I often find myself watching DVDs at max volume, and still being unable to hear, especially with my laptop. It's just that they are encoded so quiet. Is there any programs that can boost the volume higher than it would otherwise go?
Make sure you have Auto Gain Control, or anything like that (<strike>Equalizer, etc</strike> I'm retarded. Equalizer = good. "Normalizer," is the word I believe I was looking for) turned off. That will make the quiet sounds equal with the loud sounds, which is bad. For example: say some people are talking, and at a normal volume, they sound pretty good. Then a bomb goes off. It goes, "Hey! We need to make things quieter since that bomb was so loud." Then if there are more people talking, it makes it really quiet. It took me forever to figure out why my movies kept doing that
Entropy:
Turning off auto gain control is a bad idea; it exists for a reason. Combining it with dynamic range compression can reduce clipping and make the movie sound balanced, but not muffled. It just takes a bit of finesse; not disabling.
Nuts. Why exactly does it exist? It never seemed to do anything useful for me, since I found that sort of obnoxious.
How do you get it balanced, then? The times I've messed around with DRC it only managed to make take away my highs and lows and leave me with only mids, and as you said, muffled/muddy.
If configured improperly, it does sound like total ass. I agree.
How to configure it properly is up to your ears; for me, when I was configuring DRC/AutoGain, I spent about an hour tuning the gain of specific channels, checking out various levels of AG, and tweaking DRC. I spent a while doing it and I finally got something I liked.
This is in regards to AC3Filter, which allows you to tweak away; other programs don't offer the same level of control.
I often find myself watching DVDs at max volume, and still being unable to hear, especially with my laptop. It's just that they are encoded so quiet. Is there any programs that can boost the volume higher than it would otherwise go?
Some programs offer dynamic range compression (looks like AC3Filter does), which is made for such low quality setups. When you can play a movie through powerful speakers at good volume, it's more realistic to keep the original dynamic range (that is, explosions louder than voices etc.); but this means that voices must be recorded much quieter than the "max" volume. So for your kind of setup you'd want to compress the dynamic range (make quiet sounds louder) in order to hear everything.
I looked up auto gain control and it doesn't sound like that would be preferable - it should behave like entropy described. It might be useful for handling sound that's always too quiet or too loud, but I doubt most movies are recorded that way (since it would waste a good dynamic range).
Comments
Entropy:
Turning off auto gain control is a bad idea; it exists for a reason. Combining it with dynamic range compression can reduce clipping and make the movie sound balanced, but not muffled. It just takes a bit of finesse; not disabling.
How do you get it balanced, then? The times I've messed around with DRC it only managed to make take away my highs and lows and leave me with only mids, and as you said, muffled/muddy.
How to configure it properly is up to your ears; for me, when I was configuring DRC/AutoGain, I spent about an hour tuning the gain of specific channels, checking out various levels of AG, and tweaking DRC. I spent a while doing it and I finally got something I liked.
This is in regards to AC3Filter, which allows you to tweak away; other programs don't offer the same level of control.
Some programs offer dynamic range compression (looks like AC3Filter does), which is made for such low quality setups. When you can play a movie through powerful speakers at good volume, it's more realistic to keep the original dynamic range (that is, explosions louder than voices etc.); but this means that voices must be recorded much quieter than the "max" volume. So for your kind of setup you'd want to compress the dynamic range (make quiet sounds louder) in order to hear everything.
I looked up auto gain control and it doesn't sound like that would be preferable - it should behave like entropy described. It might be useful for handling sound that's always too quiet or too loud, but I doubt most movies are recorded that way (since it would waste a good dynamic range).