They're more annoying than anything, and some feel it's a waste of the government's time, but the issue of loud TV commercials is once again coming under scrutiny in Washington.

Introduced by California Democratic Rep. Anna Eshoo, the CALM act (Commercial Advertising Loudness Mitigation) is under review this week. The proposed bill seeks to bring the sound level of commercials back in line with the programming that precedes them.

Currently, the Federal Communications Commission mandates that the sound level for a commercial can be no louder than the loudest part of the program they run in. Through various adjustments however, advertisers have found ways around that guideline to make commercials appear to be louder.

For those who don't want to depend on legislation to handle the problem, there are also solutions that deal it from a technological standpoint.

One of these, Dolby Volume, works with new TVs to limit the spike in volume from program to commercial without a noticeable difference in overall sound quality. SRS TruVolume is another option which balances out the middle range volumes thought to be the source of the problem.

The technology is only available though for certain HDTVs with development of set-top units under way.