The main tank, brimful with ideas. Enjoy them, discuss them, take them. - Of course, this is also the #1 place for new submissions!
By Jay C. Allen
#1429
Are you annoyed by commercials that have a higher level of volume than your favorite TV program?

This device could be used in conjunction with ANY modern Television. It would work similar to the volume control on the television's remote control, however with an additional twist. The device would contain a sound or volume level sensor which would then automatically adjust the sound to the viewer's desired level and keep it there.

>>>[volume sensor]>>>[volume adjust]

Reward: To see it work.
By pooface228
#1926
I think there would be a slight problem with this idea. When you adjust the volume on most televisions, there is a little bar that lets you know the level of volume. If you had an object that constantly changed the volume this would get quite annoying. I also think that sony has came out wit that idea. Its called smart sound. Look it up.
By cnet
#1978
Jay C. Allen wrote:Are you annoyed by commercials that have a higher level of volume than your favorite TV program?

This device could be used in conjunction with ANY modern Television. It would work similar to the volume control on the television's remote control, however with an additional twist. The device would contain a sound or volume level sensor which would then automatically adjust the sound to the viewer's desired level and keep it there.

>>>[volume sensor]>>>[volume adjust]

Reward: To see it work.
I think it is good also to have a television with an automatic volume control so that the time will be minimize in using the remote of the TV.
User avatar
By Michael D. Grissom
#2081
After thousands of complaints to the FCC about this problem, a battle was fought and the end results were that TV commercials could no longer be INCREASED in volume. Unfortunately, the ruling did NOT say that the TV show (program) could not be REDUCED in volume so, the problem continues. Also, they have added audio compression to TV commercials to make them SOUND louder without increasing the volume so much. This is info obtained from the FCC web site.

I have patented such a device and it became a Senior Engineering project at NCSU this semester. It is working almost perfectly and the preproduction proto will be complete in May. If and when it goes into production, I'll send you one for free -- just for fun.

If you must have one NOW you can find three types available on the net (keywords: "ZAPPER" & "TV commercials") and several more types built into VCR's and cable boxes like TIVO. Unfortunately, the built in ones require that you record everything, then rewind, then send it all the way through the tape again so that it can "mark" (not erase) all the commercials and rewind again before you can watch commercial free. When a commercial is encountered, your screen will go black for about 15 to 30 seconds while it Fast Forwards through all the commercials. BTW, I have Smart Sound and its effects are barely detectable which is why the search for a better solution is still viable.

Hope this brightens your day a tad. You had a great idea that our marketing research shows 35 million US residence would buy today for under $35.

Keep doing what you're doing... you're obviously very good at it.
By Shogun
#2410
I thought of this same idea but not for TV. It was for when you pull a tape or CD out of a machine and the radio kicks in automatically, deafening you.

But none of you have been able to spot the real problem with this.

While the aggregate volumes of the Adverts are indeed louder, it is still possible that in non-adverts sounds will reach loud agggregate levels over similar periods to adverts.

Therefore the TV can not actually know whether Ads or programmes are currently on screen, for it could just be that there are loud and quiet scenes of either Adverts or programmes.

Decibel variations obviously overlap (Advert to Non-advert).

Any kind of patent regarding encryption so the TV knows when an Ad is being played should be strategically filed now by ADVERTISING companies so nobody can get around this to their detriment.
User avatar
By Michael D. Grissom
#2412
Current commercial zappers on the market are able to accurately eliminate 85% of the adverts by detecting their:

1) Video 'Black Frames' that occur at the beginning and end.
2) Audio compression and distortion used to attract attention.
3) Actual db (decibel) increases to max allowable by FCC.
4) The moments of silence usually preceeding each advert segment.

Combining all 4 of these, engineers have achieved 85% accuracy.
In an attempt to achieve 100% accuracy, they are developing new methods using "color and voice pattern mapping". In effect, these background programs 'remember' the commercials, the actors, and the scenes. There is so much of this new commercial eliminating technology from universities on the internet that I spent a week reading and felt I hadn't even scratched the surface. I have no doubt that they will succeed.

I'm sorry I didn't explain things more clearly in my previous post but, I'm trying my best not to get long-winded in forums.
User avatar
By Michael D. Grissom
#2413
BTW -- it is because of the growing popularity of this technology being built into players and cable TV boxes that advertisers are now putting their products into the shows we watch. In the US it has become common to see the characters in a favorite TV sit-com sitting around a table and ALL are drinking CocaCola (for example). They failed to stop this new technology in American courts so, this is how they are fighting back. The trick, they say, is not to make it so obvious that you offend the viewers.
By Fairfield
#5037
Did you ever get your Aoutomatic Volume Control device for TV's to market? I am not so concerned about the commercials. Maybe that's because I watch the public TV channel most of the time. But I would happily execute all those people who make their living by dumping "background" music onto science and documentary programs. They must have an awfully strong union because they seem to be into practically everything. It kills me to think that some of my subscription money must go into paying for this unwanted noise. Fortunately, I can still, so far, watch the Charlie Rose program with out background music.

This "background" music is definitely at least twice as loud as the voice sound. I can tell by how far I have to turn the knob to get the music down to the immediately previous voice level. I even complained to my local Public TV station thinking that, as I am a subscriber, they might be concerned about my complaint. They said they couldn't correct volume swings that were built into the program tapes. How unclever can these high paid people get?

So how's your TV automatic volume control product doing? Is it an easy "add on",
device, or is there some wire connection work required inside the TV set?
User avatar
By Michael D. Grissom
#5040
The prototype from NCSU works amazingly well but my biz partners have 26 other inventions/patents of mine and have put it as #23 in their serial list of priorities. Their list is "serial" for lack of enough funding to do them all at the same time. This will all change very soon though as we just sold 300,000 of the toy invention at $9 each and they only cost $2 to make. This should provide the necessary funding to get all 26 moving simultaneously. This was badly needed because many are provisional patents and patents with maintenence fees due which will expire soon and need to be converted to full patents or be lost forever!
By Fairfield
#5060
Michael:

I see from rereading your first reply to this thread that your device makes the AVC work through the standard mechanisms that TV remote control systems use. I am not familiar with the exact mechanics of these systems, but if it involves a responding servo motor continually adjusting an ordinary, sliding, carbon coated potentiometer (the usual manual volume control), I would expect it to get scratchy and erratic in less than 6 months.

One alternative possibility that I have been vaguely considering is running the TV's speaker output through what used to be called a "wireless phono oscillator", and then through an AM radio. AM radios have a built in RF signal level restrainer which incidentally also does a lot of audio volume leveling. But I don't think any wireless phono oscillators are commercially made any more, and I can't quite get this priority up high enough to get around to making one myself.
User avatar
By Michael D. Grissom
#5061
"...but if it involves a responding servo motor continually adjusting an ordinary, sliding, carbon coated potentiometer "

This is the way TV remote volume controls worked when they were first invented (Zenith 'Lazy Bones' 1956) and were NOT wireless. Also, sliding carbon coated potentiometers (resistors) were replaced by the resistive plastic type 20 years ago (to solve the "scratchy" problem) and "servos" were replaced when all controls went digital in the 70's. Wow... what a "blast from the past"! You sure brought back some really great memories as I used to work on these tube (valve) type TV's when I was in high school (ham radio hobby).

Here are some links that should help in your quest:

http://inventors.about.com/library/inve ... ntrols.htm (1st remote)
http://users.rcn.com/jbyrns/AES_osc.html (wireless phono oscillator)
http://truthnews.com/world/2002070116.htm (whats already available)
By Fairfield
#5088
Michael:

I found this AVC topic by entering that subject in Google. I was surprised to find a forum discussion going on about the matter. But it looks like there isn't any current commercial solution to my particular complaint. Strangely, all the background music I've heard this weak has been nice and soft.

However, since you are apparently pretty deep into electronics I wonder if I might lay on you a rather pedantic discussion regarding the seeming poor semantics involved in the standard definition of magnetism. I have only a casual layman's curiosity about physics, but in considering the standard description of magnetism, it seems to me to be incomplete. Incomplete because of a semantic hang up. I have put this complaint on a couple of physics forums but I have gotten little response, all negative. But the respondents don't come out and say that this or that statement is dead wrong. So if basic physics isn't a too old subject for you, I wonder if you might give my complaint a look?

In studying magnetism, and magnetic lines of force, it appears to me that a problem arises from misconstruing what a magnetic compass needle is really indicating when it is placed near a straight vertical direct current. The name magnetism was originally applied to certain objects (including, later, magnetic compasses needles) which would display north-south polarized MUTUAL attraction, or repulsion, with a measurable FORCE. Therefore, using sound semantics, you can't really have real magnetic lines of force (or magnetic lines of "field") without two such objects directly on any alleged magnetic lines of force. Therefore, to apply this name to something which supposedly encircles a current carrying wire, but doesn't have two objects to refer this alleged force (or field) to, redefines the meaning of the phrase "magnetic lines of force" in midstream. It appears to me that this redefinition follows from falsely assuming that any active magnetic compass needle indication always refers to magnetic lines of force (or field). But I think I show below that this is not the case. Therefore, this assumption constitutes a mere declaration rather than a scientific, or logical, finding.

To explain this, apparently inadvertent, switch in the meaning of the phrase, "magnetic lines of force", when it is applied to the area around a straight wire current, we have to consider what the true definition of magnetism originally referred to, and therefore, should continue to refer to, unless formally redefined.. The term "magnetism" was originally applied to types of objects which, unknown to everybody at the time, contain looped currents for there particular force manifestation; which, therefore, have, spatially speaking, no less than two opposing parallel currents in them (opposite sides of the loop or coil, or the electrically equivalent situation in magnets). Since a straight wired current in no way has a either a loop, or two opposing currents, it does not qualify, according to the original definition, as a magnetic object. It, therefore, cannot, according to good semantics, generate magnetism, or magnetic lines of force (or field).

The situation of a magnetic compass needle near a straight current is a different kind of relationship (easily explained below) than between a magnetic compass needle and a magnet. Therefore, a magnetic compass needle near a straight current falsely projects, in one's imagination, something to which the original meaning of the phrase, "magnetic lines of force", does not apply.

It would be better to call these compass indicated "north-south" lines around a straight current, "Oersted's, right angled offset, current direction indicators", because they are simply derived from the physioelectric response of a loop current (or a magnetic compass needle's equivalent currents) near a straight current, depending on the straight current's and the loop current's comparative directions. In my opinion, this kind of physioelectric effect between currents, whether there is a pivotal loop current device involved or not, should properly be called Ampereism, not magnetism (see below).

To have a name kicking around in science which has two different meanings is not a helpful thing in my opinion. If the incorrect name, "magnetic lines of force", for this particular situation (magnetic compass indication near a straight current) has been incorporated into so many physics formulas that it can't be extricated, or if it is used in a monitoring/calculating reference system; then I suggest that, at least, the name of the supposed indicated lines there be changed to "Oersted's lines of no force", or perhaps to "pseudo magnetic lines"

Further, by careful definition, you also can't have "lines of magnetic force" around the individual wires of a direct current carrying coil, because you only get genuine magnetism off the faces of a loop, or off the ends of a tubular coil, or off the ends of a magnet, (or magnetic compass needle) as a MUTUAL VECTOR RESULTANT FORCE from at least two pairs of opposing parallel currents (at least 4 parallel currents altogether), at least one pair in each magnetic entity, when they are brought near to each other. This mutual vector resultant force varies with different orientations between any two magnetic entities. However, around the individual internal wires of a coil, you only have pseudo magnetic lines. These lines of no force, naturally, cannot be added up to create a net magnetic force. However, there are radial lines of Ampereic attractive force around each wire which must be added up. But proper semantics demands that this radial force around each wire of a current carrying loop, or coil, should NOT be called magnetic force.

Since genuine magnetism, according to the original definition, requires at least two parallel opposing currents in each magnetic entity, it seems clear to me that magnetism is a more complex arrangement of a more simple force system relating to the physical reactions between close parallel currents. Since it was Andre M. Ampere who first discovered this physical reaction between close parallel currents, it seems only proper to call this more primary force system, Ampereism; and the forces operating there, Ampere's radial lines of physical force.

From the above considerations, it appears to me that the overall problem of properly relating magnetism to electricity is that magnetism is a superstructure forces relation system built up of a lower order forces relation system, which latter system should properly be called Ampereism. Therefore, magnetism provides only a confusing view of Ampereism.

What both loop currents and straight currents have in common is they both have inductive fields which the working physicist and electrical engineer need to keep track of in order to get a mathematical hold on either type field's electrical and physical effects. But it is not helpful, in my opinion, to drag around ambiguous meaning names. A straight wire current's inductive field is just that. It is not a loop current's inductive field, so it is not a magnetic inductive field. On the other hand, a magnetic inductive field is, spatially speaking, a combination of at least two sub inductive fields. If a common name is going to be used for both types of inductive fields, and the lines for their flux densities, it seems to me that it should be something like Faradayic flux density" instead of "magnetic flux density".

I hope this verbal puzzle interests you for a while.

Fairfield
By Fairfield
#5106
Apparently this is a dull subject, or perhaps it is too far off topic?
User avatar
By Michael D. Grissom
#5108
Fairfield; I corrected your sentence as you wished and then deleted the request.

"...dull subject..."??? -- YES, you're right, it probably is dull to most people but definitely NOT dull to people like us. But then, if you put me in a really exciting dynamic economics classroom I'd be sound asleep in less than 60 seconds. "To each his own" :)

"...off topic..."??? -- YES, you're right again! Those who love physics and experiment with magnetics (like us) would love this as a topic but won't find it here unless they're also interested in TV remote controls (this topic).

I recommend that you start your own topic based on this subject. If you tie it to an invention idea like MAGNETIC PERPETUAL MOTION CONCEPTS" then it would probably land in the CreativityPool where everyone would see it. If your topic is just a discussion on theory like "REDEFINING MAGNETIC LINES OF FORCE" then it would probably end up in the Collaboration Tank or Mad Scientist Boiler where there is a lot less traffic.

I read and understood everything you wrote above except:

Quote: "Since genuine magnetism, according to the original definition, requires at least two parallel opposing currents in each magnetic entity,.."

You referred to these "opposing currents" in genuine magnets several times in your post but didn't define these "currents" as being different than ampere current (electron flow) in straight wire. In order to completely understand the quote above I would need a more precise definition as I am unaware of any (non-induced) ampere current flow in genuine magnets.

Remember, if you create a new topic for this, you can always copy/paste everything you've written to that new topic. I'll be more than happy to help you do this if you wish. AND... because I personally love the subject matter, I'll be happy to illustrate or animate anything that needs simplified.

Also, I'm sorry about the delay in response but, when I first saw the length and depth of your post, I realized that I just didn't have the time (at the moment) to read, understand, and respond. I kept putting it off until I could find the time -- that never happened. The only reason that I'm here now is because I unexpectedly got the day off. I've been incredibly busy the last few months and I still can't see that light at the end of the tunnel.
By Fairfield
#5112
Michael D. Grissom wrote:
I read and understood everything you wrote above except:

Quote: "Since genuine magnetism, according to the original definition, requires at least two parallel opposing currents in each magnetic entity,.."

You referred to these "opposing currents" in genuine magnets several times in your post but didn't define these "currents" as being different than ampere current (electron flow) in straight wire. In order to completely understand the quote above I would need a more precise definition as I am unaware of any (non-induced) ampere current flow in genuine magnets.
Michael:
I see that I failed to make any distinction, in my writing, between (physical)magnets and air core electromagnets. This is because, in my mind, their working result is identical. But, of course, you're right, the multiple molecular, or atomic, micro currents in physical magnetics do not "visually" compare with our concept of a current in a wire. Therefore, my inadvertently referring to those particular currents as ampereic currents is not quite right, although those micro currents can be used to induce ampereic currents in wires if the physical magnets are assembled properly as a working motor. But I will have to think a bit on how to better phrase my post so as to not blur the distinction between wire currents and the multiple molecular currents of magnets.

But if this add on statement clarifies the logic in the post, do you find the conclusion that the name "magnetic" lines of force around a current carrying wire is the wrong name, and that, instead, the force there should be characterized as radial, and that a good name for it could be "ampereic"? Or do you conclude otherwise?

Fairfield0
OFFSHORE
Finger Wheel Fidget Toy

A three inch wheel with rubber grip on the outside[…]

Makeover of backyard

Nothing to share but I definitely want to see the […]

Sticking Games

No fantasy but real sports. Professional level foo[…]

This must be very useful information. Thank you ve[…]