DVD sound

Sepheh · 24 Jun 2008 at 17:38

Hey, not sure if this should go here or not, but it seems best suited here.

The problem I seem to be encountering is that the sound when watching DVD's is a lot quieter than when i am just watching anything else running from my computer. I use windows media player to watch my DVD's but i find that i have to turn up my speakers a lot louder when watching DVD's than when i am doing anything else.

Currently I am running windows vista 64 bit, with a samsung dvd righter, I have got a creative sound-blaster x-fi soundcard (the gamers edition).

I dont know if there is a setting in windows media player or something i can change for this!

Cheers in advance.

helmutcheese · 24 Jun 2008 at 17:50

Are you by any chance still using the "old and not needed" Audio Cable thats goes from the Drive to the Mobo or Soundcard ?.

Sepheh · 24 Jun 2008 at 18:43

nope i didnt connect it up when i built my computer, i think it is specifically a software issue somewhere down the line :/

fizzy · 24 Jun 2008 at 19:13

I think its just the nature of dolby digital and the like, even with proper dvd players. Through a digital cable to my amp, I always have had to turn the volume up for proper surround movies, then down again when playing cd's etc.

As the pc is doing the decoding in this case you have to turn up the volume. A lot of player software has a "volume boost" option in their sound settings to counteract this. Some also have a "quiet" mode to keep the noise levels down in a quite environment.

Have a check in the settings and see what you find.

asim18 · 24 Jun 2008 at 19:21

Use AC3filter for goodness sake! I couldn't live without it!

Just pop the master gain up a bit, and enable dynamic range compression if needed.

james.miller · 25 Jun 2008 at 00:42

fizzy said:
I think its just the nature of dolby digital and the like, even with proper dvd players. Through a digital cable to my amp, I always have had to turn the volume up for proper surround movies, then down again when playing cd's etc.

yep, thats it. dolby digital (and dts. or any movie audio format on dvd or bluray) is supposed to have a calibrated dynamic range of 105db, 115ba for the .1 LFE subwoofer track. dialog is recorded at anywhere between -25db and -31db, this equates to 105db-25db = 80db or 105db-31db=74db. so between 74db and 80db when the system is set up for reference level playback.

audio cd's have a top dynamic range of about 96db. most modern cd's as you know are heavily compressed and most of the content is right at the top of the volume scale (-0db on a VU meter). straight away, you can see that a loud cd could playback at 95-96db while a DD or DTS soundtrack on the same system would have the dialog 16db-22db low at the same volume setting. hence why speech is so quiet, in a nut shell

there are two ways around it really. One is to use late night mode or whatever the equivalent name is on your system (dynamic range control probably) to dial down the movie soundtrack and compress the dynamics. This isnt a bad idea and very useful at night, where it brings the dialog and main channels closer together in loudness terms, so the bangs arent as loud. The other, is to use replay gain and dial down your audio to the accepted standard of 89db. it would still be louder than movie dialog, but not nearly as much.