I have been stuck in a neck brace and will be for a total of about 2 months. I have been trying to get what sleep I can in the reclining chair. Well that is not easy so I have been watching butt loads of tv in the last few weeks. In order to keep from waking the whole house I end up trying to hear the tv show at its lowest volume point so that the commercials do not come on and wake the dead and piss off the whole rest of the house.

I am not a big tv watcher so this has not been much of an issue up to this point. Now it is fucking pissing me off to no end. I am thinking of getting a tv volume regulator. Other than blowing up the thing or not watching it does anyone have suggestions? My mute button and volume control letters are wearing off the remote.

Download your shows commercial free. If you don't want to watch them on your computer you can buy something like this http://www.amazon....=1253708488&sr=1-1 my mother is in love with the one I bought her. Then again, I included hundreds of movies and tv series.

I have a TiVo so I can record and buzz past the commercials which I do for the few shows that I do watch on a regular basis. Hopefully I will be able to sleep in bed in a month or so. I am betting that now I am annoyed by the whole volume thing that it will bug me forever and I will have to record everything or get a volume regulator.

You don't have to download your shows, but you can watch streamed video online of most of the popular shows. Fox, among other TV networks, have extensive lists of programs that they rebroadcast every week online. I'll never need TiVo or any of that other stuff as long as they continue doing that. Usually they broadcast a day or two after they were shown on the air.

Shael

As someone who works at a TV station, it's not just the viewers that are pissed off. Many staffers like myself hate the loudness of the commercials. But the commercial producers max out the volume with very little dynamics, meaning even lower sound gets bumped up to be "consistent" with the louder portions. They do this when they master music now too (see Metallica/loudness wars). And to add on to this, modern TV shows are heavily dynamic for audio - so when a quiet, emotional TV show segment ends, it blasts into the commercial, totally disrupting your experience.

It sucks and it's a mega piss off.

I don't know who else lives with you, but my bf is deaf in one ear and needs the tv on pretty loud.

We also have surround sound, and sometimes when the commercials come on I want to punch him in the head for having to have the damn thing so loud!

Anyway, aside of the great suggestions you've already gotten, you can also have a little background noise in the room (or rooms) where people are sleeping. I like to have my fan on when I go to bed. Its not very loud, but makes just enough sound to deaden the other noises around me. Even when he's not watching tv, I run the fan every night to drown out outside sounds like cars or my dog walking around at night.