Have you ever watched a TV show and strugged to make out what the actors are saying? One of the most common gripes people level at new programs is mumbly dialogue, either because of actors' performances or the audio editing.
This is an issue that Amazon's Prime Video has set out to fix on its original shows, thanks to the launch of its new feature: Dialogue Boost.
Dialogue Boost does what it says on the tin: when you enable it, dialogue is boosted compared to the other noises in a scene like music, sound effects and ambience, and this will make it easier to make out. There are three levels of the boost too; low, medium and high, so you can tweak the audio mix to cater to your ears.
This feature will help you enjoy a show more if you've been finding the speech too hard to discern, but it has an additional benefit too — if you're hard of hearing, this could help you enjoy shows or movies without needing to turn on subtitles.
At launch, Dialogue Boost is available on a selection of Amazon's Original programming. This includes popular shows like Jack Ryan and The Marvellous Mrs. Maisel, and movies such as The Big Sick and Beautiful Boy, with Amazon promising that the feature will roll out to more videos over the course of the year.
It's not clear if Amazon is referring to upcoming originals like Citadel and The Wheel of Time season 2 or existing and popular releases like The Boys and I Want You Back, but it's very likely to be both: the Dialogue Boost feature relies on AI to pick out the dialogue so it can be used on older videos.
For Dialogue Boost-compatible shows, you can already test out the feature, and get a sense of whether the low, medium or high boost selection is best for you. To enable it, head to the Subtitles and Audio menu when you're playing a video (this is where you enable subtitles, and choose the dubbed language) and below English and English [Audio Description], you'll find the three Dialogue Boost options.
Dialogue Boost is only available in English for now, but if Amazon plans to roll out the feature further in the future, it'll likely do so for its non-English shows too.
