My mpg is too damn loud!

[square]

i have some mpg files i want to burn to vcd, but the audio is sooo loud. i want to lower the gain, but nothing seems to work. i have used ffmpeg with the passthrough video option and gain on the audio set to -50 and it errors every time.

i have also demuxed, converted the audio to aiff and used peak to lower the gain. the resulting aiff is just right. as soon as i encode that back to mp2, the audio is loud again...wtf?!? i don't know how that is possible.

any help here would be appreciated.

[galactica]

Uhhh why not just turn the volume down on whatever your watching it on?

other than doing what you did, i cant think of anything that would cause that.

where did this .mpeg come from. did you make it from dvd? conversion from divx??

[square]

it is a downloaded cartoon series. yes, turning down the volume makes sense, but the thing is...there are six total episodes. 4 have ultra loud volume and 2 are normal, i want to put them in order, so i would have to be adjusting the volume at every episode. i just want to make them all the same volume.

[Cecilio]

TMPGEnc can probably fix that, it has a normalize filter, and if its too loud it makes it lower till its perfect, and if its too low it highers the volume. you just click normalize and it does it by itself

[bilestyle]

hey genius this is a MAC forum, we dont want pc related answers.. you COULD try to rip out the audio (bbdmux, mpgtx) convert it to aiff or wav and edit in Peak 3.0.. but then again that isnt exactly a free or cheap program so that may or may not be an option for you. You can normalize, increase/decrease gain.... there are probably plenty of audio programs that let you decrease the volume of a file, but i dont know any of the free ones because peak is all i use for audio manipulation. If you do have peak once you have a satisfactory volume to convert to wav and then re-encode to mp2 using something like ffmpeg.

[square]

you COULD try to rip out the audio (bbdmux, mpgtx) convert it to aiff or wav and edit in Peak 3.0.. but then again that isnt exactly a free or cheap program so that may or may not be an option for you. You can normalize, increase/decrease gain.... there are probably plenty of audio programs that let you decrease the volume of a file, but i dont know any of the free ones because peak is all i use for audio manipulation. If you do have peak once you have a satisfactory volume to convert to wav and then re-encode to mp2 using something like ffmpeg.

i have already tried this. i get the aiff file perfect but as soon as i re-encode to mp2 the volume is loud again. i don't know how this is possible, but somehow it is.

[Cecilio]

seems like mac doesnt have great programs like pc. this would be a piece of cake. a walk through the park. a stroll around the room.

[lordsmurf]

hey genius this is a MAC forum, we dont want pc related answers.. .

Virtual PC is sometimes nice to have.

Macs are nice and all, use one myself sometimes, but not the greatest software out there. The PC is a all-you-can-eat buffet compared to the little menu of Mac apps available.

[square]

seems like mac doesnt have great programs like pc. this would be a piece of cake. a walk through the park. a stroll around the room.

why are you in this forum?...btw, i tried it with vpc. it didn't work.

[Cecilio]

seems like mac doesnt have great programs like pc. this would be a piece of cake. a walk through the park. a stroll around the room.

why are you in this forum?...btw, i tried it with vpc. it didn't work.

who are you to tell me why am i in this forum, oh and you say you tried it on pc and it still doesn't work, it sounds to me like you dont know s**t. oh and you have 26 post you must be some expert huh. i bet you i can fix it the first try i give it. can you tell me where you downloaded this thing (cartoon).

[square]

i asked why you are in this forum since it is a MAC forum and you are giving PC answers.

and don't judge my experience on my number of posts...that's just ignorance.

if you can't be helpful here, go back to pc land.

[galactica]

seems like mac doesnt have great programs like pc. this would be a piece of cake. a walk through the park. a stroll around the room.

why are you in this forum?...btw, i tried it with vpc. it didn't work.

who are you to tell me why am i in this forum, oh and you say you tried it on pc and it still doesn't work, it sounds to me like you dont know s**t. oh and you have 26 post you must be some expert huh. i bet you i can fix it the first try i give it. can you tell me where you downloaded this thing (cartoon).

OK. Since this was posted earlier on I am giving you your FINAL WARNING!

NO PC ANSWERS IN THE MAC FORUM. GOT IT!

IF I SEE ANOTHER ONE AFTER 07/21/03 10:02 AM EST you will get a warning for EACH PC answer you post.

[tgpo]

Why does it seem like so many people are just begging for a flame war??? PC users, if you can help then post, if you only know PC answers DO NOT POST!! We don't need you flooding our forum with useless replies!

[lordsmurf]

btw, i tried it with vpc. it didn't work.

As the mod said, I'm thinking this is some sort of volume issue with the computer, not the file, especially given that nothing on MAC or PC (ala Virtual PC) is working for you... Odd...

[galactica]

i have also demuxed, converted the audio to aiff and used peak to lower the gain. the resulting aiff is just right. as soon as i encode that back to mp2, the audio is loud again...wtf?!? i don't know how that is possible.

what program are you using to do this .aiff to .mp2


The reason i ask is because the GAIN option in ffmpegx "sets the audio gain. Allowed values are 0..10 for mencoder engine, and -96..+96 dB for mpeg2enc engine." does not work with ffmpegx engine

[ZeroSix]

Someone done pissed off the mod! W00t!

Hey square, if you can make the .mp2 file available to me to check it out i will gladly convert it to .AIF and fix in Peak and re-encode it to MP2 to see if that will work out... There MUST be something going wrong...

Try this step by step:

1) Convert the .mp2 file to WAVE in iTunes [PREFERENCES --> IMPORT --> WAV ENCODER --> Set to 44kHz 16 bit stereo --> Make new Playlist --> Drag .MP2 file to playlist --> Highlight .MP2 file in playlist --> select ADVANCED --> CONVERT TO WAV] the file will go into ~/music/itunes/itunes music/unknown artist/unknown album/

2) Open Peak DV

3) Click FILE --> BATCH ENCODER

4) Select your destination folder and add the change gain option then change your gain settings.

5) drag your .wav file onto the Peak DV icon in the dock

6) open your new .wav file in quicktime. Test the gain It is right?

7) If yes, go to step 8. If no, take a rusty sledgehammer to your mac.

8) Convert it back to .MP2. Use ffmpeg.

hope this works.

[square]

still having problems. i have been using mmt to convert back to mp2. it's the only program that is working. ffmpegx errors everytime i try to convert aiff or wav back to mp2. any ideas why? what else can i use to convert aiff or wav to mp2?

[ZeroSix]

perhaps the ffmpeg engines need re-installed.

Can you figure out a way to send the .MP2 file to me? iDisk, iChat, whatever...

I will gladly normalize and reduce the gain for you while you try to figure out what is wrong with your current setup.

Have you tried using a DIFFERENT .MP2 file? Reason i ask is that maybe this is problem that is with your entire system and not just this one file.

I had to reduce the gain on several mpegs just last week and this method i posted earlier worked like a charm.

Perhaps Galactica's suggestion of turning your volume down isnt such a bad idea!

[square]

here is the mp2 file in question...if anyone can get it to work, i would love to know how. i would like the volume to be about half of what it is now.

http://homepage.mac.com/asauers/.cv/asauers/Public/athf.mp2-binhex.hqx

[bilestyle]

yep took 5 mins... if i had web space to host it i would but no dice...did it exactly as whoever else laid out the peak dv steps (dont remeber too lazy to check)

1. encode mp2 to aiff or wav (doesnt really matter) in itunes,
2. open in peak dv
3. dsp menu- normalize, change to 50%
4. save as .wav file
5. re-encode to mp2 in ffmpeg.

[square]

and the final mp2 is the same as the wav file?

i have no problems until converting back to mp2. the final mp2 is always loud again. i can hear an obvious difference between the final wav and the final mp2. i can't figure this out at all.