help with audio configuration - Shield, TV, sound bar

[justinrh 174]

Vizio TV: M50QXM-K01
Vizio sound bar: M51ax-J6 (connected to TV via eARC)
Nvidia Shield 2019

The main problem is leveling the sound from the extreme volume changes.  When you set the dialog/voice volume to a comfortable level, the action scenes (and the like) are very loud.  'Night mode' on the TV doesn't seem to have much effect.  The Shield night mode helps, but we want to keep surround sound (night mode turns it off).  Setting the TV EQ mode to Movie gets it closer.  I can't tell if adjusting the "Dialog level" helps (I upgraded to 5.1 just for this setting hoping it would fix this problem).

Anyone have some guidelines?  There are three realms of settings (TV, bar, Shield), and experimenting with them is not fun, especially when you don't know what all the settings affect.

Some general questions about this setup:
1) Any reason to use TV EQ mode "Direct" vs some pre-configured EQ mode?

2) Shield > advanced audio > surround sound > 'Dolby audio processing':  If this is turned off, is all surround sound turned off?

3) Why would I want to use adv audio > 'match content audio resolution'?  (This turns off 'Dolby audio processing'.)

[ebr 14921]

13 hours ago, justinrh said:

Shield > advanced audio > surround sound > 'Dolby audio processing':  If this is turned off, is all surround sound turned off?

No and that setting has proven problematic in the past so I'd leave it off.

The truth of the matter is that the point of these high-end sound formats is to do exactly what you are complaining about - give increased dynamic range.  You are headed down the right path in fiddling with some of your audio processing options.

[justinrh 174]

9 minutes ago, ebr said:

give increased dynamic range

I'm talking about volume range.  Dynamic range refers to frequencies, right?  I would not equate the two, but I'm an amateur and may not know better.  

[ebr 14921]

13 minutes ago, justinrh said:

Dynamic range refers to frequencies, right?

No, dynamic range refers to the difference between the quietest parts and the loudest ones.  Back in the day of analog recording, everything was very compressed (very low dynamic range) due to the requirements of magnetic media.  One of the main goals of digital was to break free of this compression.  Professional music is still fairly highly compressed but at a higher level now but movie soundtracks take full advantage of the increased dynamics to make it more "realistic".  I mean the difference between someone talking to you and a bomb going off in real life is pretty high.... .

[justinrh 174]

One non-life like example that I came across in a comedy movie is where the actors have a surprising situation and then loud music kicks off while the actors go crazy dealing with the situation.  The music is so much louder for a little while then go back to talking.  And this scenario happens a few times in the movie.  So we are like 'turn it down', then 'I can't hear them talk, turn it up' and back and forth.

[RanmaCanada 345]

You can't fix horrible sound mastering/mixing.  

[ebr 14921]

14 hours ago, RanmaCanada said:

You can't fix horrible sound mastering/mixing.  

Room characteristics are a huge factor as well.  Many people have their TVs in large rooms with lots of hard surfaces but these soundtracks are mastered for acoustically engineered listening environments.