Soft audio issue on standalones

[vr6225]

I'm having trouble with the loudness of audio on self captured DVDs. The audio is just barely audible when played but when the burned DVD is played on the PC, it sounds perfect. I was hoping someone here can help me out.

I use the Pinnacle Moviebox USB to capture my VHS home movies to PC in MPEG2. I demux the file, convert my MP2 to WAV, and then bring it into Soundforge to Normalize and Hiss cut. When played back in Soundforge after normalization, the audio is much louder than the original file and peaks out just a bit into the red on the scale.

I convert the new WAV to AC3 in Besweet with a bitrate of 384 (i didnt set this, I believe this is the default?) I take the video and audio into TMPGEnc DVD Author, create the DVD and burn using Nero 6. I have also tried authoring in DVDMaestro, creating a IMG file and burning with RecordNow only to have the same problem occur.

So here I am, stumped and frustrated. I have tried 3 different standalone players and all have the same result. I am using RiData 4x DVD-R media and burning with a Pioneer 105 drive at 4x. Anyone see something im doing wrong or forgetting? The audio sounds very good on the PC, I just wish it would sound good on my standalones. Thanks a lot guys and sorry for such a long post.

[offline]

Hi,

A suggestion that may help.

Try unticking auto gain with Besweet and set for 2 or 3db
prior to converting to Ac3.

By the way, 384kbs seems to me to be a fairly large bit rate assuming you are
making a stereo track. You can save time and space by
making the bitrate 256 or 192.

[vr6225]

@offline: you mean try using the gain option in besweet? I have done pregain of 10db and noticed no difference when played on a standalone. Is it possible that the larger bitrate could be causing my issue? Thanks for the suggestion.[/quote]

[chobo321321]

Use a program to check what the db of the wav file is. It might that your audio file has a really low db like 70, and below, but your computer volume is turned up, so you don't notice it.

I'm not crazy about normalizing audio since it changes the actual audio file. Try using replaygain which adds information in the audio tags to play the file back at certain volumes, and can be used to eliminate clipping. Foobar 2000 is a good program for this.

[vr6225]

@chobo: I will try using Foobar 2000 and see if that helps me out. Also, what program will check the db level of a wav file? Thanks!