Feature Request: Volume Auto-Leveling

[geogecko]

My Sony TV has a setting where it will auto-level the volume on different channels, and on the same channel, such as between a show and commercials.

This was very handy, and didn't really pay much attention to it, until I started using my HTPC.

I don't know if this is something that can be added in SageTV or not, but would be a welcome feature.

Anyone else agree?

[dvd_maniac]

I would settle for a default audio level upon opening/waking. I use an external video player to play Nero AVC files and they have a problem where the audio gets encoded at a volume that is a little low so I turn my volume all the way up and when I return to Sage and play something it wakes up the spiders in my attic...

[geogecko]

Yeah, but the car commercials are getting to me. Probably near 20% increase in volume...I think it's done on purpose, because they know you are getting up to do something, so hey, we'll just crank up the volume, and they will still hear us...

Thank God for ShowAnalyzer and Comskip. But, what about LiveTV?!

[insomniac]

What is this, live tv, that you speak of? Sounds interesting...

Originally Posted by geogecko

But, what about LiveTV?!

[DFA]

Actually, I like that idea. Not only to level across commercials (if live TV) but also for different inputs and channels. The audio level from the STB firewire capture is quite a bit lower than the PVR-250.

Sure, why not if doable.

DFA

[nielm]

Reclock does this -- volume normalisation

[geogecko]

Originally Posted by insomniac

What is this, live tv, that you speak of? Sounds interesting...

Not sure about across inputs, but I know for sure, that the TV would do it across channels on the cable input.

What is Reclock?

[nielm]

reclock: Official site: http://reclock.free.fr/
More info: http://www.divx-digest.com/software/reclock.html

[broderp]

I requested this a long time ago, a few people looked at it then just blew it away.

The only way this will be done is if someone can do it who has the power of studio, and those people were not interested to add it to any STV cause it wasn't what they wanted.

The easiest way was to use the COMSKIP info, detect the impeading comercial flag and aside from mark it as the begininning of the comercial, have it lower the volume a percentage or if someone was clever enough to devise some "software based volume matching leveler" Have the amount to reduce volume selectable via the setup menu.

It was decided that this was pointless as they were using comskip anyways and were not even watching the comercials. Also there was some talk about muting comercials and turning on CC instead.

This would be a great imported module to have made. Maybe this time someone can seriously look into it.

[dagar]

It's really annoying on sources recorded on different capture cards and/or different inputs (i.e. analog RF vice digital cable STB).

Thanks for the linkage Nielm, I'll have to give that a try.

[Lucas]

The capture cards audio levels can also be calibrated through the registry.

[Diginerd]

Well I know a little about Sage, not much about Direct show, but I do know a fair amount about audio....

From my understanding this could be pretty easy to do.

Basically volume auto levelling can be best acheived with a compander (multiband would be better yet). A straight forwards compressor (that's audio squisher, not video codec) or a multiband one would acheive reasonable results too, though you run into the danger of distortion during the ads in a big way.. Basically Ad spots have been passed through High end Multi-band compressors to make them seam louder but increasing the avergae level but at the same time reducing dynamic range.

Basic compressors are widely and freely in many cases available as DirectX (aka Direct Show) plugins. There's a ton of freewae ones, but if you want to get serious you can pay many hundreds of dollars for a single plugin.

I came accorrs them in Graph builder when playing with HDTV on my studio PC (only one with firewire at the time) It was awesome pulling up a plyugin I use in the studio and have it process my audio. Of course settings are hard to tweak, but as a one shot deal it worked well or me in a test environment.

For those working using spaceghost's instructions it should be trivial to add one of these in the audio path which will apply it when recording.

That of course is destructive, to do it for playback I guess you'd need to create a codec that has a filter built in, or stream the audio out, into the directshow plug and then back to your audio output.

I dunno.. It's certainly possible though.

[geogecko]

I think it's a good idea. Mainly, it needs to be implemented over a time period, not just on commercials, because when switching channels, some come over a lot louder than others.

It almost needs to be an "integrating" function, as in mathmatics, or in electronics, where you don't get an instant change, but more of an average.

I can compensate, if it's possible like someone else posted, for the different tuner cards, much the way I do for my HTPC on the receiver. I turn on the tuner function built into the receiver, then use the volume on the HTPC volume control, to try and match the volume levels of the tuner to the HTPC, so that when I switch between them, they are consistant.

[dragon]

Originally Posted by dvd_maniac

I would settle for a default audio level upon opening/waking. I use an external video player to play Nero AVC files and they have a problem where the audio gets encoded at a volume that is a little low so I turn my volume all the way up and when I return to Sage and play something it wakes up the spiders in my attic...

I'm having the same problem with playing actual DVDs. I have to crank the volume level WAY up to hear the show. Then, when I switch to another channel, it blasts everyone in the room.

Instead of auto-level (which would be nice) I would be happy to have a tuneable volume setting by app (DVD, mpg player, etc). That is, since my DVD sound is lower than anything else, I would like to raise it or lower the others.

BTW, with 2.2.8, there was a small discrepancy in the sound level from DVD to mpg playback. With 3.0.5 & 3.0.7, it is a huge difference.

[src666]

Originally Posted by Lucas

The capture cards audio levels can also be calibrated through the registry.

I tried doing this, but with 4 cards (3 250's and a 500) in the box, it is nearly impossible to figure out which card hits which input. Unless, of course, I am being obtuse.

[silkshadow]

Instead of auto-level (which would be nice) I would be happy to have a tuneable volume setting by app (DVD, mpg player, etc).

This is actually on my todo (lol or try to do) list. I believe Girder can do this. See, I don't have any volume problems within Sage. My problems come when I am switching between Zoomplayer, Sage and Meedio. I see that girder can set system volume and I think it'd be easy to do with analog cound. However, I am using spdif and it seems girder can't do anything with that volume. So what I am thinking is some lua script which will set my reciever volume based on what app task control is currently set to.

[AMCooper63]

Can you give me some hints how I can level the volume between the cards? I have three cards and one is probably 20db quieter than the other two. I saw a registry tweak but I couldn't tell what card I was adjusting and I couldn't hear a difference. Didn't know if I had to open and close Sage for every adjustment, reboot or what it took. Any guidance is appreciated.

[briands]

Originally Posted by AMCooper63

Can you give me some hints how I can level the volume between the cards? I have three cards and one is probably 20db quieter than the other two. I saw a registry tweak but I couldn't tell what card I was adjusting and I couldn't hear a difference. Didn't know if I had to open and close Sage for every adjustment, reboot or what it took. Any guidance is appreciated.

Any help on this? I had problems with the audio level while watching football over the weekend. I think they may all need adjustment, though as the DVD level is MUCH lower.

[aperry]

I've noticed that as well. DVD (and any AVI encoded with AC3 sound) seems to play at a much lower level than the rest of my recordings.

It happens with my digital cable as well (dolby digital sound is noticeably lower than the other channels), and also with my "real" DVD player, so I've always assumed it is not Sage as much as something that maybe I need to tweak in my stereo...

[KoolKat_Milw]

You can manually adjust the default volume level for AC3 encoded movies if you are using the AC3 filter from Sourceforge. It has its own control panel to adjust the decoders volume amongst many other things.

-KK