Vegas / DVD Architect Audio Compression

A

acaruso1011

New member
Am I missing something as it relates to my audio files when rendering out of Vegas for DVD Arch? When I render a wmv or avi for example, the 5.1 audio sounds great (and loud!). However whenever I render for DVD Arch (MPEG2 vid and ac3 5.1), the DVD version audio sounds compressed and much lower volume. This is extremely ineffective when you are trying to "jolt" viewers from their seats with the score. Am I missing a DVD Arch setting maybe? PLEASE HELP!!! Thanks.

You can view the trailer (click HD) at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzETaDAuvGo to hear a good "hot" audio export. When this same trailer is played rendered for DVD Arch, the audio sounds compressed and is much lower. I believe the root cause is DVD Arch, but don't know where to go next.
 
No; you aren't missing anything; what's being done is correct -- film sound mixes have much greater dynamic range than other audio recordings; the baseline is lower to account for this. It's rendered at the same baseline as commercial Hollywood movies, which are much quieter than CDs.

HOWEVER, after years of people asking, a method was added to move the baseline up so that it renders at a higher volume. Vegas Help has this:
My AC-3 audio files are quieter than my PCM audio files, even though they were rendered from the same project. How can I make the levels match more closely?

The AC-3 encoder can be configured to perform dynamic range compression.
When rendering your AC-3 files, change the following settings in the rendering template:

  1. In the Render As dialog, choose Dolby Digital AC-3 from the Save as Type drop-down list.
  2. Click the Custom button. The Custom Template dialog is displayed.
  3. Select the Preprocessing tab.
  4. From the Line mode profile drop-down list, choose None.
  5. From the RF mode profile drop-down list, choose None.
  6. Click OK to close the Custom Template dialog.
  7. Click Save to render your file.
Click to expand...

You would, though, be better mixing your audio to the correct baseline levels and rendering normally.

Normal dialog should be mixed to hit between -6 and -12, averaging -9. No sounds should hit above -3. No dialog should be lower than -20.
 
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