The situation is I'm helping someone with their AV setup. It's a simple system, just Blu-Ray/DVD player connected directly to a 42" display, via HDMI cable. All fairly recent equipment.

The problem is the audio dynamic range is absurdly wide on the discs they are watching. When the volume is set to hear the dialog well, the music or effects are far too loud. Constantly running the volume up and down is getting tiresome. Using a dynamic range compression on the audio is what needs to happen, but I'm uncertain where this processing is done, these days. Do they need to get a disc player with the compression option? A TV with the option?

I've checked out their current equipment and can't find anything related to dynamic range compression settings.

Thanks for any advice.

Have found with just about all DVD and Blu-rays are this way. Found that streaming 4k had far better audio range within reason.
Always hated having to change the volume just to watch it.

Do they use a reciever with a 5.1 speaker setup?? can you list makes and models of the equipment??

Find this with a lot of disks too, I have one memory mapped to a raised level on the centre channel and reduced levels on the main left and right speakers. In my bedroom I turn the "night mode" on which greatly reduces the dynamic range - stops the wife complaining too much Most of my gear is Pioneer but even my old Teac 5.1 receiver had a night mode with reduced dynamic range and it is from 1998, it's 20 years old and still going strong.

And for Netfix I have the subtitles turned on for me so I don't need to turn the volume up too much

I don't have the model numbers on hand. The disc player is just a featureless black slab with LG molded into it. And no receiver, just TV and player.

Alicatt, yes a "night mode" is something I'd like. Going into a full receiver is probably not going to happen. They enjoy the very minimal installation.

I may reexamine those "sound bar" products. I tested one a good while back (last year), but it's UI was abysmal. Just a row of like 5 super-tiny, almost invisible LEDs, which blinked and flashed different ways to indicate everything. Probably easier to learn to communicate with R2-D2. Didn't help that it forgot all settings after each shut-down, forcing a reconfig for each session!

I think that is because the audio is geared for surround sound and doesn't translate well to a regular TV.

I saw this device online a while ago, and I think it was designed to address this issue. I am making no claims as to its effectiveness, only passing this along in case you'd like to investigate further:

https://newatlas.com/aftermaster-pro-audio-enhancer/42836/

https://aftermasterpro.com/

Thanks Arthonon, I'll check that out. Something like that would make it easy. If there are BluRay/DVD players with built-in "night mode" compression it would probably be ideal.