Tag: TV

Apple introduced a feature I was very much looking forward to trying out this fall for tvOS 18. It’s called Enhance Dialogue. The theory behind the feature is simple: enhance the dialogue of what you’re watching so you can hear it. When my wife and I initially tested it we were quite pleased with the feature. But last night there was some weirdness.

Like so many features Apple (and others) release, new things seem to work out of the box. But then as updates rollout and things burn in, a bit of oddness creeps in.

Last night we were watching the finale of the Apple TV+ series Disclaimer. Things were rolling along just fine and then towards the end of the episode we stopped hearing dialogue. Characters became silent film stars and mimes with moving mouths, but no sound of dialogue was coming out. Underscoring continued.

Initially we thought this might be an artistic choice (a poor one.) What was happening in the story as it headed to its conclusion and then denouement could reasonably be understood without dialogue. But a tertiary character behind a nurse’s station uttered one line of dialogue, breaking the silence, and then immediately we went back to a silent film again.

I shouldn’t say completely silent. Background noises and conversations from background characters were coming through as ambience over the underscoring. Then a few moments later we heard some of the dialogue, but it was muffled and echo-y as though picked up by a distant microphone or layered on top in post of what we were supposed to be hearing. Every now and then we’d occasionally get those clear, one line bursts of dialogue. The conclusion I reached after this whole thing was over is that those lines in the clear must have been overdubbed and the muffled lines were due to be enhanced later.

We paused the episode and I turned on subtitles, revealing that there was indeed dialogue being spoken. We stopped the episode and tried again. Same result. I then went back to settings and turned off Enhance Dialogue. Voila. We were able to hear all the dialogue again.

I know lots of things are going on in the backend at Apple has they continue to roll out betas at a crazy pace trying to play catch up in the Artificial Intelligence game. I’ve written before on how this can have an effect on even non-beta users. What’s puzzling to me is that this doesn’t seem like a feature that should be affected by backend services. Perhaps I’m wrong. But we’ve watched several shows without this issue since first turning on Enhance Dialogue.

Here’s the thing. In my opinion, both the visual and audio elements of film making have pushed new technology envelopes a bit too far. We shouldn’t need a feature to enhance dialogue to overcome bad sound mixes that try to be as realistic, or unrealistic, as possible in the same way that we should still be able to view actors in dark scene. If you can’t see or hear the story, what’s the point of the story, or the technology? Sound and fury signifying not much.

Then again, I get it. Artists will tell you they are trying to make things look and sound as real as possible, or craft an environment that is all encompassing with all of the elements at their disposal. Too often they get carried away and lose us to ineffective story telling.

I had planned to write up a blog post saying how much the Enhance Dialogue feature was a winner after some success with the new feature. I can’t say for sure that there is direct causation between the new Enhance Dialogue feature and the dialogue dropout we experienced. I will say, that it’s easy to point a finger of correlation after new features are released and something, anything goes awry. For now, I’ll leave it as the Enhance Dialogue feature looks like it could possibly be a winner in our household. If it works as advertised. All the time. Every time.

I will also say again that if filmmakers did their jobs correctly this wouldn’t be necessary except for those watching who might need assistive technology. In my opinion, if story tellers start relying on this feature to be present (I know it exists on many smart TVs,) it will be to the detriment of their craft and artistry.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.