I'm going to guess that your dad doesn't have a receiver - that he's just listening through his TV's speakers. If he has a receiver, options range from a night mode similar to what the 1050 offers to simply trimming down the sub and/or trimming up the center channel (since dialog goes to the center and sound effects tend to go to either other channels, all channels, or to the sub's LFE channel, this would serve to reinforce the dialog and pare back the other material). If it's just a TV, then you've got more of a challenge on your hands - bb4tb's VCR trick is actually a pretty slick one if it could be used, but you'd need either a separate switch box upstream of the VCR for inputs (which your dad might very well despise) or a VCR for each input.