Before I comment, a few quick notes:
I have mixed about half a dozen independent feature films, and know a few film mixers in Hollywood who have worked on some big blockbuster films.
To pay the bills between film projects, I run a home theater company (
http://www.thescreeningroomav.com) in Colorado. Colorado is not exactly a filmmaking mecca, so having a day job helps
A MAJOR part of what we do is make sure that home theaters are calibrated correctly, both in picture and in sound.
So, I'd like to think I know something about how films are mixed and how they are supposed to sound.
First off, the video posted above is just wrong when it comes to how films are prepared for home release. If anything, the opposite occurs. Dynamic range is sometimes dialed back so that the dynamic extremes you hear in the movie theater are reduced in the mix provided for home use.
In almost every single case I've encountered over the years, the whole "the dialogue is too soft in relation to the sound effects" problem can be traced back to one of three different causes:
1. People are listening to movies through the incredibly poor speakers built into most flat panels. This is a simple physics problem. Everyone wants thinner and thinner TVs, but that means that you also get thinner and thinner speakers. Small, thin speakers simply cannot move enough air to give you decent dynamics or bass response (in fact, the thinnest TV speakers struggle to even give you decent
midrange reponse). The result is really tinny sound that doesn't even begin to reproduce the full range of the human voice, not to mention the full range of the sound effects and music.
2. Many TVs and soundbars have bulls**t "surround enhancement" modes that are supposed to give you a "surround-sound" like effect from the already challenged sound coming out of the soundbar or TV speakers. If you have a feature like this, TURN IT OFF!!! All it does is emphasize all the sound elements that are not shared with the center channel - mostly sound effects and music. The result is dialogue drowned out by - you guessed it - sound effects and music. These types of systems play games with phase and difference signals to try and "trick" your ears into "hearing" surround effects when you don't have actual surround speakers beside or behind you. Most of the time it's a setting in the audio menu of the sound bar or TV. If you see anything that indicates some kind of "enhanced audio" or surround mode, turn it off. You want the original, unaltered sound coming off your source.
3. Poor calibration. This is also extremely common. Many people expect to hear sound coming out of their surround speakers all the time. The truth is that 80% or more of a typical movie comes out of the center channel. Surround channels are used much more sparingly. I've seen people turn the surround speakers up way too loud because they think they are supposed to be aware of sound coming from them at all times. This is NOT so. Properly balancing the sound so that all channels are at the correct level should solve the dialogue intelligibility problem. If everything is properly balanced it should not be necessary to turn the center channel louder than any of the others.
(FUN FACTS - the center speaker is the most important speaker in any surround sound system, as it usually carries about 80% of the soundtrack - especially dialogue. HOWEVER, it is not ONLY for dialogue. It's for whatever is happening in the center of the screen. If there is an explosion happening in the center of the screen, it comes out of the center speaker. A gun being fired in the center of the screen? It also comes out of the center speaker.)
Another common no-no: placing the center channel speaker so it's recessed inside of a cabinet (have someone stick their head in a cabinet and talk to you, and you can hear what doing this does to the sound of the human voice).
Best solution - buy good speakers, and make sure the levels are calibrated properly.