Your hearing is not always to blame if you don’t catch everything in TV films and series. It is often the background noise of the action that overlays the speech acts of the actors. ARD and ZDF now want to counteract this with a new range of audio.
On June 1, both public broadcasters introduced a function that uses artificial intelligence to highlight the spoken word on television and thus make it easier to understand. The offer is already available for the ZDF main program, the programs ZDFneo, 3sat and ZDFinfo will follow gradually. The ARD starts with Das Erste as well as in the third WDR, NDR and rbb.
The HD channels of the broadcasters involved broadcast the additional audio track. ZDF uses the multi-language channel (mul), where otherwise formats run in the original language. In the case of a program with original sound, the offer is then not available. ARD has introduced an additional channel that has the code “qks”.
You can access the respective channels using the remote control. In the audio menu there is now a choice between “Original Sound”, “Audio Description”, “Multi-channel Sound” and the “Clear Speech” sound track. The speech-optimized audio track can also be activated via the HbbTV start bar (Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV). You can access it directly using the red button on your remote control, according to ARD.
The prerequisite for this, however, is that the terminal also allows this selection. ZDF already takes this into account in the instructions for setting the track: “Since the implementation of the sound selection is device/manufacturer-specific, we unfortunately cannot make any general statements about the specific setting options for the “Clear Speech” (e.g. TV -Remote control with “Audio” button, options, settings, audio language, playback language, language settings, …) Helpful in any case: a look at the operating instructions.
The WDR offers a test video on its website in which users can listen to the difference between the original sound and “clear speech”.
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The original of this post “No more sound problems: This is how you get “clear speech” on ARD and ZDF” comes from chip.de.
