Increasing volume in video files

I have some video files of various formats that are just too quiet. I know that if they're encoded for 5.1 (or greater) surround sound, then the center channel is all I'm hearing on a 2.0 system (like my PC speakers for example) and is therefore very quiet. These types of files would have to be completely re-encoded to basic stereo. That's OK, I can accept and deal with that. But I also have some video files that were encoded with regular stereo that are too quiet. Is there an easy way to increase the audio on these files without having to completely re-encode them? In the past, I've converted them to DVDs and then used the converting program to raise the audio levels. It's easy to do it this way, but it's time consuming, and increases the file size by about 400-500% (or more!). So, how do I increase the audio levels and keep the type and size of the file the same? Without having to convert the file to a different format?

Thanks!

 

Wavesound or Audacity may do this, I'm not 100% sure.

 

I'll have to look at those two and see.... thanks for the suggestion. I'm wondering if one of the flavors of Virtual Dub can do it, or AVIdemux, or something similar. I know VDub has tons of things it can do, but it isn't the most user friendly thing around, and I was playing around in AVIdemux the other day, and it looks like it might be able to do it, but I'm not quite sure exactly what I have to do. I know where to start, but steps 2 thru 20 are where I get lost. Step 1 is easy: load the video file. LOL

 

I just played around in VirtualDub (not VDMod) and it can do it but I was using a music video clip and could definitely hear distortion like an over-saturated cassette tape after about 200% volume. Might not be as noticeable on a movie.

You have to use Full Processing mode for the audio so to avoid a huge file you have to know which audio codec your original uses. So for my clip GSpot told me: audio=lame mp3@192kb/s CBR (constant bit rate).

You've got step 1 down pat :highfive so
Step 2 on the Video tab select Direct Stream Copy
Step 3 on the Audio tab select Full Processing (this enables volume settings)
Step 4 on the Audio tab select Volume
Step 5 Check the box for Adjust Volume and move slider
Step 6 on the Audio tab select Compression and match up as close as possible to what Gspot or other program told you about audio codec.
Step 7 on File menu choose Save as new filename

Only took about 1 minute for a 70mb music video so it shouldn't be too bad for a movie. The slider goes up to at least 1200% but after 400% my sound was very muddy.

Hope it helps

 

I was thinking about this and if I really wanted to increase the volume on this music video, I would try using Vdub to extract the audio stream as a WAV and use Audacity to increase the volume and then remux audio back in compressing to Mp3.

More complicated and time consuming but I think I might be able to control the quality better. Deciding which specific acoustic levels got boosted. It seems to me VDub is more like hitting the loudness button on a stereo receiver. Just a thought depending on what type of file you are changing and how much of a change you require.

 

:-D Thanks sach2! I just tried it and it worked fine. I only went up to 140% and it was about perfect. Thanks for the step-by-step! Since many of my videos aren't CBR (about half are VBR) I'll have to use VDub MP3-Freeze, but that's OK. I was thinking I would have to strip the audio stream, manipulate it, then mux it back in with the video stream, but it doesn't look like that's needed. Using your steps on a full movie only takes about 5 minutes or so and it's pretty simple.
Thanks again!

[dlb]

 

Glad I could help.

I had forgotten that VDub would allow DirectStream for Video while using Full Processing for Audio so it was a good refresher for me. What a time saver! From what I've seen most pay video processing programs are just a pretty face for the VDub engine. Ill have to play around with VDub Mp3 Freeze on a VBR file when I get one--I've seen you mention it before--Thanks for the tip.