A question about DRC and normalisation.

[ChAoS Overlord]

Actually this is a very n00bish question :D. But I really don't know the answer to it myself.

It's about sound encoding, I will give you the parameters as I use them.

1. DVD2AVI
Audio: Dolby Digital: DRC: Normal
Audio: Normalisation: 100% (on)

2. Besweet (with gui)
Auto gain: on
post gain: on

Azid:
Dynamic Range Compression: normal

SSRC:
Set sampling rate to: 44.100 (LAME only encodes perfectly in 44.1K)
normalise the wave: On

The reason why I'm asking is, because besweet as well as dvd2avi do the same kind of things. Which steps should I drop to preserve nice dynamics?

[ChAoS Overlord]

So I see it has been moved, can anybody share his insights now? :D

[DSPguru]

Best thing would be using the "mp3@128" profile in BeSweetGUI.
it includes dynamic comprasion, dialog normalization, static pregain, and dynamic postagin. you can also add ssrc for that profile, and save it as your own.

[ChAoS Overlord]

Yes but my question was really: should I do the DRC and normalisation in the DVD2AVI step, or is it bad to do it as well in DVD2AVI as in Besweet?

[Asmodian]

If it is not bad (which I would think it might be) it is redundant, all you need is one normalize (auto gain is a normalize) and possibly a DRC (if you wanted it). If you do two DRC steps you will have compressed the dynamic range more then if you just did one (right?).

ChAoS Overlord are you just extracting the ac3 with DVD2AVI or are you decoding to a wav? (because DVD2AVI doesn't do anything to the audio if it is just extracting the ac3 and I think besweet doesn't use the azid switches [i.e. DRC] when encoding a wav - is that right?)

[DSPguru]

u can't use Azid's drc for wav files input, but you have 3 general-purpose boost modes for that case.

[ChAoS Overlord]

Here is Besweets command line:

"C:\Program Files\Besweet\BeSweet.exe" -core( -input "i:\Ripping Temp\BA3E6 AC3 T01 2_0ch 224Kbps DELAY 0ms.ac3" -output "i:\Ripping Temp\BA.mp3" -logfile "C:\Program Files\Besweet\BeSweet.log" ) -azid( -z1 -b1 -c normal -L -3db ) -ota( -G max ) -ssrc( --rate 44100 ) -lame( --alt-preset 112 )

This (http://membres.lycos.fr/chaosoverlord/MISC%20IMG/DVD2AVI.JPG) is what I put to "normal" (not "off" "light" or "heavy").
And normalisation to 100%

[Asmodian]

I believe the Dynamic range control and normalization in DVD2AVI only do something when decoding (getting a wav) not when just demuxing the ac3. (and would do basicly the same thing as the '-c normal' [DRC] and '-G max' [normalization] switches for azid/ota in besweet if they did do something)