Modern streaming is a marvel of convenience, but if you don’t have the perfect sound system, or if you’re watching something that flows really quickly with fast-talking dialogue, it can sometimes be hard to keep up with what the characters are saying.
Of course, for any viewers who are hard of hearing things can be significantly more challenging, which is the reasoning behind a new feature Amazon is rolling out to itsPrime Videoplatform - Dialogue Boost.
What is Dialogue Boost on Prime Video?
Dialogue Boost is a new setting in the Subtitles and Audio menu that you may access while you watch TV shows and movies on Prime Video, and it lets you boost the volume level of dialogue in your content relative to background music and sound effects.
This basically means that you can throw more of a spotlight on what people are saying, to make it easier to hear and ensure that you don’t miss any key details. This will be familiar to those with aSonos systemor soundbar - its dialogue boost option has been a lifesaver for ages.
How to use Dialogue Boost on Prime Video
Using Dialogue Boost is easy - although be warned that these steps will only work if the show or movie you’re watching has the setting available, which is far from universal as we’ll cover down below.
If Dialogue Boostisavailable on a piece of content, the detail page for it will confirm that, so you don’t have to start watching it to check.
That’s it - you’ll now be watching with dialogue boosted up to be more prominent in the sound mix.
What movies and shows have Dialogue Boost?
For now, we don’t have a firm list of which movies and shows can use Dialogue Boost, although Amazon has given a few key examples in the form of Jack Ryan, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Harlem, The Big Sick, Beautiful Boy, and Being the Ricardos.
These have something in common - they’re all Amazon Originals, which isn’t surprising given that Amazon is introducing this tech and can’t expect third-party studios to have catered for it retroactively.
So, for now, it’ll be a fairly limited pool of Amazon’s own creations that can use Dialogue Boost, but don’t be surprised if you start to see it on a wider range of content given a little time.
