Are commercial DVD audio levels set differently?
by Tracey Dunn
on
May 17, 2008 at 8:09:55 pm
I've noticed with commercial DVDs and CDs that the audio levels appear to be set high.
Some CDs I import into FCP are right at the digital 0db with no dynamic range at all.
Usual output for broadcast is to set digital audio levels around -20db with peaks at -10 or -12dbs.
depending on the broadcasters requirements.
Setting my sequence at -12dbs for prep to compressor/DVDSP, out of curiosity I popped in a DVD movie,
leaving my speaker volume untouched. The commercial DVD volume is significantly louder, which leads me to presume that since there's 18dbs of dynamic range, ( if movie's audio levels for the theatre are set at -18dbs), and no broadcast analog crossover to worry about, the DVD masters are bumped much closer to 0dbs.
I presume this is because the engineers are trying to allow for all the different types of speakers people will listen to the DVD audio on? Laptops and cheap computer speakers don't have much volume capability.
Re: Are commercial DVD audio levels set differently? by Michael Sacci on May 18, 2008 at 6:00:52 pm
Most of my projects are for Broadcast or DVD and not both.
If there are several tracks or menus involved, and there usually are, they need to balanced to each other so my solution is if everything is mixed well in relationship to each other and everything has peaks set to -6, -10 or what ever db and the dialog is also balanced, then all you need to do is normalize everything up to 0. If everything is all over the place to begin with then it will be all over the place after normalizing.
My solutions to audio that is all over the place is to hire a professional audio guy. As much as I hate to work with audio I hate trying to figure out what in the world audio guys are talking about. Not everything has a budget for that but I always fight for it.
Re: Are commercial DVD audio levels set differently? by Kris Merkel on May 18, 2008 at 10:03:42 pm
Having experience in Audio engineering and Video, I can verify that any commercial release for home/private use, whether it be CD or DVD, will go through an audio mastering step before it is sent to the replicator. This involves EQ, Compression and normalization right up to 0db. Even if you master your audio to digital 0db, the commercial release may still be perceived as louder because of fine tuning the mix in a specialized mastering lab.
