topic Re: Artificial crowd noise on sky football. in Sky Q

Artificial crowd noise on sky football.

WhatApalaver — Sat, 18 Mar 2023 14:56:31 GMT

Can anyone tell me how to remove the artificial crowd noise when watching live football?

Or recorded football? Or similar for other sports.

I have hearing loss and find the crowd noise makes the commentary unintelligible. Subtitles are pointless on a live event. Surely it's easy to get rid of.

Please keep answers super simple for a technophobe.

Thanks.

Re: Artificial crowd noise on sky football.

Chodley — Sat, 18 Mar 2023 15:00:33 GMT

It's neither artificial (afaik) nor easy to get rid of.

Re: Artificial crowd noise on sky football.

Daniel0210 — Sat, 18 Mar 2023 15:09:46 GMT

@WhatApalaver

I'm not aware of any 'artificial' crowd noise since the days of no supporters due to Covid.

Re: Artificial crowd noise on sky football.

lettice — Sat, 18 Mar 2023 15:23:49 GMT

There is no artificial crowd noise on any of current Sky football broadcasting.

Certainly was during that Pandemic period a few years back, when fans were not able to attend the stadiums.

The Dolby Atmos broadcast does tend to emphasise the crowd noise on Sky football coverage.
As for removing the crowd noise all together, not possible by anything on the Sky box.
But you can make some adjustments to reduce its effect.
Try changing the Sky Q box audio option in Settings>Setup>Audio Visual from Dolby Digital Plus to Dolby Digital.
If you have a soundbar or TV with integrated soundbar, boosting/selecting the centre channel can push out more emphasis to the commentary, making it clearer..

Re: Artificial crowd noise on sky football.

WhatApalaver — Sun, 19 Mar 2023 17:21:14 GMT

Thanks for the replies.

I'm not convinced that the crowd noise I hear on TV is consistent with what I hear live, at the ground. However, I bow to superior knowledge on this.

I will experiment with sound settings to see if I can get a better balance between crowd and commentary, but initial trial with Dolby Digital / Digital Plus eliminates sound completely. The default setting is PCM stereo, whatever that means!

Re: Artificial crowd noise on sky football.

Chodley — Sun, 19 Mar 2023 18:36:46 GMT

PCM stereo is just stereo (Pulse Code Modulation is just how the audio wave signal is encoded digitally) so where they have recorded multi-channel audio at the ground using multiple microphones, they mix that down to just 2 channels and supply a stereo version for TVs that can't take 5.1 etc.

Re: Artificial crowd noise on sky football.

rscott — Mon, 20 Mar 2023 00:21:55 GMT

Some of the audio is modified- certain chants aren't suitable for broadcast (at Rangers/Celtic games for example) - so Sky and BT overdub crowd noises to ensure they don't upset Ofcom.

Re: Artificial crowd noise on sky football.

cuke — Mon, 20 Mar 2023 10:47:01 GMT

With any decent soundbar the voice output can automatically be boosted. I use this all the time with my Samsung Q900A as I suffer from tinnitus.

Re: Artificial crowd noise on sky football.

Chodley — Mon, 20 Mar 2023 13:11:18 GMT

I even bought a specific soundbar for my in-laws which has voice frequency boosting. But whether that blends crowd noise in with commentary because it's still voices, I don't know.

Re: Artificial crowd noise on sky football.

JohnVDenley — Sat, 22 Mar 2025 15:51:23 GMT

Yes, it's a shame there is not a red button option for "commentary only" in the same way that sometimes there is a "crowd noise only" option!