VS X2 Pro - Faint audio sound level upon burning DVD

[Dave H]

Hello Corel VS Support Community,

I'm still struggling with getting this long ago purchased and registered version working properly on my XP Media Edition, installed on an 4 year old Toshiba laptop with an external NAS hard drive. (Additional future system details to be provided as is necessary.)

I had no problems with the previous version 10 on this system, or version 11 on another system, but the X2 version has been a long outstanding headache in attempting to reach a working status. I'd be more than willing to again upgrade, but only if I had assurances that I wouldn't have to reset the clock. My editing needs are very basic, so additional enhancements offer no benefit beyond bug fixes and patches.

Corel's technical support eventually resolved one frustrating X2 operational problem in setting up a separate VSP user profile with all working files, not just the program files, needing to reside on the local drive, not the NAS. (That's something that should be documented properly somewhere, if not already in this forum as I extensively searched at that time for a reference and found none.)

My current problem is that audio coming out on burned DVD's is very faint. The input is occurring with a .mpg video file and it's enclosed audio voice track.

I have tried the volume control without success, plus the mute function. The problem is that the sound level is not muted, just very faint as to be almost unheard even when played back on the DVD player at maximum volume.

I have tried extracting that .mpg audio track in VSP, saving it in both .mpa and .wav formats, then reinserting into the time line, but the result is the same. It's still very faint. However, if I use one of the sample .mpa audio files found in VSP it burns through to a DVD in the normal manner. This works, even when accompanied by the video audio which still comes out so faintly.

The volume level plays normally in VSP and VLC from the raw file, as well as from the burned DVD. It's when the burned DVD is placed in a regular DVD player that the problem shows up. I've used the same input file source for editing and burning in VS 10 and 11 with no similar problems.

I've searched the web, this bulletin board and consulted with a movie editing professional before posting this message. I'll be continuing my exploratory approaches, first with another entirely video input source and also with another DVD player, plus anything else that comes to mind but my options are becoming limited.

I'd appreciate any meaningful technical assistance you could provide in pointing me towards a solution.

..Sincerely, Dave Hutchison

[Ron P.]

What audio codec are you using for burning your DVD? PCM, MPEG audio layer 2, or Dolby? In the burn module click on the gear looking icon, which opens the MPEG settings dialog, what are the properties? Please post them.

For NSTC DVD, any codecs other than Dolby or LPCM (PCM) do not meet the NTSC DVD specifications, so a stand-alone DVD Player may not be able to read the audio codec correctly. What puzzles me is that the DVD's audio seems to play fine on your PC, but it's your stand-alone DVD Player and TV that are having the problem. You don't say if you have any problems with commercial DVDs playing on that DVD player. You might also check for settings in the DVD player to see if they may be set to a lower volume, or have a setting similar to Normalize audio.

Now in VS X2, do you have the Normalize Audio option selected? If so de-select it, and see if that might cure the audio problem.