Volume Increments

[mayamaniac]

Why is it with a lot of softwares, that the volume increments are more like figure B (slightly exaggerated) while it should be more gradual like figure A? For example, with the HD100, from mute volume to the lowest audible increment is a huge difference. It's like jumping from a value of zero to 5 in a 0-10 volume range, at least that's what it sounds like to my ears. And it's just not with SageTV, but many softwares and devices seem to have this problem.

Is there a reason for this or maybe my hearing is weird?

[reggie14]

I've wondered the same thing. And, as you said, I don't have this problem in just Sage.

[bsung]

I agree! Especially since the HD200 remote can't control my TV, I wish I could leave the TV volume high and be able to reach low volume with just the HD200 remote but it's impossible right now.

Is it possible that it currently moves in fixed increments of say 5% each time which just sounds like it jumps?

Would something like 1%, 2%, 4%, 7%, 10%, 15%, 20%, 30%, 40%, etc fix the problem? I've been meaning to formally send this same suggestion to the guys at Sage.

[teststrips]

this won't help you on the extender devices, but I found a solution that worked for me on my XP computer. In XP the master and wave volumes are seperate + I could only control one with Sage. I found a program called VolumeTracker that basically links the master and wave volumes - it turns both of them up/down at the same time. The result of both sliders moving at the same time comes out somethign close to the previous post, with low levels moving up slowly.

Also - if you want facts on WHY moving up volume increments of a fixed percentage doesn't work well, remember that percieved volume is not on-track with actual volume. Check out this graph http://cnx.org/content/m13085/latest/#loudness and the paragraph before it for more detail.

[vikingisson]

"But does it go to 11?"

[reggie14]

Do you guys think it's possible that this could be user-configurable? I'm getting pretty annoyed by this. There's a big difference in volume between my digital channels and my analog channels, and because of this issue I can't get away with setting the TV volume so that I can get to reasonable sound levels on both digital and analog TV using only the extender remote.

If you guys think this should be possible to change in software, we should all request this feature to Sage.

[mayamaniac]

I doubt it is impossible to change in the software.

If technically the increments in the software are actually:

[0%] - [10%] - [20%] - [30%] - [40%] - [50%] - [60%] - [70%] - [80%] - [90%] - [100%]

Yet our ears perceive those increments as Figure B:


Then the software increments should change to something like this:

[0%] - [1%] - [2%] - [4%] - [8%] - [16%] - [32%] - [64%] - [100%]

Then our ears should perceive them as Figure A.

[mayamaniac]

3. Modify range of volume control

Just would like to thank the SageTV developers for listening to the users. With the new beta for the HD-200, the volume increments work exactly like they should now.

Thank you.

I haven't tested the volume on the HD-100 yet as it died, but I'll test once I solder on the new capacitors. I assume it works the same as the HD-200.

[reggie14]

Wow. I haven't tried the new firmware yet either, but I'm surprised to see we already got a fix for this issue. That was really quick!