Streaming services' obnoxiously loud ads become illegal on July 1 in California

buffer_overlord

I just use Spotify premium how do you get feee music with ads??

iamshs

Went on Instagram last week for 2-3 days, and found out an annoying pattern where just the beginning 1s or so of a video ad is loud and then the volume is normal. Doesn't occur on all Ads either.

phendrenad2

Well, since loud ads may be going away, I want to share my observations for posterity: Loud ads only annoyed some people. Or rather, some people found them hellishly torturous (mostly neurodivergent people like me) and others were remarkably okay with them (or were just placated by the thought of saving a few dollars a month)

Calvin02

I found this to be an issue on YouTube. It wasn’t necessarily malicious. I often put on a no-talking video in the background while reading and the ad interruptions became really loud. I eventually just ended up subscribing, but this is great to see.

petcat

This was a ridiculous loophole that needed to be closed. FCC has already made this practice illegal over broadcast TV.

kstrauser

> The groups argued that “many” streaming services were already trying to manage the “loudness of advertisements that come from server-side ad insertion that may be inconsistent with the loudness of the programs,” […]. Server-side ads can have differing volumes due to companies using various encoding pipelines. Boo-freaking-hoo. Cry me a river, poor streaming services without the technical know-how to calculate an ad’s volume. We can’t expect them to know how audio works! > Additionally, as the opposing groups previously pointed out, streaming services must contend with a broad range of output devices, including TVs, tablets, and phones. See, that’s just flat-out lying. What’s this mythical circumstance where playing audio A at the same volume as audio B on one device will magically make A louder than Bon another? Especially when dealing with server-side ad insertion, as the article discusses, where the service has full control of the input files and the output stream? This reads like a restaurant trade group claiming that it’s impossible to know how much salt they put in the gravy.

hliyan

Considering the number of thick volumes of regulations the world's governments are accumulating in trying to combat harmful behaviour by businesses (or, in economic parlance, negative externalities ), and still failing to keep them in check, I wonder whether we should consider bringing back more flexible, socially imposed injunctions instead of legislation/regulation. Something not quite as strict as judge-made law / common law, but also not quite as mob-rule-esque as mass cancellation online. Boycotting is obviously one form. Ostracism was another, but no longer practical. Perhaps there are other methods. Perhaps any business that cannot be effectively boycotted by a majority of its customers, should be considered too big to exist.

Cider9986

Even if I was a billionaire, Stremio gives me a better experience streaming movies and shows then I could get paying for anything and everything. Two reasons: Highest quality available for every media. Bluray remuxes are a game changer, when available. Every media in one app.

zimpenfish

Instagram does something similar - they have random ads in HDR which iOS will display at obnoxious brightness. Just what you want as you scroll by trying to find someone you actually follow.

thenoblesunfish

What's the technical definition of loudness that applies here? Is it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LUFS ?

asdff

Waiting for California to ban obnoxiously bright electronic billboards next. The meatspace could use some love too.

kube-system

> [...] opposed the bill. The groups argued that “many” streaming services were already trying to manage the “loudness of advertisements that come from server-side ad insertion that may be inconsistent with the loudness of the programs,” Well, stop "trying" and fix it already. It's your own damn system.

anjel

Also a thing with podcast adverts.

lacoolj

I wonder if this means Apple TV will make their show volumes louder finally (aka, standard levels of other apps so I don't need to put my speaker at 39/40 to hear what should be 25/40) Though, I don't even know if Apple TV has an ad-supported plan. This is mainly wishful thinking here :)