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Fed Up With Handbrake Low Volume, Alternative?

wrkactjob

wrkactjob

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Feb 29, 2008
1,357
0
London
OK its been mentioned before, I love the video quality and simplicity of use of Handbrake but where has the volume gone?!

I'm ripping my Soprano videos to my iPad for my daily commute on the train and even with the volume to the max its a stuggle to hear with my BT headphones on, sitting at my desk at work this morning I am relying on the volume from the iPad itself without using a headset and its just waaaaay too low. It's really not good enough.

So what decent alternative is there out there, (happy to pay for a commercial piece of software) where you can increase the volume during the conversion process?
 
That doesnt really fix the volume issue thou it just raises the level of the quiet areas. They need to get some type of normalization goin on, this has been an issue forever.
 
The issue with low audio from DTS source to Encoded track was also fixed a few months back.
 
Gain control now implemented as of
https://trac.handbrake.fr/changeset/4000 in the HandBrake MacGui ...

From my tests a gain setting of +15db is about as high as you'd want to go, it will break up on super loud segments. my guess is for normal use probably a range of +5 to +10 will be more than enough.

And yes, its about time.

Should be available on the next nightly.
 
chercm said:
it is still very low volume on the appletv
Click to expand...
Um,did you actually download a new nightly of handbrake that has the gain control implemented? I can boost aac volume so high that it distorts.

Realize of course it does *nothing* to the ac3 passthru track as its just what it says ... passed thru.
 
chercm said:
it is still very low volume on the appletv
Click to expand...

Sorry to bring an old thread back to life.

I'm using handbrake to rip some of my DVDs so I can watch them through my 2nd generation AppleTV. When doing so I noticed that the volume levels were fine when watched through iTunes on my Mac, but very, very low when streamed through Apple TV.

I switched to the Handbrake nightly build and ripped the same DVD with and without added gain (+10).

What I've found is that the added gain does make a difference when playing the movie in iTunes (but like I said it was fine on my mac anyway), but for some reason when streaming to my TV through AppleTV, it doesn't seem to have made any difference at all.

I'm not sure why this is and I'm wondering if it's AppleTV and not how Handbrake processes the file (not that I'm any expert on video encoding).

Anyone else witnessed the same result with AppleTV (2nd gen) found a way to get acceptable sound levels?

Cheers

Chris
 
chrisparr said:
Sorry to bring an old thread back to life.

I'm using handbrake to rip some of my DVDs so I can watch them through my 2nd generation AppleTV. When doing so I noticed that the volume levels were fine when watched through iTunes on my Mac, but very, very low when streamed through Apple TV.

I switched to the Handbrake nightly build and ripped the same DVD with and without added gain (+10).

What I've found is that the added gain does make a difference when playing the movie in iTunes (but like I said it was fine on my mac anyway), but for some reason when streaming to my TV through AppleTV, it doesn't seem to have made any difference at all.

I'm not sure why this is and I'm wondering if it's AppleTV and not how Handbrake processes the file (not that I'm any expert on video encoding).

Anyone else witnessed the same result with AppleTV (2nd gen) found a way to get acceptable sound levels?

Cheers

Chris
Click to expand...

What is your output HDMI or optical? What is your setup? I think the boost/gain level is only in the AAC file not the original 5.1 Dolby digital.

Give use a more detailed description of your setup and maybe we can help.
 
spacepower7 said:
What is your output HDMI or optical? What is your setup? I think the boost/gain level is only in the AAC file not the original 5.1 Dolby digital.

Give use a more detailed description of your setup and maybe we can help.
Click to expand...

Thanks for responding.

I connect AppleTV to my set using a HDMI cable, and I'm using a wireless network (not that it should make a difference). I encode using the AppleTV preset in Handbrake.

Cheers

Chris
 
Have you tried selecting the files in iTunes and then "get info"? You can increase the volume output there. When iTunes imports it puts the file volume right in the middle. If you push it up higher here it will be higher when it plays at the same volume setting on the TV or amp. You can select all of your movie files at once and do get info and change them all.
 
spacepower7 said:
I think the boost/gain level is only in the AAC file not the original 5.1 Dolby digital.
Click to expand...

Correct, Gain is only applied to encoded audio tracks. Since the AC3 track from a dvd is pass thru, its gets ... passed thru, unmodified.
 
Penquin79 said:
Have you tried selecting the files in iTunes and then "get info"? You can increase the volume output there. When iTunes imports it puts the file volume right in the middle. If you push it up higher here it will be higher when it plays at the same volume setting on the TV or amp. You can select all of your movie files at once and do get info and change them all.
Click to expand...

I think I tried that, but I'll look at it again as I'm not 100% sure.
 
Penquin79 said:
Have you tried selecting the files in iTunes and then "get info"? You can increase the volume output there. When iTunes imports it puts the file volume right in the middle. If you push it up higher here it will be higher when it plays at the same volume setting on the TV or amp. You can select all of your movie files at once and do get info and change them all.
Click to expand...

I do this AND I also go into the Equalizer window and add volume there.

I select "Vocal Booster" from the drop down menu.
Adjust the preamp slider to raise the volume.
Save the preset as "video watching" or something like that.

Screen Shot 2012-01-04 at 11.11.35 AM.png
 
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