Why do some commercials play at an insanely higher volume than some other commercials?
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For the same reason some YouTube videos are louder than others. Ad creators can send in their commercials at any volume they want, and the stations they are broadcasted on don’t do much to regulate that volume.
There is no “default” volume. It’s really as simple as that. With no accepted standard volume*, they all end up different.
* Standard volume for what, also? Talking? But what about whispers, or shouting? And how about music – the start of Ravel’s Bolero Vs the end for example – or sound effects?
Actually most of the video ads on tv have some restrictions but advertisers use some tricks.
The Federal Communications Commission — the government agency that regulates the radio, television and cable industries — limits only the size of the biggest sound wave, the “peak level” of the sound. Under FCC rules, the peak of a commercial can be no higher than the programming it accompanies.
The problem with this approach is that the peak level of the sound does not accurately reflect how loud something sounds to the listener. Our brains judge loudness by averaging all of the waves that roll by — big and small.
One way they do this is to use a trick called “dynamic range compression,” which amplifies the softest sounds. This decreases the difference in size between the biggest and smallest waves. Compressed sound bombards the ear with more energy over a given period of time, audio that sounds flatter but louder.
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