Setting the sound level

[Briantho]

Commercial DVDs have me setting the volume on my TV near the top for comfortable listening, let's say 7.5 on a scale of 10. Normal TV viewing is somewhere between 3 and 4.5. Without making any adjustments to what I'm recording with my Rode Videomic plugged into my Panasonic GS300 I set the TV volume to about 2.5 out of 10, for the same level of comfort.

There is no distortion on my stuff so I don't feel I have to lower the volume during the edit phase but I was wondering if I should all the same adjust it so as to be closer to what I experience on commercial DVDs?

[Paul LS]

I have always wondered why I need to increase the volume while watching commercial DVDs. Anyways, with Premiere Elements open up the Audio Meters (which is under Windows in the task bar) and view your levels, generally the level for most of my audio is around -6dBm. If there is no clipping or going in the red there should be no issue.

[Briantho]

...Anyways, with Premiere Elements open up the Audio Meters (which is under Windows in the task bar) and view your levels, generally the level for most of my audio is around -6dBm. If there is no clipping or going in the red there should be no issue.

Yes, I had to lower both volume and bass for the recent panto here (most of my projects are local amateur opera and theatre) and I was guided towards the Audio Meters for that - useful feature!

Perhaps having the volume so low on commercial DVDs saves space - a bit like using a small pitch size on Word documents saves space on your hard disk...? ;-)

[Bobby]

I don't get quite the same results. On both my TV (when I use it for audio) and my good sound system, volume levels for broadcast TV (well, Time Warner cable anyhow) and commercial DVDs are very similar. On my Onkyo receiver, that is between 60 and 70 on their scale.

But DVDs I make myself with PE are always louder and I have to crank down the volume to play them - about 50 on the Onkyo. When I give DVDs to my daughters, we see the same effect.

So, which one is "right"?