Master bus : level to aim for…

[Scott Simpson]

Really depends on the destination. Some broadcasters will want it peaking pretty low — I’ve seen -24. For Youtube, I haven’t seen anything to say you can’t peak right at 0db.

Canadian broadcaster brought up in analog, living in digital. Radio’s my career, audio-video-photography are hobbies that make a buck here and there.

[Gilles Gagnon]

Thanks Scott,
To clarify, final destination is DVD…

Gilles

[Stephen Mann]

just don’t cross 0dB. It’s digital, so anything over 0dB is bad. Normaly. When you make the DVD the audio (assuming Dolby AC3) will be normalized at -31dBm by default.

Steve Mann
MannMade Digital Video
http://www.mmdv.com

[Gilles Gagnon]

Thanks Stephen.

Really? I had no idea the audio gets automatically normalized!(yes AC3) Wow!

I’m assuming it’s the rendering that normalizes it? Is there a switch somewhere? What if one wouldn’t want it normalized?

G

Gilles

[Stephen Mann]

Correction…
AKA Dialog Normalization
Dialnorm controls the overall volume of the audio but you won’t hear DialNorm changes in preview, it’s strictly a Dolby AC3 thing. DialNorm works intuitively backwards. Some feel that the default of -27dB the dialog audio is too low when compared to other DVD’s. It really depends on your content. Run a few tests and see for yourself. Try -31dB. If that’s too loud try -30dB.

It’s called Dialog Normalization in Vegas, I suspect, because Dialnorm is a trademark of Dolby.

You get to it in the Customize Settings in the Dolby Pro template.

Steve Mann
MannMade Digital Video
http://www.mmdv.com

[Gilles Gagnon]

Thanks Stephen,

Is this what you use when you create DVDs?

Also, I don’t quite understand the numbers. I understand I need to stay close to 0db. Shouldn’t we say “normalize at 0db?” or “normalize at -3db?”

why use “-27db” for this normalization?

Gilles

[Mike Kujbida]

Gilles, I’m the first one to admit that I don;t understand DialNorm or any of the other DVD settings either.
Having said that, here’s a tip I grabbed a long time ago for people who complained that their DVDs sounded much quieter played back on a TV than they did in the edit suite.

Encode set to AC3;
Click on custom tab;
On the first tab set Dialog normalization to “-31”;
On the last tab marked Preprocessing;
Set the Line Mode & RF mode profiles to “None”;
Now save this as a preset.

[Gilles Gagnon]

Beautiful!
Thanks for sharing your knowledge Mike.
I’ll definitely follow this recipe. I love recipes!

We’re due for breakfast again. Let me know when you’re down these necks of the woods again. I’ll do the same at my end. 🙂

G

Gilles

[Stephen Mann]

Here’s some descriptions that may help:
Normalize tries to increase the volume of quiet audio and decrease the volume of loud parts. It’s imperfect but it works best in dialogue, worst in music.
Compression just works on the loudest parts, attempting to keep the peaks at a preset level. I use compression more than normalization with a hard limit to -6dB on the master bus. It’s also not perfect and sudden loud sounds can still exceed 0dBm and clip, but you can fine tune those with an additional duck in the volume envelope.
Equalization lets you adjust for frequency response problems. For example if you are using a cheap or on-camera microphone, you may want to use equalization to boost the bass.
Noise Gate is virtually useless.
Dialog Normalization (I.E. Dialnorm) is a different bird altogether. Many people, including me, don’t completely understand it. But I try.
First, it only works on Stereo AC3. Further it only works on the center channel. On almost all Hollywood DVDs, all dialogue is in the center channel – mono. All music is stereo. SFX and only SFX is in the surround channels. If there are no surround channels the SFX is in the stereo mix.
So, summarizing, Dialog Normalization only works on the dialogue – the mono center channel (thus the name Dialnorm). It does not touch the music or SFX. Yes, you are wondering, I only have two speakers – what is the center channel? The center channel is the audio that is exactly identical in both the left and right channel.

Steve Mann
MannMade Digital Video
http://www.mmdv.com

[Gilles Gagnon]

Very interesting Stephen. Thanks.

Which compression fx do you use and set to -6db?
And… since you’re setting it to -6db, this means that the peak will be at -6db and not 0db like Mike and I thought. Correct?

Gilles

Gilles