Can't disable audio normalization?

[ngibbs]

I'm using ffmpegx to encode HD content to h.264 x264 video with mp3 audio. The option for audio normalization is grayed out so I can't turn it off or on, but the audio is being normalized (audio is much louder after export). I produce my videos with a certain audio level for a reason, and in theory it should leave the audio alone. I've tried different audio codecs and get the same result.

Does anyone know what's going on with it, or how I can get around it? Has anyone had the same problem?

I need to use x264 because it decodes XDCam footage (mencoder/ffmpeg don't seem to be able to). The file I need is an mp4 with h.264 encoding (500kbps, 640x360), mp3/acc audio (64kbps, 44.1kHz, mono), baseline level 3.0 (for iPod/iPhone), which results in a single file that plays on iPhones and embedded in a Flash player on the web (those are my optimal settings for quality/bandwidth).

[ngibbs]

I looked at the details in the terminal window and here is the audio encode detail. Notice the 5th line says "Applying adjustment of 10.74dB" even though I have not specified that it should adjust the audio. Where can I change this setting?:

encoded 1800 frames, 18.81 fps, 502.57 kb/s
Encoding audio..
Computing levels...
WebTestRaw.mov.ff 100% done, ETA 00:00:00 (batch 100% done, ETA 00:00:00)
Applying adjustment of 10.74dB to /Users/Nathan/Desktop/WebTestRaw.mov.ff.wav...
WebTestRaw.mov.ff 100% done, ETA 00:00:00 (batch 100% done, ETA 00:00:00)
FFmpeg version CVS, Copyright (c) 2000-2004 Fabrice Bellard
Mac OSX universal build for ffmpegX
configuration: --enable-memalign-hack --enable-mp3lame --enable-gpl --disable-vhook --disable-ffplay --disable-ffserver --enable-a52 --enable-xvid --enable-faac --enable-faad --enable-amr_nb --enable-amr_wb --enable-pthreads --enable-x264
libavutil version: 49.0.0
libavcodec version: 51.9.0
libavformat version: 50.4.0
built on Apr 15 2006 04:58:19, gcc: 4.0.1 (Apple Computer, Inc. build 5250)
Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from '/Users/Nathan/Desktop/WebTestRaw.mov.ff.video.mp4':
Duration: 00:01:00.0, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 503 kb/s
Stream #0.0(und), 29.97 fps(r): Video: h264, yuv420p, 640x352
Input #1, wav, from '/Users/Nathan/Desktop/WebTestRaw.mov.ff.wav':
Duration: 00:01:00.0, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 1536 kb/s
Stream #1.0: Audio: pcm_s16le, 48000 Hz, stereo, 1536 kb/s
Output #0, mp4, to '/Users/Nathan/Desktop/WebTestRaw.mov.ff.audio.mp4':
Stream #0.0: Audio: aac, 44100 Hz, mono, 64 kb/s
Stream mapping:
Stream #1.0 -> #0.0 [sync #0.0]
Press [q] to stop encoding
size= 489kB time=60.0 bitrate= 66.8kbits/s
video:0kB audio:469kB global headers:0kB muxing overhead 4.442129%
IsoMedia import - track ID 1 - Video (size 640 x 352)
IsoMedia import - track ID 1 - Audio (SR 44100 - 1 channels)
Saving /Users/Nathan/Desktop/WebTestRaw.mov.ff.mp4: 0.500 secs Interleaving
Encoding completed on Tue Apr 28 08:13:05 PDT 2009

[Case]

Is your source file perhaps in .mov format?
I can replicate the automatic normalization when converting from .mov: if movtoy4m is used, then movtowav and normalize are also used. I have no idea why the developer chose to do that.
An adjustment of 10.74dB is a lot, so I can see your frustration over this.

As the GUI doesn't provide settings to avoid this, you would need to go command line to be able to skip the normalization. You could copy the command line that ffmpegX uses, delete the normalize part, and feed that line to the terminal.

ffmpegX uses the pasteboard to pass commands. But it uses that more than once. So, to catch the content, you'll need to install a pasteboard enhancer that remembers the last several items, to be able to see the content from before the current state.

[ngibbs]

Excellent suggestion - it worked!

I found a pasteboard recorder, turned on "Open Terminal Window" in ffmpegx, and ran the conversion. The pasteboard recorder stored the command line code and I was able to edit out the normalize element.

I removed the part at the beginning "date | /Applications/ffmpegX.app//Contents/Resources/pbcopy && printf "Encoding started on " && date &&," the normalization pass, "&& /Applications/ffmpegX.app//Contents/Resources/normalize /Users/jsoe/Desktop/WebTestRaw.mov.ff.wav" and pasted the rest in terminal.