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surround sound and nonsweetened DVDs
I posted the item below in the Adobe Premiere Pro discussion, but I think this is a question for you guys. I will just add to that post below by saying that I produce videos for nonprofits and small businesses and I’ve never had audio complaints with my final products on DVD and VideoCD. I check my product on as many tvs as I can before I send it out. All of sudden new TVs with surround sound or studio sound (I think that’s what the client told me) are clamping parts of my videos making it sound muddy. I send all audio to both channels so it’s mono, so there’s never a chance that a nonprofit client doesn’t have channel 2 not hooked up on their vcr. I won’t rewrite the post below, but I am really concerned I don’t have any control over this. Thank you very much for the help:
I have recently had 2 clients say my audio was muddy or some of the soundbites were lower level than other audio. With the first client I had her check the settings on the TV and the culprit was surround sound or studio sound or one of these new audio options with televisions. As soon as she turned it off the “problems” with my DVD were fixed.
I use Premiere Pro, I use a lav with my Canon XL1, send that one channel in, “breakout out to mono” and then “treat as stereo”, just like Adobe told me to do. A much worse problem years ago came up when I used stereo audio and a not sophisticated nonprofit didn’t have both speakers hooked up so I always send everything to both channels now.
The second complaint said, “well, what if we send this to funders and they don’t know how to turn off the surround sound and they can’t hear part of the audio because it’s muddy?” Point well taken.
I have no idea how to deal with this. My levels are all fine ( I am meticulous about levels) but if an interview is quieter than something else the surround sound seems to prey on that audio.
Any suggestions? -
5 Replies
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I should have googled before I wrote. This is probably the exact problem I am dealing with and the line at the bottom says it all:
The DVD plays, but the audio is muddy; what do I do?
Most DVD players have several audio modes that change the sound for different purposes. For example “action movie”, “symphony hall”, etc. Using your DVD remote control, find the button that changes the audio mode. Make sure that you are in “normal”, “basic”, or “regular” mode.
>>>>>>>>>Playing an instructional disk with voice narration in another mode can result in very muddy audio.
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If this is a concern, do NOT use Stereo music and effects and then put the narration and dialogue in the center.
Create a MONO MIX of all the audio and use THAT as your entire track.
THAT way, if the user has some dippy setting selected that screws with the “center channel” (like the one you described)… At least ALL of the audio will be “manipulated” EQUALLY and the whole track can be heard at the same relative level by the user.
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I suggest in the future you include a warning about this to all your customers. Maybe print up a small card with instructions. That way you head off trouble before it occurs.
I might just do that myself. This has never come up, but underestimating the technical unsophistication of clients is dangerous.
John
Dual 2.5 G5 4 gigs RAM OS 10.4.8 QT7.1.3
Dual Cinema 23 Radeon 9800
FCP Studio 5 (FCP5.1.2, DVDSP4.1.1, Comp2.3, STP1.1, Motion 2.1.2)
Huge U-320R 1TB Raid 3 firmware ENG15.BIN
ATTO UL4D driver 3.50
AJA IO driver 2.1 firmware v23-28
Pro Tools HD, Yamaha DM1000, Genelec Monitors, ISDN -
[John Fishback] “I suggest in the future you include a warning about this to all your customers. Maybe print up a small card with instructions. That way you head off trouble before it occurs.”
Thar’s a good thought, but…
Do you REALLY think most users would actually DO something like dig into their DVD player’s set-up menu to see if they need to change something.
Do you suppose they can even find the original remote control that came with the player to access the menus? 🙂
And exactly what would you TELL them to change (or NOT to change.)
All mfg. of DVD players do not call the menu items by the same names, nor are the choices on an obvious place in the hierarchy of menu items.
I’ve been doing tech. set-ups for decades, and even I don’t like to venture into the vast wasteland of DVD set-up menus!
Without a trail of bread-crumbs, I may never get back OUT! 😉
That’s why I said that if it is a CONCERN… to make it “fool-proof” in the first place.
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Good points!
John
Dual 2.5 G5 4 gigs RAM OS 10.4.8 QT7.1.3
Dual Cinema 23 Radeon 9800
FCP Studio 5 (FCP5.1.2, DVDSP4.1.1, Comp2.3, STP1.1, Motion 2.1.2)
Huge U-320R 1TB Raid 3 firmware ENG15.BIN
ATTO UL4D driver 3.50
AJA IO driver 2.1 firmware v23-28
Pro Tools HD, Yamaha DM1000, Genelec Monitors, ISDN
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