Sky Nature and the orchestras in Africa

[Greytide17]

I have been watching Sky Nature for some time and find the photography wonderful. Sadly, it seems that you cannot watch nature without an ever present orchestra drowning out the sounds of nature and the commentry. I have travelled extensively in Africa and have yet to come actoss a full orchestra in any of the wildlife parks. PLEASE Sky, cut the loud music which is unnecessary in these programs. You even manage to get the orchestra under water!

[caesarome]

@Greytide17 

As you are just telling other customers on here all feedback for programs needs to go to Sky via this emai address - viewerR@sky.uk

[TimmyBGood]

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@Greytide17 wrote:

 PLEASE Sky, cut the loud music which is unnecessary in these programs. You even manage to get the orchestra under water!

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It's very unlikely that Sky is making the vast majority of those programmes themselves: they may well not be commissioning most of them either, but are purchasing broadcast rights to pre-made content on the international media market which means they do not have editorial control or influence.

One improvement for home viewers is to add a soundbar with a separate centre channel: this is typically where the voiceover is mixed, and it gets mangled when split onto left and right stereo television speakers.

[Mr+Ripley]

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@Greytide17 wrote:

I have been watching Sky Nature for some time and find the photography wonderful. Sadly, it seems that you cannot watch nature without an ever present orchestra drowning out the sounds of nature and the commentry. I have travelled extensively in Africa and have yet to come actoss a full orchestra in any of the wildlife parks. PLEASE Sky, cut the loud music which is unnecessary in these programs. You even manage to get the orchestra under water!

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  @Greytide17 Thanks for that post, gave me a good laugh. I don't disagree either, many a documentary has been ruined by the overloud soundtrack. If there's a talking head on screen telling us something why does there need to be any music at all which invariably drowns out the dialogue? It makes me wonder if the makers of such shows watch their final product before sending it out into the world.

[TimmyBGood]

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@Mr+Ripley wrote:

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It makes me wonder if the makers of such shows watch their final product before sending it out into the world.

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I suspect they do, yes: the problem is usually that audio post-production is carried out and reviewed by producers in controlled conditions on studio-grade separate speakers as a 5.1 mix (if not Atmos) which then gets horribly mangled by reproduction on standard (very small and often down or rear-facing) stereo television drivers.

If anything this is even worse when consuming film or drama:

https://www.avclub.com/television-film-sound-audio-quality-subtitles-why-1849664873 

[Mr+Ripley]

  @TimmyBGood  Thanks for the article, interesting but slightly annoying. I don't really have a problem with drama dialogue & don't need to put on the subtitles unless I miss a certain thing that was said. I still maintain that unnecessarily loud music in documentaries is the worst culprit.

[TimmyBGood]

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@Mr+Ripley wrote:

 I still maintain that unnecessarily loud music in documentaries is the worst culprit.

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But if the music is too loud for the voiceover to be comprehensible, that would tend to indicate the audio being output isn't what the sound director intended: if they mixed it for a centre speaker to carry the vocals and there isn't one present then there's pretty much automatically a problem with relative levels.

[Mr+Ripley]

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@TimmyBGood wrote:

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@Mr+Ripley wrote:

 I still maintain that unnecessarily loud music in documentaries is the worst culprit.

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But if the music is too loud for the voiceover to be comprehensible, that would tend to indicate the audio being output isn't what the sound director intended: if they mixed it for a centre speaker to carry the vocals and there isn't one present then there's pretty much automatically a problem with relative levels.

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  @TimmyBGood  I know I don't have your level of understanding about these things and please read that as a compliment. I do know that I have a very decent Samsung soundbar with rear speakers & that for the most part, I use the Smart button option from my remote which is meant to choose the best possible audio for me. And yet when it comes to documentaries there is definitely an issue, it's not only me, my partner says the same thing. Where the fault lies after what you have told & shown me, I have no idea.