MovieFactory 7 finished sound quality is terrible...

[username]

Hi, I am using MovieFactory 7 to make a small simply photo gallery, and any music I add to my photo gallery seems to be automatically normalised on the final output, so on a tv set to a fairly low volume, it sounds far too loud and scratchy, and not really very acceptable to be able to keep on the disc. there is nothing wrong with the sound files I add, standard mp3s of an average volume level.

I know I can preview my disc, and there is a volume button in the preview, but this is only for preview mode, so will not turn auto normalisation off for any music for the final output. Is there a solution? If I intentially lower the volume on all my mp3s before adding them to moviefactory (perhaps using a program such as audacity), will that help? or will this make little difference (or things worse, since moviefactory seems to be automatically normalising everything I add to it anyway)?

thanks very much for any help if possible

[Black Lab]

VideoStudio has problems with certain types of MP3s, namely those produced with the LAME codec. It could be that MF has a similar problem. Try converting to WAV files. You shouldn't have any problems with those.

[username]

thanks for that, will give it a go! I probably shouldnt refer to the quality as "terrible", as the tv can be turned down slightly, but it is very scratchy to me with the music playing in the background from a photo gallery. Ill try wav or other formats to see if they make a difference.

Does anyone know if moviefactory definately normalises audio files or not, as it creates the final dvd?
That way Ill know if lowering the volume levels before adding my sound files will make a difference or not
(eg if it normalises all sound, then its probably pointless in changing anything beforehand)...?

I have also noticed that theres an option to have my added music/sound as either "L+R combined" (which is the default mode), or "L+R seperate channels"? I could not hear a difference with my mp3s when trying the latter, but perhaps if the seperate mode did give a differing or higher quality of output, I would probably need a good tv with hi quality speakers anyway to notice the change, lol

[DVDDoug]

If Black Lab's suggestion works, I guess you can ignore everything I'm about to say...

What format have you selected for the DVD? (I realize your input is MP3.) I don't have MF7, but when using Dolby audio with Corel Video Studio (also an older version) I had to reduce the volume to about 75% or else I was getting distortion. ( I think there's a volume control in Movie Factory.)

If I intentially lower the volume on all my mp3s before adding them to moviefactory (perhaps using a program such as audacity), will that help? or will this make little difference (or things worse, since moviefactory seems to be automatically normalising everything I add to it anyway)? ...

...Does anyone know if moviefactory definately normalises audio files or not, as it creates the final dvd? That way Ill know if lowering the volume levels before adding my sound files will make a difference or not
(eg if it normalises all sound, then its probably pointless in changing anything beforehand)...?

I don't know, but it's worth a try! I was thinking the same thing... If Movie factory is actually normalizing, it won't help to reduce the level before it gets re-normalized...

I have also noticed that theres an option to have my added music/sound as either "L+R combined" (which is the default mode), or "L+R seperate channels"? I could not hear a difference with my mp3s when trying the latter,

This is when you make the MP3, right? "L+R Combined" sounds like Joint Stereo. First, as Black Lab suggested it would be best to avoid MP3 altogether...

But with MP3 (or any other compression), joint stereo is the better option. It means that whatever audio that's common between the left & right channels (usually the main vocals, bass, etc.) only has to be encoded/compressed once. If you encode the left & right channels separately, the encoder has to encode/save the same information twice. And since were talking about lossy compression, some other information has to be thrown-away to make room for the duplicate data. At high bitrates you may not notice a difference, but at low bitrates you will get worse quality if you encode left & right separately. There's no downside to using joint stereo...[/b You don't loose any stereo separation or anything like that. (I believe AAC and Dolby AC3 use joint stereo by deflault.)

[username]

the output is pcm, eg in moviefactory my dvd will be outputted as :-
MPEG files 24 bits, 720 x 576, 25 fps, Frame-based (DVD-PAL), 16:9
Video data rate: Variable (Max. 7000 kbps)
with LPCM Audio, 48000 Hz, Stereo

LPCM, MPEG or dolby digital are the 3 options for dvd audio, Ive always chosen LPCM - I couldnt hear the audio when I had chosen MPEG, and Id heard PCM was the standard for DVD.

theres no "general volume control" in moviefactory that I can find at all, unless I include the one in its preview mode, but thats only for previewing and nothing else. there is a normalisation control, but i think its for the menu only, and Ive never switched it on. Ive just noticed however that if I "double click" on a video, dvd factory enters "edit mode", where I can then change volume levels. It seems to be always set to 100% by default, but the sound on any video is not as bad/over-normalised or scratchy as the sound on any photo gallery- if only there was a similar edit mode for added photo gallery audio! unless I just simply havent found it yet? If there are no volume options for photo galleries, and changing mp3 to wav doesnt help either, then I might try and create a small photo gallery with deliberately very low volume music added for its background audio as a test, to see if it gets normalised in the final output dvd or not.

the audio options in my last post I worded wrong they appear in moviefactory as "audio output setting", and not when making the mp3s at all. the choice in factory is to have audio as either "main (L)+sub (R)" (which is the default mode), "divide L+R", "L only"....or "R only". these options are available only when I right click on individual photo galleries in the editor itself, so each gallery in its own right can have these seperate audio channel options, for seperate chapters (that make up galleries with differing audio- most likely for any background music I may have added, in wav or mp3 format).

[username]

update :- using audacity, I changed my background menu music to wav, from the default mpa format. For all the photo gallery slideshow music, I also changed it from mp3 to wav. It made no difference
The dvd audio in general remains too much for the speakers of my tv and monitor on a medium volume level- as you could still hear the constant "scratchiness" or the high pitched "whine" in certain areas of the music when it got too loud for the speakers to play clearly on both. On a standard tv, compared to the average tv channel, the dvd output is simply too loud. I listened again, but with my headphones, to the exact same dvd output-no scratchiness or whine, but... the volume almost blows your head off on a monitor at 35%! PS- it was "elvis-jailhouse rock" in the test, so nothing arguably "too heavy" or "too loud"!

There was a noticable increase in volume when comparing the original music to the outputted dvd music, so its either an automatic on purpose volume normalisation feature in the software that im not told about in its final process, or something that happens in the conversion to cause the output to be louder anyway (or both?), but Id need a developer from moviefactory to tell me which is true.

I tried three further tests >>
1 - lowering the volume of a slideshow (same mp3-using audacity and its normalisation feature) and outputting as mp3.
2 - lowering the volume of a slideshow (same mp3-using audacity to lower) and outputting as wav.
3 - lowering the volume of default menu music (mpa format-so after lowering volume in audacity, I output as wav).

Result >> all three tests work! In audacity, for wav and mp3, the output format was set to 44100Hz, 32-bit float. the volume on all music in the final dvd is no longer too loud to cause my tv to go overboard! The only problem I have now is in getting all the music I have added to moviefactory to be roughly 'on the same level' in my final dvd. In audacity I used "effect > normalisation" at roughly -10 dB to lower the volume. Unfortunatedly there is only a "normalisation" feature in factory for my added videos, and nothing to lower their volume instead. im not really sure what good software could be recommended in lowering volume levels of any added videos, but without any changes video audio volume levels are no where near as high as the menu and gallery music.

PS does anyone know of any software that can lower volume levels like audacity to my audio, but do it as one process to multiple files? I dont fancy having to lower the volume of each individual track seperately, so being able to add "folders" or their contents at once would be great, although im arguably just being lazy thanks!

[DVDDoug]

PS does anyone know of any software that can lower volume levels like audacity to my audio, but do it as one process to multiple files? I dont fancy having to lower the volume of each individual track seperately, so being able to add "folders" or their contents at once would be great, although im arguably just being lazy thanks!

I've never used it, but Audacity can do batch processing. (I think GoldWave or SOX can do it too.)

I'm glad you found a work-around, but what a pain!

[username]

I didnt realise audacity could do batch processing, ill look into using it for lowering all my file volume levels at once, thanks