Audio Level

[asprinwizard]

I have been ripping DVD to VCD for a while now and it has all been going well. However one thing puzzles me: When playing a DVD ripped VCD on my DVD player or me portable VCD player the volume level is very low. I have to turn the volume up on the TV to close to max in order to hear it properly. Does anyone know why this is happening?

I have heard there are some audio editors which could increase the volume for me before multiplexing. Which audio editors would do this with mp2 files and which is the least expensive?

[Freshman]

If you use DVD2AVI, you don't need any external editors for increasing volume at all: Simply go to "Audio">"Normalization", check the box there and set the slider to 100%. Then go to "Audio">"Dolby Digital" and click on "Pre Scale Decision" and DVD2AVI will go through the file in order to find the loudest signal and increase the overall level accordingly.

I usually turn "Dynamic Range Control" off because I prefer to maintain the original volume differences in the soundtrack, but you can change this setting as well, e.g. if you feel that sound effects are too loud in comparison to dialogue.

[Macros746]

asprinwizard,
This is sort of off topic but what sort of portable VCD player do you have? I want to buy one but have heard very bad things about Napa 311....what is your model and your opinion of it?


Thanks.

Mark

[asprinwizard]

Yeah. I had a 311 before this one and it wouldn't play back DVD ripped CDs at all well. In addition to the volume problem discussed here the picture gittered every few seconds. I now have a Logtek portable CD player which plays Audio, Video and MP3 CDs. It is really good. I recomend it strongly.

I got a friend to buy mine in Hong Kong, but apparently they have a website:

http://www.logtek.com.hk

I hope you can find it.

Regarding the topic in hand, does anyone know which audio editors can adjust the volume of an MP2 file? I have used DVD2AVI before but now the video is corrupted when I load a DVD using it. Does anyone know what is going on here? I am having to use flask for the meantime.

[Freshman]

asprinwizard,

You can't change the volume level of an mp2-file without re-encoding.

What you could do is load your mpeg-video into TMPGEnc, select audio encoding only, and under "Setting">"Audio Effect">Check the "Change Volume" Box and press "Normalize". Make sure that the audio bitrate is set to 224kbit/sec and press "Start". The result will be a new mp2-file with increased volume. You can now use TMPGEnc's MPEG tools to multiplex your original video with the new sound. (Video Inpute: original mpg-file; Audio input: new mp2).