I've had a few tv/stereos in the past that had a half mute as well. Press mute the first time and it cuts the volume in half, second press mutes completely, then third press restores full volume.

Many shows broadcast in surround sound. This includes a center channel where most voices are. Unfortunately if you don't have a system to support this, audio is "down mixed" to stereo, and the center channel gets merged into left and right. When this merge happens, you lose definition between the streams.

It would be nice if you could boost the center channel, like you would in a home theater, but before the down mix occurs.

Yep. Dialogue should be loud enough that you can comfortably follow the plot without making your ears bleed. Gunfire and music makes that a bit tricky though. Those should be toned down, but I can see why they're so loud all the time. Most likely many directors want to make the movie feel more impactful and intense, so they just do it by cranking up the volume those other things.

My Peloton can do this, how come my TV can't? This technology exists and would not be that difficult to implement for digital media.

other than the compressor the other comment mentioned, having a proper AV with multiple channels can also help with a lot of media, at least stuff that was mastered properly. Usually the center speaker carries mostly the dialogue and not much else, so I boost it like 7-8dB, this works pretty well for most things on Netflix and co, but Stereo (no center channel to boost) and shitty mastering (too much noise in center channel) still have the same issues

Define solve.

You can normally crank the centre channel quite a bit. That's normally where the dialog is coming from.

But tbh, I'm not buying decent speakers to listen at piddling whispery volumes.

I have a 7.2 stereo plugged into my computer. Sound levels are entirely dependent on what service the sound is coming from and what format(mono/stereo/surround). Netflix tends to be quieter than the others. I should say netflix dialog tends to be too quiet and explosions and other loud noises are too fucking loud.

There is a hardware device, called a compressor that would solve the problem. Basically it reduces the loudest parts of audio on a gradual curve, which allows you turn up the overall volume.

Affordable ones range $100-$250, which should get the job done. Personally, I wouldn't go either direction out of that range, more expensive ones will be overkill and cheap ones could sound bad or lack the controls to set it up right)

If you can get analog audio out of the TV in to a speaker/sound bar, it's easy to setup.

So with a cheaper sound bar and a compressor, you could accomplish this for about $250-$400 depending on how much money you can to throw at the problem,

(Edit, some else pointed out if you use a PC for all your content, you can have software compressor on the PC instead of extra hardware)

That already exists. Any half decent A/V receiver can do this.

There is absolutely a standard volume max. Unfortunately loudness isn’t that simple.

You can have something that peaks in decibels that you can barely hear and sounds that are the same decibels as talking, but sounds ear-piercingly loud.

Your TV can only set and perceive level, or “decibels” of the input signal. Sometimes they can have smarter tools like compression, but these are rare and when they are there, usually poorly implemented.

Wait, the recall button isn't a thing anymore? Guess I never noticed because I don't have cable