Quote:
Originally Posted by
Stereodude
That's likely the fault of your local affiliate. They get lossless audio from the high bitrate network feed and then do whatever they want to it. Some sound "engineer" can decide that he needs to mirror the center channel into the L&R, or compress it, or mess with the bass or who knows what all. The audio in the On Demand isn't mangled by your local affiliate and is probably virtually identical to the network feed except for the compression being lossy.
Hi,
That's interesting information, thanks. It really never occurred to me that a sound engineer (or whatever

) at a local affiliate would be messing with the soundtrack of a network program. If you say that they do, I believe you, but why would they? What would be the point, other than because they can?
I always thought that it had more to do with the original mix, since higher budget TV shows such as GOT, or Strike Back, for instance have virtually (or literally) high dollar movie quality soundtracks. Even shows on TNT, such as Major Crimes, have better quality soundtracks, although not as good as the really big budget ones. I just assumed that network shows from CBS, etc. didn't have the budget for as careful and independent sound mixing, and were more formulistic in their approach. Pumping up the ambient sound sort of randomly, for instance. Of course, compression is another issue, and probably also depends, to some extent, on the provider. Mine is DirecTV, FWIW, for this discussion.
Do you have any idea why local affiliates futz with network soundtracks from a mixing standpoint?
Regards,
Mike