Audio Track - Quality & Level

FlashGordon wrote on 6/5/2009, 9:24 AM
When working my movie (concert footage of my band with) in Vegas I have really good quality sound and adequate levels on the audio track. When I render it in order to burn a DVD in Architect I am losing the quality and level of the audio track. Then of course when I burn my DVD the volume is too low and sucks. What the heck am I doing wrong? I have rendered the audio in Vegas with the setting "Dolby Digital AC-3 Pro" as I have learned to do but never really noticed such a drop in the audio to Architect and ultimately the final product, my DVD. I tried bringing up the level in Vegas to 12 and rendering again (lowering my monitor -12 so I can listen in Vegas without peaking) and this made no dicernible difference from yesterday's rendering and burning at 0. Please help as I've been working on this project for three months.

Comments

musicvid10 wrote on 6/5/2009, 9:33 AM
In the Dolby Digital AC-3 Pro encoder settings:

1) Set "Dialog Normalization" to -31
2) Set "Line Mode" and "RF Mode" DRC both to Off.

This will take care of it.
FlashGordon wrote on 6/5/2009, 10:28 AM
It was set at -27dB so wouldn't taking it down to -31dB give me even less audio? I know that I'm inexperienced in this matter but if -1 is the top of the scale and -31 is the bottom wouldn't it make sense to set it at -1dB? Also what about changing the "Preprocessing" RF Mode to "music-standard" versus where it's set now at "speech"?
I truly appreciate your quick response and help in this matter.
Former user wrote on 6/5/2009, 10:49 AM
This might help a little. Dialog normalization is not what most people think it is.

http://www.aesnashville.org/PDFs/Technical/Dolby/DolbyE%20Authoring%20Standards.pdf

Dave T2
musicvid10 wrote on 6/5/2009, 10:52 AM
No.

Dialog Normalization has absolutely nothing to do with conventional gain controls.
If you wish to read up on its intricacies you can find all the specifications at Dolby.

In the meantime, if you wish to have your rendered AC-3 audio at unity gain, which means no reduction in your levels from the original, just follow my instructions above. That's all you need to do!

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=22&MessageID=655195

You can find lots more discussion on this by doing a search on these forums.
FlashGordon wrote on 6/5/2009, 11:53 AM
Many thanks musicvid, you are so correct as it worked perfectly. Since I do not have a VCR here at the office I figure I'll just have to run home to check out the finished product but the VU meter (I'm old) clearly shows the same level in Architect as Vegas. Would you like me to mail you a copy of the finished product? I'd be very happy to do so in repayment for your advice.