Artificial intelligence could make actors who mumble their lines speak clearly as more people turn to subtitles when watching TV and movies.
Some of the most popular shows and movies of modern times have been criticized by complaints that they are difficult to follow because the actors mumble their lines.
The BBC’s Happy Valley has received countless complaints, as has HBO’s Game of Thrones, and Christopher Nolan films such as The Dark Knight Rises and Interstellar have been marred by inaudible dialogue.
A YouGov study found that up to 61 percent of TV viewers aged 18 to 25 use subtitles.
But now a solution is proposed with Clear Dialogue, which is an AI technology that isolates voices in real time on the TV.
Game of Thrones has received complaints that the dialogue is sometimes difficult to follow. (Kit Harington as Jon Snow and Emilia Clarke as Daenerys Targaryen in ‘Game of Thrones’)
Even the popular BBC show Happy Valley has received complaints about whispering. (Catherine Cawood as Sarah Lancashire)
Tom Hardy as Bane in Christopher Nolan’s Batman: The Dark Knight Rises. Many people complained that Bane’s lines were difficult to understand.
It has been developed by US company DTS, part of the Xperi entertainment group, and will allow TV makers to create “dialogue control”, The Times reported.
Sven Mevissen, Director of Product Management, said: ‘It separates dialogue from all other audio elements and then allows you to adjust the balance between dialogue and lack of dialogue.
‘This way you can set the dialogue to a level that’s easier for you to understand.’
The feature could be introduced as early as next year.
This comes after an Xperi survey of US adults found that 84 percent of viewers had difficulty understanding dialogue during TV shows and movies.
Earlier this year, Maestro viewers complained that they could barely understand the actors.
The biographical drama film follows the long-standing relationship between conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein and actress Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein.
It was directed by Bradley Cooper, who also plays Leonard, from a script he co-wrote with Josh Singer, and also stars Carey Mulligan as Felicia.
BBC crime drama The Jetty was criticised within minutes of its premiere for audio problems (Jenna Coleman pictured in the series)
Earlier this year, Maestro viewers complained that they could barely understand the actors. (Bradley Cooper in the film)
It has received excellent reviews from critics and is nominated for Best Drama Film, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Actress at the Golden Globes.
But viewers have taken to X, formerly known as Twitter, to complain that the film is marred by the fact that it is “barely audible” as the actors are constantly “mumbling”.
One person wrote: “The master murmurer… boring and it’s so hard to listen to conversations when he and his wife are talking over each other and his deep murmuring… Ugh! They turned it off after an hour.”
And BBC crime drama The Jetty, in which Jenna Coleman made her debut as a detective, suffered dozens of complaints from fans over audio issues when it debuted in July.
Fans shared their disappointment in X, claiming they couldn’t understand the narrative due to the constant “mumbling.”
Viewers flooded social media with comments to see if fellow viewers were suffering, with some writing: “The lighting, sound, dialogue and acting. All terrible. #TheJetty.”
Film technicians have previously claimed that the tendency to mumble lines is a deliberate choice by directors who borrow the idea from film to achieve a more “realistic” performance.
Malcolm Johnson, of the Institute of Professional Sound, told The Daily Telegraph: “Directors are persuading actors to downplay their performance and almost discard their lines, thinking it’s more realistic.”
