Audio sounds terrible

Shaz wrote on 8/27/2009, 6:52 PM
Hi there. I'm using DVD Architect 4.5 to make a music video compilation disc. The songs all sound fine on the computer and from the CDs that they're from, but if I play the burned DVD in the player connected to my TV, the sound is pretty bad... distorted and overloaded. It's not the DVD player... other discs sound fine on it. So any idea what's going on? I presume it's being compressed way too much, but there's plenty of room on the disc when I "optimize" it. Or is there a setting for the audio to be rendered on the original video files that would be better for when it's being output through DVDA?

Thanks much,
Eric

Comments

Steve Grisetti wrote on 8/28/2009, 5:46 AM
It could well be that your music is too loud or overmodulated.

Unfortunately DVD Architect Studio doesn't have a way to lower the music volume.

But you can import the music into an audio editor (Audacity is a great, free one) and normalize the volume there. Once its levels are a bit lower, you should have no problems.
Shaz wrote on 8/28/2009, 7:23 AM
It's not, though... I take great care to not use too much compression or limiting when mastering music, so if anything, it's a lower volume level than a lot of pop music out there today, which is often squashed to death with compression/limiting. The thing is, if I play the burned disc on my computer, it sounds good, but there's something about the cheap TV speakers that makes it all sound distorted (but again, other DVDs sound fine on there).
Former user wrote on 8/28/2009, 7:28 AM
IF by other DVDs you mean commercial DVDs, you will notice that most of them play at a lot lower level than the DVDs you might create.

Try lowering the level to see if it fixes it.

Dave T2
Shaz wrote on 8/28/2009, 10:18 AM
I think I found what the problem seems to be... Apparently I need to rerender everything in VMS with one of the settings described and try that.

When I go through the Make DVD steps, I'm getting this warning: "Audio on Track 1 will be compressed."

If I click through the Help for that message, it says: DVD Architect Studio software supports a wide variety of file formats. However, some formats will require transcoding to another format or recompression during the DVD preparation process, increasing the amount of time needed to complete this operation and possibly degrading quality.

To avoid unnecessary transcoding or recompression, save your media files in the following formats prior adding them to your DVD Architect Studio project.

The Sony Creative Software Inc. Dolby Digital AC-3 Studio and MainConcept MPEG-2 encoders provide templates that will produce files that do not require recompression (unless the file size is too large to fit on a DVD).

AC-3 audio (.ac3)
If you're using the Dolby Digital AC-3 Studio encoder in Vegas Movie Studio, use the Stereo DVD or Stereo DVD, AGC on template to render a stereo audio stream for your DVD.

Use the 5.1 Surround DVD or 5.1 Surround DVD, AGC on template to render a 5.1 surround audio stream for your DVD.

Number of channels: stereo or 5.1 surround

Bit rate: 64 kbps to 448 kbps inclusive

PCM audio (.wav)
Sample size: 16 bit

Sample rate: 48 kHz

Number of channels: stereo

Compression: uncompressed

NTSC MPEG video (.m2p, .mp2, .mpg, .mpeg)
If you're using the MainConcept MPEG-2 encoder in Vegas Movie Studio, use the DVD Architect NTSC video stream or DVD Architect NTSC Widescreen video stream template to render your video stream (you'll need to render your audio stream separately according to the parameters listed in the AC-3 audio or PCM audio headings).

Aspect ratio and frame size:

Aspect ratio
Frame size

4:3
720x480

4:3
704x480

4:3
352x480

4:3
352x240

16:9
720x480

16:9
704x480


Frame rate: 29.97 fps

Maximum GOP (group of pictures): 36

Maximum bit rate: 9.8 Mbps

No low delay

PAL MPEG video (.m2p, .mp2, .mpg, .mpeg)
Shaz wrote on 8/29/2009, 11:19 AM
Okay, scratch that... Rendering the audio separately per the above didn't help at all.

You guys were right. When I rendered some test segments at lower volumes it sounds fine. I had to go down to -9 dB or so. Kind of a pain to have to rerender everything, but anyway, I'm glad it's sounding right now. Thanks for the help!
TOG62 wrote on 8/29/2009, 1:36 PM
If you re-render only the sound it won't take too long.

Mike