Possible Cause Of Low Volume And Other Audio Issues

@DIRECTVhelp @cardinal30 Apologies for the length, please read through.

For nearly two months, here and on other forums, those of us with Gemini equipment have been experiencing low audio volume which DirecTV has confirmed.  In addition, some with and without Gemini equipment have been mentioning even lower volume on local channels as well as volume spikes on various programming.  Keep in mind that equipment capabilities, how things are set up and how broadcasters code audio for commercials and programs vary.  So, some DirecTV customers may experience all of these audio issues, some of them or none of them.

In my case with the Gemini Air, my equipment only handles PCM audio, not Dolby.  If audio works normally, switching from PCM to Dolby on the Gemini Air should lower the volume and changing Dolby to PCM should raise the volume.  The exact opposite is happening.  Turning Dolby on raises the volume, local channel audio matches all other channels and volume spikes are gone.  Switching back to PCM from Dolby, the sound gets softer, not louder as it should, local channel audio is even lower and volume spikes are back.

Broadcast engineers peg the cause as being a DirecTV misconfiguration in the audio downmix to PCM stereo, resulting in what's called a Dolby metadata mismatch.  Find and fix the misconfiguration, problem should be solved (providing there really is a misconfiguration).

I'm not a broadcast engineer although I'm a lifelong audio/video nut and this explanation is plausible.  I'm hoping this information might help the DirecTV engineers.