ScottW:
Thanks for the reply. My menu sound track is much louder than my video because I have attenuated some of the music tracts on the video to match the audio portion of the video clips). It's easy enough to turn the volume up when the video starts, but the real problem is that when the video ends, it immediately goes back to the menu with its louder sound track - very jarring on a home theater system!
Ian

Then you'll need to re-render your menu audio from Vegas at a lower volume level.

--Scott

Or normalize the audio and music segments in your video so that the volume levels match. Then you don't have to mess with the volume of your menu.

A lot of people will use the "Normalize" function in Vegas. This will adjust the peak level to a certain value. Unfortunately, peak levels are meaningless when it comes to determining how "loud" your final product is. The human ear doesn't determine loudness by the peak level, it determines it by the average (or RMS) level. The "normalize" function in Vegas is useless because it only makes adjustments based on peak levels and that's not they way we hear things.

If you're watching a movie on TV and it has some relatively quiet dialog and then a commercial comes on, the commercial sounds louder because it has been heavily compressed in order to raise its average level (and get your attention.) The fact of the matter is that the movie and the commercial probably had the same peak level, it just that the commercial has a much higher average level.

Audio compression and limiting is an art form and it takes a lot of experience to do it "correctly." There are no hard and fast rules to determine the appropriate average level, you'll just have to play it by ear. But like I said, peak levels are virtually meaningless (well, as long as they don't exceed 0db.)

You could use the Normalize function in Sound Forge, it can be set to normalize for average levels, which is what we want. Render out the audio from the entire timeline and pull it into Sound Forge, then mark each different clip or section that needs to be level matched. Use the Normalize function in Sound Forge and set it to normalize using "Average RMS power" and normalize to -20db and select "If clipping occurs apply Dymanic Compression." -20db is a good starting point, you will have to play with this value for your project. Once you have determined the appropriate RMS level, use that same value for everything and the loudness of will be matched throughout your entire project.

John

Thanks for the info. I've never done a re-render. What exactly do I re-render?
Ian

In this case it will be exactly the same thing as the render you've already done. Open up Vegas, load the project you used to create the menu, and render it. The only difference is that you'll reduce the volume level in Vegas before doing the render. The "re" part is merely a reference to the fact that you're rendering something again that you've already rendered before.

on that TV levels thing... odds are that's not true for most of the TV you watch. Some stations/networks do this on purpose (i've NEVER noticed it durring network programming commercials or comercials fed with syndicated shows, but others in the industry have said it is done, so it could be "fixed" at the stations), but odds are eigther a) the people who put the commercials on the system messed it all up (it's eigther way to loud or to low)or b) the control room guy messed it all up (turned the volume up/down to much).

Combine that with the fact almost nobody has the same rules for what a "tone" stands for & walah... you've got to turn the TV down durring commercials.

I hit this consideration today--after discovering what interesting menu picture effects I can create right in DVDA3 using masks and color adjustments, it seemed that I ought to be able to just click on something or other do a basic volume adjustment for the menu music so it wouldn't blast compared to the program volume.

I'm writing the Madison folks with a suggestion accordingly.

This is not a function of DVD authoring. All that DVDA can do is add menus and flow control to the media that you have provided. The levels are what the levels are in your media. If you want to change that, you have to go back to your editing program and adjust the levels there.

Steve M.