When I try to listen to the audio from the TV, my brain has to do extra work to sort out the TV sounds from the ambient noise, even if the room appears to be quiet. Surround sound is even worse because my brain cannot process the intensity of the 5 different auditory stimuli.

The hi def is just too intense. It is hard for me to describe.

Just because you feel like there is not a problem does not mean there is not a problem. Until you have experimented with different ways of filtering the stimuli, you will find it is hard to tell what the cause of the over-stim is.

An example of this problem was explained by my optometrist. I need strong correction for astigmatism, some near sightedness and serious presbiopia (reading lenses) When the optometrist finds the prescription that works for each eye, he has to detune or make is less precise so my brain can stitch the two images together with less effort. By tweaking the prescription for each eye, he finds a point where I can look at the chart with a relaxed feel in my eyes. My corrected eye sight in each eye is then only 20/20 or 20/30 or so even though he can correct it individually to 20/15.

The high definition takes more brain power to stitch the two images together. Hi Def with 3-D is impossible for me. Just too much visual data to process.

Same goes for audio. The faint echoes in the room are too much auditory stimuli to process. Once I put the head phones on, I can relax and watch and listen to the show.

It is no different than being in a room with lots of people talking at the same time just on a smaller scale.

If you struggle in the room full of talkers, I would bet you have a similar problem watching TV.

You could try watching a movie on your computer with a set of head phones on. I use head phones at my computer for multimedia video, too.

My best to you.