Curious news:
In Sweden, one of the popular TV channels (TV4) together with some others have decided to level the volume of the commercials so that it should not be perceived louder than ordinary broadcast. It should start in Feb 2004.

God bless them. I thought I would never see this happen.
Has this been done anywhere else on TV?

Now it makes me wonder... Am I still going to use the mute button during the commercials, or not...

This is awsome news... they are prolly using MP3Gain now

hehe but seriously, this is an awsome change because sometimes on my cable commercials are so low they aren't even audible, at other times it feels like the stereo is cranked up all teh way.... good thing to hear its probably a new FCC standard or something

just skip the commercials "SmartChapters" rule. BeyondTV and an Hauppauge WinTV PVR-250 is just great. www.snapstream.com

Great news!

Jan Stenbeck, founder of TV4, allways cared very much about what the customer wanted. At least that's what they said in the documentary about him. ;)

Maybe they are just adding more compression to the normal programmes so that the commercials don't sound louder.

LOL! Hopefully not, eh?

I recall at least one television manufacturer (Philips?) hyping their automatic volume limiting models several years ago. Certainly a great feature with the absurdly loud commercials that are all too common.

Some of the commercials here in the United States are so loud I can hear the clipping. If they want to get peoples attention in a hurry horrendous clipping ought to do it.