Work Flows

[macbuz]

You guys have been great and I'm almost there. My MO here is a home theater set up. Between ripping, downloading and conversions I'm being overwhelmed a bit and some of my finished content is less than acceptable. I have no control over quality of downloaded content ... I can accept that.

The computer I'm using for HT is a MDD Dual 1G, w 2GB ram, ATI 9800 Pro video card, Mac OS 10.5.6 and using Front Row atm for an interface. The latest issue is in some of the avi files the audio volume is too low. In an avi movie that has normal volume, my system volume will be at 50% and the TV volume will be at 25%. In one of the problem avi's the system volume is 100% and the TV volume is 75% and there's substantial background static at that point. A couple others are similar just not as bad.

Topic >>> "Work Flows" <<<<

The avi's in question, I can't recall if they were downloaded this way or if they were VIDEO_TS conversions. If they were downloaded, I wonder if other processes during download 'interfered' - if they were conversions, I wonder if other processes 'interfered' with converting. Should I be slowing down and not doing so much at once (it's not in my nature) - maybe dividing the 'processes' between different computers? Are there processes that can be done simultaneously? Oh, and then there's the occasional burn going on as well!! Oops.

Besides the MDD I'm using for the HT, I also have this MBP, 2.4G, 4G ram and an older but upgraded G4 450 (Sawtooth), the upgrades are a 2G processor, 2GB ram, ATI 9800 Pro and Pioneer DVR-115D.

Been a tough day! Any thoughts please.

[tomlee59]

Annoying variations in audio amplitude from one movie to another are very common. You're not doing anything wrong -- it's just that there's no standard, so there's nothing to adhere to.

There are tools for handling this, of course. For most things audio on the Mac, I use Audacity. It has, among its many capabilities, a "normalize" function. It simply adjusts the audio so that the maximum ever encountered is very close to the maximum value that can be represented by 16 bits. If you're bothered by inconstant volume, add a normalization pass with Audacity to your workflow. It takes very little time; your 1GHz MDD dual won't even work up a sweat doing this operation.

On the Windows side of the world, BeSweet is a popular tool for doing this (in addition to the Windows port of Audacity).

[macbuz]

Now that you mention it I recall seeing something similar to this when I was reading about iTunes - some way to scan your library and 'normalize' all the audio. I'll run the offending avi through Audacity - I hope you are right. The worst of the bunch is - BAD! . I'll post back how it went.

[macbuz]

Hmm - more help please. I have a normalized audio ac3 on my desktop - belongs 'in' my avi file - any recommendations? Can't seem to get ffmpeg to mux it - not sure what else to try.

[tomlee59]

Tools for doing this on the Mac are a little scarce (perhaps not too surprising, since avi was developed by Microsoft; QT is the corresponding container format on the Mac). On the Windows side, there's Avimux, which works great.

If you are only going to play from your Mac, there's no particular necessity to remux into an avi container -- just put the stuff together in QT, and play that from your Mac.

[macbuz]

Guess I need QT Pro then - the new sound track is much better.

Wondering if the avi could be converted in ffmpeg to a format that would let me mux the new audio? Then swap back to avi ... probably easier to find a new source for the film all together.

Thanks for the reply.