mpgc.ac.in Portal
Core77 - Blog • Feb. 10, 2026, 2:30 p.m.
Remedial Design: Apple TV's "I Couldn't Hear the Dialogue" Feature
In recent years, as movie and TV video quality has improved, the audio quality has gotten worse. Surveys show that people increasingly watch their programming with the subtitles on, citing muddled audio quality.
One cause is that modern sound is often mixed for cinema-quality audio systems, rather than the tiny speakers of a flatscreen TV; another is a trend for directors to de-prioritize the importance of dialogue —very fitting, in today's world of partisanship. Last night I was watching a show on Apple TV, and noticed a new-to-me feature: Each time I hit the left-arrow button, to rewind a scene 10 seconds because I couldn't hear the dialogue, the captions automatically turned on, just for that 10-second clip.
I've since read that other streaming services, which I don't subscribe to (Roku and Amazon Prime Video) also have the feature, but that it must be toggled on.
One cause is that modern sound is often mixed for cinema-quality audio systems, rather than the tiny speakers of a flatscreen TV; another is a trend for directors to de-prioritize the importance of dialogue —very fitting, in today's world of partisanship. Last night I was watching a show on Apple TV, and noticed a new-to-me feature: Each time I hit the left-arrow button, to rewind a scene 10 seconds because I couldn't hear the dialogue, the captions automatically turned on, just for that 10-second clip.
I've since read that other streaming services, which I don't subscribe to (Roku and Amazon Prime Video) also have the feature, but that it must be toggled on.
Related
- Ronan Bouroullec's Cast Iron Trivet Necklace
- Footwear Startup Aims to Produce Injury-Reducing Sneakers
- A Clever, Low-Tech, No-Robots Design for a Passive Tennis Partner
- Next-Gen Composite Materials: Using Flax Rather than Carbon Fiber
- Good Low-Tech Design: This Vet Care Meds Chart
- Core77 Weekly Roundup (2-2-26 to 2-6-26)
