What do you use for sound when creating VCD and SCVDs ?

[jolo]

I have been extracting sound from my Divx movies with VirtualDub to a Wav file. Then I will load the wav file when creating my VCD and SVCDs with TPMG.

I also use toolame in my environmental settings to enhance the sound quality. When it works, it's great but .... Too many times, it fails during the toolame 2i run, with an unexplicable error message which just advices me to reboot, which never fixes anything.

Are there more reliable ways and better ways to get the best sound possible to create me VCD and SVCDs ? Love to know what you use and your comments.

Thanks in advance.

Jon (jolo)
temples@att.net

[Tbear]

I use cooledit 2000

[assassin]

You could try running tooLAME from the command line which will allow you to tweak the settings for better results. Perhaps this may solve the crashing problem.

[Marbles_00]

Normalize the audio in TMPEG. To do this, once you have your source files selected, goto "Configure/Advanced" and check off Audio Effects. Double click on it and check off Adjust Volume. Select 100% and then click on "Nomalize". What this does is increase the volume of the whole audio file to as loud as it will go without clipping. The will maximize the audio over the whole frequency spectrum.

Then encode as you would normally.

If you want to make any other changes such as amplify the bass response or tweak the high frequencies, then use CoolEdit to modify the wav file prior to encoding.

Special Note:
CoolEdit is also able to Nomalize the audio file as well.

Hope this was of some help.

[vulture]

Select 100% and then click on "Nomalize". What this does is increase the volume of the whole audio file to as loud as it will go without clipping. The will maximize the audio over the whole frequency spectrum.

So, does this make really loud noises (e.g., explosions) quieter and really quiet noises (e.g., whispering, some normal dialogue) louder?

Or, does it just increase the volume all the way across the wav file, without regard to which parts are loud vs. quiet?

I have a DivX file that is really loud during action scenes, and way too quiet during normal dialogue. It's a pain to keep turning the volume up and down. Will the normalizing feature help with this?

Thanks!

[gonz0]

So, does this make really loud noises (e.g., explosions) quieter and really quiet noises (e.g., whispering, some normal dialogue) louder?

Or, does it just increase the volume all the way across the wav file, without regard to which parts are loud vs. quiet?

I have a DivX file that is really loud during action scenes, and way too quiet during normal dialogue. It's a pain to keep turning the volume up and down. Will the normalizing feature help with this?

Normalization amplifies across the board so it probably wouldn't help in this case. A sound at 50% of the peak amplitude is still 50% of the peak amplitude after normalization - everything is just scaled up or down depending on what percentage you picked.

You might be able to get that effect by filtering - for example, reduce volume at low frequencies (explosions) and increase volume at the higher frequencies. What you would probably need to do is find out the frequency range of normal human speech and amplify that range with filters. CoolEdit will allow you to do this. I'll warn you that I haven't tried this yet, so others may have better suggestions.

[Digifreak]

My experience with normalization in TMPGEnc is exactly what vulture said. It takes the loud sounds and attenuates them while it boosts the quiets. I was not happy with the results and no longer use it.

[vulture]

gonz0:
Normalization amplifies across the board so it probably wouldn't help in this case ... everything is just scaled up or down depending on what percentage you picked.

Digifreak:
It takes the loud sounds and attenuates them while it boosts the quiets.

I'm confused...two replies and two different answers. I found a few similar posts while searching the forum, and there seems to be the same level of confusion everywhere I look. Can anyone tell me what TMPEGenc's audio normalization feature *really* does?

Thanks.

[oc714native]

in my opinion, normalization for audio or video sucks...most of the DivX things I've seen have had low volume on the dialogue, and loud volume on explosions, etc...

I think the best thing to do is to use Sound Forge or Cool Edit (or any other audio editing program) to simply amplify the volume levels of the wavs. It is very easy to do this without gaining any distortion.

Keep in mind though - you will still have the low volume dialogue thing though - not sure what can be done (if anything) on that,

Also, if you don't like tooLame, try the SCMPX MPEG2 audio decoder (search for it on Google if you can't find it here)

[wee haggis]

Other than doing a "live" audio edit/adjustment (ie:make a digital audio copy as you adjust the line levels).Very time consuming and difficult to do unless you know every frame of the movie off by heart and can anticipate whats coming next.
I did it with a 30 min movie clip and it was a nightmare.
I'm not so sure about the previous suggestions using filters and equalizations etc since frequencies and nuances of individual voices differ so much(ieetting for a large husky 7 ft giant is quite different than the voice settings for a 4 ft midget)

[Frost]

Here's a bit to clear this up. Normalization WILL bring the up the ENTIRE spectrum as long as it is not already near clipping. Let's say for arguments sake that normalization brings up the audio by 6db. That is 6db across the spectrum; eg. door close quietly at 70db now closes at 76db, that explosion that was 98db is now 104db and so on for the whole track. The effect of bringing low volumes up and high volumes down so you dont have to "adjust your volume"

So, does this make really loud noises (e.g., explosions) quieter and really quiet noises (e.g., whispering, some normal dialogue) louder?

This is called compression. A 6db compression on both ends means now the quiet door that was 70db is now 76db and the explosion of 98db is now 92db. Often times compression is set at a percent level. If the movie is wildly transitional (eg. hard to hear wispers, explosions that distort[clip]) try a figure like 30% to begin with. Run some samples and see what you need for your particular application. Hope this helps.

[vulture]

Thanks Frost, that helps a lot. Do you know offhand whether TMPGEnc can do compression as well as normalization? If not, what program do you recommend for audio compression? Thanks!

[wee haggis]

http://www.goldwave.com/release.html

[Frost]

Virtual dub can also compess audio. I personally use a tool that that was (primarily) designed to down mix AC3 into stereo channels but it can compress and normalize manually (set the level yourself). Azid may look a bit technical at first but it is a quite flexible tool. It's a must as well if you plan to make [S/X]vcd's out of files that have an AC3 soundtrack.