Is it a matter of imagination or...

[chuck]

"Smart Sound". Which is often anything but. My car stereo has 4-5 "presets" for equalization. The filters are set for classical, talk, rock/pop, easy listening, etc. They actually do affect the quality of the sound. The smart sound settings on the TV seem to be less successful. Same for the "picture quality" settings, e.g. cinematic, sports, ..... I tend to leave them alone as they are a pain in the * to get to and we watch too many different programs with no common "visual" themes.

Re the potential for an "ap". Main issue is legal, not technical.

https://www.techjunkie.com/automatically-mute-tv-commercials/

[Rufus T. Firefly]

"Smart Sound". Which is often anything but. My car stereo has 4-5 "presets" for equalization. The filters are set for classical, talk, rock/pop, easy listening, etc. They actually do affect the quality of the sound.

The ones in my car are not particularly "smart" and I count that as a bonus. They are set for my ears and what I listen to and I rarely make any adjustments.

The smart sound settings on the TV seem to be less successful. Same for the "picture quality" settings, e.g. cinematic, sports, ..... I tend to leave them alone as they are a pain in the * to get to and we watch too many different programs with no common "visual" themes

Which all seems to support listening to music and reading a book,

[chuck]

Which all seems to support listening to music and reading a book,

Yes, quite true.

My wife's car's sound system is not that good at "equalization". She drives a Chevy but it's a lot smaller and much less sophisticated. It has a back up warning system, audio only. When I start to back her car out of the garage I start looking and the infotainment screen waiting for the back up camera to come on. It's going to be a long wait!. It doesn't have a back up camera!

We tend to watch a lot of British TV via PBS or BritBox and I almost always have the CC enabled to try to pick up the text to "translate" colloquialisms. e.g. a crime show had the bad guys getting away in a "saloon". It took a little research to determine this was meant to be a four door vehicle, aka a sedan in the US. Originally I thought maybe it was a brand or they weren't saying "saloon". I got boot, bonnet and some other terms but I was thrown by saloon!

[Rufus T. Firefly]

My wife's car's sound system is not that good at "equalization". She drives a Chevy but it's a lot smaller and much less sophisticated. It has a back up warning system, audio only. When I start to back her car out of the garage I start looking and the infotainment screen waiting for the back up camera to come on. It's going to be a long wait!. It doesn't have a back up camera!

My 10 year old Subaru has a back up camera........and not bad sound,

We tend to watch a lot of British TV via PBS or BritBox and I almost always have the CC enabled to try to pick up the text to "translate" colloquialisms. e.g. a crime show had the bad guys getting away in a "saloon". It took a little research to determine this was meant to be a four door vehicle, aka a sedan in the US. Originally I thought maybe it was a brand or they weren't saying "saloon". I got boot, bonnet and some other terms but I was thrown by saloon!

Some of those will toss you over. Try watching SS-GB.......that'll twist your neurons a bit.

[chuck]

Her car is 11 years old. I don't think a camera was even an option in those days. The Ultra Sound rear cross traffic warning system was considered "state of the art" at that time for a "compact" car.

SS GB. I may give that a try. I wasn't that impressed/fond of the Man in the High Castle. Did enjoy "V for Vendetta". Mostly I prefer the "Detective Shows" or whatever they call stuff like Whitechapel, Luther, Case Histories, The Brokers Man, The Tunnel. Love Endeavour, except the last series. Most were beautifully written/plotted. Last season was mess. They are allegedly filming what may be the final season as the time line is closing in on the beginning of the original Inspector Morse. Previous season was as good as the pilot movie, maybe better. Such a let down. You spend six seasons developing characters, relationships, over arching story arcs that cross over seasons and then you toss all of that out for what seems to be no apparent reason. If you're tired of doing this, stop. No point in wasting everyone's time on a muddled mess.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

SS GB. I may give that a try.

I caught part of an episode and thought it "interesting".

[robert.]

I drive a 1995 dodge Dakota . When i stop moving i need to turn down the radio. When we start moving again i need to turn it all the way up. This action blocks out all the squeaks, clanking, whining and other horrible noises a 25 year old truck makes.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

I drive a 1995 dodge Dakota . When i stop moving i need to turn down the radio. When we start moving again i need to turn it all the way up. This action blocks out all the squeaks, clanking, whining and other horrible noises a 25 year old truck makes.

[rogruth]

We have been more concerned recently by the number of commercials allowed per hour.
Some time ago,OK, quite some time ago six minutes an hour was the maximum time allowed for commercials.
Today I think it is twenty minutes.

[gregj410]

Has anybody else here noticed this / felt this way, or is it my imagination ?

It might be your age. Do you angrily yell out to the kids, “Hey, get off of my lawn”!? That could be a sign.

[chuck]

The ads have to be broken down by national versus local. Current standards are 6 minutes of national/network commercials per half hour and two minutes of local. We are now being bombarded by more commercials in that allotted time span. In the 60's/70's ads were either 60 seconds or 30 seconds. Now there are 15 and 20 second alternatives. In a 90 second break you used to get three 30 second ads or one 60 second and one 30 second. Now you could get as many as six 15 second ads in that same break. Pubic service messages don't count against the 8 minute allocation.

Stations that rely on rebroadcasts of older shows that used the old formula of 4.5 minutes/per hour (MeTV, H&I, TVLand) use editing tricks (some crude, some more sophisticated) to get the show to match the current format. Besides simply deleting material this can include compressing/speeding up material to shave time. Scripted shows have edit points built in to facilitate the commercial breaks. It is somewhat amusing to see these shows where the timing has been changed. There are seemingly random "pauses" in the action where an ad was supposed to go. This often happens to British shows that are now being broadcast in the US, often on PBS. The original UK broadcast was on commercial TV and the "pause points" are still there unless the show carefully scripted.

Old Quinn Martin shows (e.g. FBI, The Invaders) were broken down into four acts that were actually "announced" at the beginning of the act and provided a convenient place to spot ads and this allowed you to grab a drink or take a leak. I suspect those "act" announcements are some of the first material to be edited out.

So while there are more ads because they have more time, it feels worse because there are literally more ads, period.

[MurphOnMillerAve]

Has anybody else here noticed this / felt this way, or is it my imagination ?

It might be your age. Do you angrily yell out to the kids, “Hey, get off of my lawn”!? That could be a sign.

Never. In fact, it's been quite the opposite . I have consistently encouraged them to cut-thru the yard to be safer, especially when there has been inclement weather, instead of walking outside the fence along the roadway , and I tell them to use the yard when they are visiting a neighbor and playing ball in its adjacent yard. Also, when one of them got a go-cart and was zipping along the side of the main roadway, I suggested he come into our yard instead and use the entire yard, encircling the whole house, which he took seriously and traveled far less on the main road and traveled mostly in our yard from that point forward .

Kids like me. They always have.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Kids like me. They always have.

Old man......kids.......living dangerously..... Just don't be handing out candy.......

[MurphOnMillerAve]

Huh?

[rogruth]

Rufus,
You are going to need to explain to Murph.