TV has gotten too dark, and by that, I don’t mean tonally — I mean you can’t see what the hell is going on half the time. The audio situation isn’t much better: Raise your hand if you’ve ever watched a show with closed captions because you couldn’t hear what the hell the characters were saying. (OK, put your hand back down so you can scroll through the rest of the story.) Dolby, the American tech company best known for its immersive surround sound, aims to fix both problems, and Peacock will be first in flight.
This year, Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos will roll out two large enhancements across Peacock’s live sports coverage, including Sunday Night Football, the NBA and Major League Baseball games, NBCUniversal announced earlier this week. A recent Dolby study found that 90 percent of sports fans say video quality “that replicates the in-person experience” is important; 85 percent said the same about audio.
The expectation is for Dolby Vision 2 and Dolby AC-4 to soon be rolled out for non-sports programming as well, two people with knowledge of the plan told The Hollywood Reporter. The specific upgrades are not exclusive to Peacock, but it is the first streamer to adopt (read: pay for) the improvements, and will likely be the first to bring them live to market.
Dolby Vision 2 will bring brighter, more vivid colors to your television, something we all wish we had for the Game of Thrones series finale. Dolby AC-4 allows for various levels of dialogue enhancement — another much-needed service: A recent AP study found that 60 percent of adult TV viewers have used closed captions to follow along with their shows. Both upgrades debuted earlier this week at the Las Vegas CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in a presentation that made headlines for a potential use case that David Bohunek probably wishes he didn’t suggest.
Bohunek, NBCUniversal’s senior vice president global video engineering, recalled a halftime phone call during Peacock’s first exclusive NFL game. NBCU and NFL executives had different opinions on how the audio mix was working — one side wanted Mike Tirico and Cris Collinsworth’s commentary to be a bit louder, the other was seeking more crowd noise. You can probably figure out which organization was on which side.
Broadcaster Cris Collinsworth is greeted by Pittsburgh Steelers tight end Pat Freiermuth (88) on the sidelines hours before announcing the Sunday Night Football game between the LA Chargers and the Pittsburgh Steelers at SoFi Stadium.
Gauthier/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images
“With AC-4 and the personalization of the audio, we can let the customers do what they prefer with a very simple control in our own UI,” Bohunek said, “and maybe let them turn off commentary completely if that’s what they want.”
No Cris Collinsworth? You’ve got the internet’s attention. (Note: the internet is dumb, Collinsworth is excellent at his job. And for that matter, lay off Joe Buck too.)
A Peacock rep now tells The Hollywood Reporter that turning commentary off completely is “not something NBCU is seriously considering.”