Conference noise

What was the noise between speakers?

I spot checked a recording from the satellite. All I heard was normal "room" noise that one expects when you have a large crowd. (Coughing, rustling, etc.)

russellhltn wrote:I spot checked a recording from the satellite. All I heard was normal "room" noise that one expects when you have a large crowd. (Coughing, rustling, etc.)

That's exactly what it sounded like, but very loud, but then it stopped very abruptly when the speaker started. I'm guessing they have mics turned toward the congregation and then turned them off when the speaker started speaking. Its not a big deal, but I've watched a lot GC over the years and I don't remember this before.

Neither my wife nor I noticed any unusual noise between conference speakers watching from home via lds.org, FWIW.

How were you watching? It's possible that a compressor in that feed made this obvious.

davesudweeks wrote:Neither my wife nor I noticed any unusual noise between conference speakers watching from home via lds.org, FWIW.

We watched on BYU-TV, through our local Cox Cable...

You also might want to check your TV and cable box settings. There might be something there about adjusting the sound level. The idea being that if you're watching a movie, you want to be able to hear the dialog without getting blasted by the action scenes. The acceptable dynamic range for typical TV viewing is a lot less than a dedicated movie theater setup.

For comparison, you might want to watch it from the main church website on your computer.

russellhltn wrote:Y.

For comparison, you might want to watch it from the main church website on your computer.

Is there a place on the church web site where you can watch the entire session and not just the speakers or music? The noise doesn't occur when watching just the speakers..

zaneclark wrote:

russellhltn wrote:Y.

For comparison, you might want to watch it from the main church website on your computer.

Is there a place on the church web site where you can watch the entire session and not just the speakers or music? The noise doesn't occur when watching just the speakers..

Sure. Just go to gc.churchofjesuschrist.org, and click on the three button icon at the top - just to the right of the session name.

The sound is there (I'm listening using headphones), but I'm not hearing it at level that makes it sound like extra mics are being turned on. It's what I'd expect the pulpit mic to pick up.

russellhltn wrote:

zaneclark wrote:

russellhltn wrote:Y.

For comparison, you might want to watch it from the main church website on your computer.

Is there a place on the church web site where you can watch the entire session and not just the speakers or music? The noise doesn't occur when watching just the speakers..

Sure. Just go to gc.churchofjesuschrist.org, and click on the three button icon at the top - just to the right of the session name.

The sound is there (I'm listening using headphones), but I'm not hearing it at level that makes it sound like extra mics are being turned on. It's what I'd expect the pulpit mic to pick up.

Just listened and you are correct..no noise. So it must be something to do with the feed from BYU-TV coming through Cox Cable... As I said before, no big thing, just curious.

zaneclark wrote:Just listened and you are correct..no noise. So it must be something to do with the feed from BYU-TV coming through Cox Cable... As I said before, no big thing, just curious.

Most likely Automatic Level Control (ALC) is being used by either BYU-TV or Cox. ALC will usually ramp up the audio gain slowly when it's very soft, then quickly reduce it when it gets loud. This will allow a LOT of background noise to come through between speakers. Some cable companies do this to normalize the audio level for each channel so they are pretty close to other channels when flipping through.

Mikerowaved wrote:Most likely Automatic Level Control (ALC) is being used by either BYU-TV or Cox.

Or a feature of the cable box or TV set. On my Spectrum box it's in the advanced features "Audio:Range" is set to "Narrow".

Thanks to digital "look ahead", the ALC can know what the audio level will be for a few seconds into the "future" and use that to decide what to do "now".