We’ve heard it all before, and you may have even complained about it yourself: conversations and voices can be difficult to understand while watching television. Closed captioning is often enabled by people, even those who are not deaf. They want to make sure they don’t lose anything. Some TVs and soundbars offer speech enhancement features to help overcome this problem. But if your TV has poor speakers, it can be frustrating.
Amazon Prime Video is Amazon’s answer to this problem. The company introduced a new Dialogue Boost Mode today that can be toggled from any device offering the streaming service. Amazon’s blog explained the new feature: “Dialogue Boost allows you to increase the volume for dialogue in relation to the background music and effects. This creates a more comfortable viewing experience, which is not available on any other streaming service.”
Dialogue Boost will be available globally starting today on select English-language Amazon Originals.
Dialogue Boost, instead of applying voice enhancements to an entire film or TV show to improve the clarity of dialogue, uses artificial intelligence (AI) to identify specific content moments where it may be difficult to understand what is being said. The blog post states that “then, speech patterns are identified and audio is improved to make the dialog clearer.” This AI-based method delivers targeted enhancements to specific portions of spoken dialog, rather than a general amplification of the center channel of a home theatre system.Dialogue Boost is compatible with any device that supports Prime Video.
Dialogue Boost is available in two intensities (medium or high). The settings will appear in the audio / sub-titles dropdown menu while watching content. Detail pages for TV shows and movies will also be updated with Dialogue Boost support.
Dialogue Boost’s downside is that it was only available for a limited time at launch. Amazon announced in a blog post that customers can now enjoy Dialogue Boost for select Amazon Originals, including Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Harlem as well as movies such as The Big Sick Beautiful Boy and Being the Ricardos. This feature will be expanded to include more titles in 2019. Hopefully, it will cover a wide range of Prime Video streaming content by 2023.
I haven’t had a chance yet to try Dialogue Boost, but I’m excited to see what a difference it makes. Amazon may be able to follow suit if it succeeds in its goal.
