Can a (delivered) video be too loud?

NickHope wrote on 2/20/2008, 5:08 AM

>> You'll notice that BBC radio 3 sounds generally quieter than other radio stations, as they don't compress their music material (as far as I know), which being mainly orchestral, will have a wide dynamic range depending on the piece. <<

But it's a nightmare for listening to in the car on the motorway. It's either too quiet or too loud :-)

Tony that RMS Buddy is a superb find.

The "continual" readings tend to jump around too much to be really useful, but it's the only free tool I've found that gives average RMS over a period of time without going into Sound Forge.

The RMS display in Inspector is the most useful free tool I've found so far for metering "loudness" in Vegas. As a general guide now for web videos with "ambient" music I'm adjusting the level to bounce around Inspector's -18dB RMS mark, which is equivalent to about -20dB on RMS Buddy's average RMS display. Not sure of the reason for the discrepancy.

Visualizer (MusicTech Edition) is also free, good and more configurable. But I'm preferring Inspector and it has very nice alarms too (for clipping, not for RMS).

But most of all I'm finding my ears the most useful metering tool :) Some tracks just need to be quieter or louder to match the others, despite what the meters are showing. I guess the reason's largely frequency-related.

Here's a thread on dvinfo.net I found useful, especially post #10.

daryl wrote on 2/20/2008, 7:04 AM

I just made a quick look at this thread, and went to the video as well. It played fine and was NOT too loud, but I started with the volume control on my machine fairly low. Since the audio was clean, I'm not sure why volume was an issue, just turn it down on your playback device if it's too loud. Yes, the volume control on the player, the hidden one, was up full, but, that has nothing to do with Vegas, right?

jackn2mpu wrote on 2/20/2008, 7:21 AM

I too listened to the video; unless you've made recent changes, it's not too loud at all. It's clean, clear and has good definition. What it sounds like is the recent release on DVD of Blade Runner The Final Cut. Granted it's louder than porn video or YouTube vid's, but it's nowheres near as objectionable as some cd's that are out now. FWIW, Iistened to it on my Mac Powerbook G4 and it's internal sound card and a pair of Yamaha MSP5 monitor speakers. My DAW is not on the net. I can see if people are using cruddy internal speakers of their 'puter or cheapy external desktop speakers that they might have a low opinion of your video and it's sound.
Jack

seanfl wrote on 2/21/2008, 2:12 PM

in case you're looking for K metering without spending $250...

The Voxengo Elephant limiter has many ways to meter...including "K." The plugins are great quality and I use them all the time right next to the waves bundle in the studio.

I've found many of their plugins to be top quality and much less expensive than waves and if K metering helps you, all the better.

www.voxengo.com

Sean