I live in spain and rent out apartments to tourists. I would like to
install TV's in my apartments. I am concerned that the guests may
disturb the neighbours playing the TV at too high a volume even if I
request them not to. I realize some TV's have volume limiters built
in. Problem is that  some guests may figure out how to adjust this 
setting. Is there  a  relatively inexpensive TV  which has a volume
limiter which is difficult to figure out withouth the manual? Or a
device that can be instaled  easily to any TV which limits the volume?

---

Request for Question Clarification by jbf777-ga on 21 Apr 2003 12:03 PDT

Hi -

Do these TV's have audio outputs?  If so, I could direct you to some
products that would compress the signal, but you would need external
speakers to hear the audio.
There's really no other way to do it unless you have the TV modified,
since all of the audio electronics are internal to the TV.

jbf777-ga
GA Researcher

---

Clarification of Question by declan-ga on 21 Apr 2003 23:16 PDT

I have not bought the TV's yet. I see if Hospitality TV's are
available here at an afordable price. It would be easy to buy a
regular TV with audio Out. Just an extra expense for thespeakers and
they would occupy more space and how would I turn off the regular TV
volume and have only the external speaker volume?

Declan

---

Request for Question Clarification by jbf777-ga on 22 Apr 2003 12:13 PDT

It all varies per brand and model.  Would you like me to answer your
question with a listing of limiters/compressors?

jbf777-ga
GA Researcher

---

Clarification of Question by declan-ga on 22 Apr 2003 12:50 PDT

The comments have been  realy helpfull. I would now prefernot  to
modify a TV or to buy a hospitality tv and try to find an ordinary TV
with this feature because this will be cheaper . If it does not say in
the manual it has this feature, it may be difficult. I will try to
check with repair shops . Best for me would be a list of TV's which do
have this  feature. Most common brands are available here in Spain. I 
was considering a 26 or 28 inch Sony or Panasonic flat screen. These
are common here.

A low voltage low current light bulb can be connected in series with
each speaker. If rated 2.2 volts at 1/10 amp it will be a 22 ohm
resistor at full brightness. That will be 0.22 watts average to the
bulb, a bit less than  1/10 th watt to the speaker. That is about
normal listening volume in a small quiet room. At higher volume
settings the bulb may get as much as 4 volts and burnout, so you
should probaly use a higher voltage bulb such as 5 volts at 1/5 amp
which is 25 ohms at full brightness. Bulbs like this come in stings up
to about 100 for Christmas decorations. When the string quits working
typically most of the bulbs are still good, so you can cut the wire
between each bulb strip off about a cm of insulation and test them
with a battery from one volt to three volts. They light very dim at
one volt. The bulbs are all the same in the same string, but vary some
from string to string, but most of them will do a fair job of volume
limiting, and burnouts should be rare. At low volume the bulb does not
light even dimly and it's resistance falls to two or three ohms, so it
hardly effects the TV sound at all at low volume. The results will
vary slightly with different models of TV. but should be acceptable
for nearly any TV, except those designed to be very loud will burn out
the bulbs.  Neil

A voltage clipping circuit(you could get many of the circuits online
by doing a "google search")
should be ideal.  What it would do is to start clipping the output
when the voltage level at
the speaker exceeds limits.  It could be constructed with few diodes,
capacitors and resistors
and "D" size batteries(for the voltage source).  Actually the
batteries may not get used at
all, since they drain only during clipping.  The advantage of this
approach over the simple
bulb connection is that the clipping produces really annoying
distortion(that would drive
anyone listening to the sound, crazy), forcing the listener to reduce
the volume for a
pleasing output(the reason why the connected batteries don't get used.
You could also
eliminate the batteries by deriving the dc voltage from the source
itself-using a capacitor
and a diode).  Also there will not be any burnout to worry about when
run on excessive volume
apart from easier adjustment of the clipping level through a simple
wirewound potentiometer.

Regards
ldavinci-ga

Why not use an off-the-shelf solution? TVs specifically manufacured
for the hospitality industry have built in volume limiters that are
enabled from a special remote control. The only way a guet could
override this feature is if they happened to possess the special
"management" remote. Here is an example:
http://www.hrc-hospitalitysupply.com/rca/tvs.htm

If you searched Google for commercial television sites in Spain you
would likely find distributers in that country, the language barrier
prevents me from doing that.

I agree with the 'hospitality tvs' suggestion but would point out that
many TVs will have this function, but it won't be documented in the
retail manual - it's usually uneconomic to produce a custom hardware
version just for one industry.

TV repair shops may be acquainted with these models because they get
reported as faulty by customers who've inadvertently pressed the
remote control buttons and set the TV in hospitality mode.

Owain

The bulb suggestion is excellent. I have use many variations of this
to solve problems at 0 cost. Try paralleling the xmas bulbs if they
glow too soon.