Music Documentary Reference levels?

[barismanco123]

Hi there, I normally do stuff for music and don't have a heap of experience in Post Production.

I have been given a DVD to edit and clean up the sound and balance out each scene, generally mix it.
My question is this is going straight to DVD and as far as we know is not going to get broadcasted so do I need to woirry about loudness or peaks? I assume I could theoretically have it as loud as I liked though I wont be doing anything harsh to it, is that correct or do I need to have a PPM meter and aim for somewhere??? I'm not to sure if I need to worry about peaks in other words (with expecption to hitting red).

This confuses me alot.

[pneyrinck]

If it is 5.1 then the audio has to be Dolby Digital (AC3) encoded for DVD. And if it is Dolby Digital encoded you can run into big problems with the limiting that it uses to prevent a stereo downmix from clipping. AC3 encoding is a bit complicated to explain to you in a few sentences, but one rule of thumb is to limit peak levels to -10 dBFS and that should keep you out of AC3 limiting.

Paul
www.neyrinck.com

[barismanco123]

Hey paul,

It's just 2 mics and i don't currently mix in 5.1 at the moment, so for now it's stereo.

Am I right in assuming that I don't have to worry about peak controlling other than actually 0.0dB clipping.

Thanks for your response, Guy

[mikevarela]

That's always a point on conjecture. If the viewing public wants it loud then limit away, but if you want to keep it in line with other material, import that into PT and have a look/listen.

Paul is right, for a ballpark, set an L2 at -10dbfs and mix to that, but remember that calibrating your environment is first, otherwise you brick it all at that level.

Another note too, if it's intended for Internet, then limit a little harder and keep the dynamic range pretty small.

You can also try listening to a similar dvd at home, mentally take a snapshot and remmeber the level on of TV volume, then mix and bounce and compare.

[danijel]

Originally Posted by barismanco123

Am I right in assuming that I don't have to worry about peak controlling other than actually 0.0dB clipping.

In post, whether you are mixing 5.1 or stereo, much more relevant in the so called 'dialogue level', than the peak level. I you want to dive into this subject, start here:
http://www.gearslutz.com/board/post-...cials-etc.html

If not, mix to -10dBFS peak as Paul suggested, that should make your average levels about right.

[CCash]

Originally Posted by pneyrinck

If it is 5.1 then the audio has to be Dolby Digital (AC3) encoded for DVD. And if it is Dolby Digital encoded you can run into big problems with the limiting that it uses to prevent a stereo downmix from clipping. AC3 encoding is a bit complicated to explain to you in a few sentences, but one rule of thumb is to limit peak levels to -10 dBFS and that should keep you out of AC3 limiting.

Paul
www.neyrinck.com

This is confusing. Do you mean limit to -10 if it's going straight to DVD? Because every Dolby printmaster I've ever been involved with of course has levels going all the way up to full scale. Nobody ever puts limiters on the discrete 5.1 channels at -10 dbFS.

You must be referring to preparing for the DVD authoring/encoding stage.?

Is a Dolby printmaster MO disk not encoded using AC-3? I thought it was, but I guess I never asked before about what comression/encoding scheme was specifically used.