on the dialect.
I have noticed, and this was the case this morning on R4, a tendency for academics to rush their speech, often to a point at which it is inarticulately spoken.
I refer to this, which is now ubiquitously so on R4 from announcers also, as 'slalem speech'.
This is because, as in the slalem in which often the skiers do not excurse the course properly, but go over the posts, the speakers do not fully enunciate all of the phonemes and sibilants of their words, they being omitted. They are also often using glottal stops and wrong inflexions and intonations. The result often is 'gabbling' rather than a clear expression of carefully constructed and pronounced sentences. This is quite separate from the use of regional accents, which may present another hurdle to intelligibility. Another problem is that of egotistical competitive bickering which seems rife, and can further serve to obscure the words spoken, and which may allow contributors to 'hide' their views by not being intelligible.
There was a few years ago on R3, a speech by a senior academic from the LSE, which sticks in my mind as an example of just how effective well expressed English can be. There was no trace of self importance and egotism in this lecturer's presentation.
The current zeitgeist is such that much of what I hear is also so offensive aesthetically, that I would rather not hear it.

Title: Re: Mumble mumble
Post by Russell_B on Mar 4^th, 2016, 12:10am

I had hoped for some dialogue perhaps from other members to either agree with or refute some of my assertions; no-one has the whole objective or complete truth, and I would welcome the opinions and comments from others with regard to arriving at a consensus of what is going on with SQ.

Title: Re: Mumble mumble
Post by Russell_B on Mar 5^th, 2016, 11:06am

Just another point, for those interested this link discusses voice intelligibility;

http://www.harbeth.co.uk/usergroup/showthread.php?185-Speech-test-recordings

Title: Re: Mumble mumble
Post by Maggie on Mar 31^st, 2016, 8:56pm

I'm told that due to "hurry-up tv" techniques that abound as time-is-money, many more scenes are recorded using clip-on mics, as traditional boom recording requires more time to light..."ya get's what ya pays for", as they say.