Why won't cable companies normalize volumes across channels?

This one is for you Charter (and every other cable company I've ever had.) Why can't the cable companies normalize the volumes of all their channels? I know there are variations between programming and advertising volumes, but when I switch from channel to channel, I typically either can't hear the channel or get blared out. I'm not typically sensitive to these changes, but I hate when I'm watching a program at night (kids sleeping) and I change the channel only to find myself in the middle of an action sequence in a movie with the volume suddenly twice as loud.

I know some TVs had volume normalization features (including automatically turning down the volume during noisy commercials) a couple years back, but why not eliminate the problem? Why not pick a volume range or maximum peak volume and adjust channels to the standard at the cable company's end of the technology before re-broadcasting the signal down their network?

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This page contains a single entry by speedeep published on October 5, 2008 1:46 AM.

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