Re: Meaning of audio track kind 'descriptions'

On Wed, Jun 22, 2011 at 3:32 AM, Mark Watson <watsonm@netflix.com> wrote:
>
> I think this is a matter of opinion and eventually gets resolved through
> feedback from real users. I doubt *users* want to continuously adjust the
> relative volume of the tracks, so we're talking about automatic client
> capabilities, perhaps based on user preference settings, which do the
> ducking. But still these have only one degree of freedom (relative volume of
> the two tracks), whereas the content creator has many (relative volume of
> the many source tracks).
>
> So I think it's equally unlikely that client-side ducking is always better
> than professional mixing.

Well, we are not talking about how a video's main audio track is
composed - of course a professional sound editor will create a better
mix of the many input channels that are necessary to be synchronized.
We are only talking about how a human or computer-created voice that
is spoken over the top of an existing mix stands out in front of that
mix. This is a simple matter of turning the main audio track
quieter/louder (i.e. ducking). If I as a user cannot discern the
description voice over the top of the main mix, then I turn the main
mix down. Surely that is always better than a fixed mix of the audio
description with the main audio where I am dependent on how well the
person that does the sound mix can hear the voice in front of the main
audio mix.

Silvia.

Received on Wednesday, 22 June 2011 00:17:44 UTC