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Audio level change on DVD playback
Hi everyone,
I’ve recently made DVDs of a short film. In it there are two instances of the same gunshot SFX (one is a flashback – the exact same file is used in both cases). In the FCP7 timeline the volumes are equal. When exported as a default QT file the levels are the same. I then ran the QT through compressor using the Create DVD default setting.
On the DVD copies (when played through a DVD player and television) one of the gunshots has lost its “punch,” mainly its bass frequencies and its reverb. It sounds more like a wet thud than a boom.
I’ve been unable to isolate why one SFX has lost its punch whilst the other has not. This rules out the speaker set-up. And in the QT file pre-compressor the SFX sounds fine.Does anyone know of Compressor altering certain audio whilst leaving other parts intact? And if so are there any fixes? I’m at a loss – why is the error so selective?
Thanks.
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5 Replies
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When you compress the audio to a DVD compatible format you are compressing the audio, so you will lose some frequencies.
A few things you could try:
– When using the “Dolby Digital Professional 2.0” preset in Compressor to make your audio, go to the Encoder tab then the Audio tab in that and make sure “Dialog Normalization” is set to “-31”. If not, type it in and hit enter.
– Then go to the Preprocessing tab and make sure “Compression Preset” is set to none.
Essentially all this does is make sure your original audio sounds as close to what you had in FCP after it gets compressed to AC3.
tony
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Why not just use 48khz AIFF format for the DVD, I always find it better sounding then AC3 compressed.
Budget always not enuff.
https://www.dogbonepost.com -
You can so good addition but for longer form projects I’d rather compress the audio to have room for higher bitrate video. Also, if you’re doing surround on DVD you would need AC3, too (or an equivalent format).
tony
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That’s true, for surround you need AC3. But for anything else, I think AIFF work better even for long form.
For me, I would trade some visual bitrate for audio fidelity, because I think having good audio as slightly more important then visual.
Budget always not enuff.
https://www.dogbonepost.com -
[Chee Wee Tan] “But for anything else, I think AIFF work better even for long form.”
There’s never enough room for uncompressed audio…at least from my experiences with long form DVD’s
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