Sound Levels when playing Movies

[zenzen1]

Was watching the movie "17 Again" last night, and in several scenarios there are some very quite passages where the actors are talking low (almost mumbling). And so you turn up the volume to hear what they are saying, and suddenly, next scene without warning you are on a dance floor with the music pumping out at 200%. So you desparately look for and grab the remote again to turn the volume DOWN to a reasonable level. (Too bad about the shift-workers next door)!!

In short, during this whole movie (and many others) I had to "ride" the volume on the remote throughout, which is not only frustrating, but also detracts from the enjoyment of watching movies.

Is there any software out there that will simply reduce the audio volume on the LOUD passages without effecting the spoken dialogue??
Yes I know I could demux the audio and edit it with Nero's AC3 wav editor, but that would take longer than actually watching the movie !!!

[MOVIEGEEK]

Both software and standalone players have a setting in audio to turn off dynamic compression, some players have a setting to enhance dialog without increasing the overall volume.

[guns1inger]

You are too used to watching television shows, where all the noise is at a similar level. DVD/Bluray allows for a much wider dynamic range, which gives much truer sounding audio.

As MovieGeek has pointed out, most players and amps have some method for managing this. It could be called Dynamic Range Compression, or simply DRC, or in some cases Night Mode or Midnight Movie Mode. You need to turn this feature ON - it is usually off by default.

[zenzen1]

Thanks for the replies. I take your point about DVD/Bluray allows for a much wider dynamic range, which gives much truer sounding audio. There is a setting on my media player called Night Mode, so I will give that a try.