Volume Leveling - 3 sources

[bialio]

So I have 3 sources for TV -

1) HDHR doing QAM.
2) PVR-500 doing basic cable
3) PVR-500 doing SVIDEO / RCA in for a Dish STB

The channels from cable (both HD and SD) are pretty close in volume. But the audio feed from the STB is WAY louder than the others. Annoyingly so. \

Any pointers on how to control this?
----

In the past, to get my HDHR channels at the right level relative to the basic cable, I modified the AC3Filter settings some - boosted the over all gain. But that doesn't seem like it would apply to the STB.

btl.

[ke6guj]

Maybe you can decrease the volume of the STB's outputs. Some STBs have internal volume adjustments that can be controlled separately from the tv, while others just output line levels and rely on the tv for all volume adjustments.

Otherwise, maybe in the registry, you could decrease teh volume settings for that specific tuner?

[Paul H]

I had the same problem with my comcast cable box, the digital channels were sometimes so low they could hardly be heard. I put one Terk VR-1 on the cable box audio out and it fixed it.
Terk VR-1:
http://www.crutchfield.com/S-NqoJ0Xo....aspx?I=209VR1
One querk of the VR-1: if you power it up without an active input you get nothing out, Power it up last and leave it on for best results.

[Doubletop]

I had the same problem STB input was different to that from my DVB-S card, also when I had a power failure the STB would reset to full volume, producing very loud recordings.

I've installed Breakaway from Claesson Edwards Audio http://www.claessonedwards.com/index.htm it maintains the audio output from the PC the same level regardless of the level of the input.

"Breakaway for Windows Systems improves the quality of the listening experience by digitally remastering audio in real-time with the same technology used by the pros in the music and broadcast business. Any media player playlist can sound like a professionally produced CD with automatic adjustment of volume dynamics and spectral balancing."

It does disable the SageTV volume and mute controls so either use your TV remote or the Breakaway controls.

Volume: Used to adjust the audio playback volume
Perfect Blend: Used to select the desired pre-configured presets
Range: ACG range adjustment
Power: Spectral balance adjustment
Speed: Used to adjust AGC release
Bass: Used to adjust the level of bass boost
Bass Shape: Used to control the frequency range of the bass level adjustment
Bypass: Used to bypass Breakaway audio processing
Meters: Used to select between the three display modes. Meters, Scope, and Simple

I believe its worth a tryout and would be a good enhancement if it could be embedded in SageTV

[JREkiwi]

I just use the registry changes listed here.

my registry import file looks like this

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\hcwPP2\DriverData]
"8775Gain2"=dword:000000c4
"8775Gain3"=dword:000000c4
"8775Gain4"=dword:000000e0
"8775Reg17"=dword:0000008e

for -6dB on everything, plus an additional -6dB on the tuner and disable AGC.

John

[toricred]

I'm having a similar problem. The difference is that my HDHR (OTA) is significantly lower than all my SD sources. I suppose I could lower the gain on the SD sources, but I would really need to push my receivers to get audible sound sometimes. Is there a way to bump the gain for the HDHR?

[Doubletop]

John's approach appears to add a fixed attenuation to each of the input streams to balance the input levels of each of the sources. It wouldn't fix the problem say when the STB resets to full output or an imported file with a low recorded volume level problem that Toricred has.

Breakaway dynamically adjusts the SageTV output to your TV in real time for all signal sources regardless of the input/recorded level. So if you have a recording or source with a low output level it will consistently output at the same level as for any other source. I believe it will also normalize loud adverts back to the set level.

It also provides profiling so you can adjust the tone of the output depending on the source, say movies, music etc

I've no connection with the developers but try it; it's a 28day free trial so you've nothing to loose

[stroths]

You might play around with ac3filter some more. It's free and it should do normalization for you. I used it for a while because my sources (ripped DVDs, h.264, hdhr, etc) had different volumes. There was a setting to normalize audio, but I can't remember it off the top of my head.

The breakaway option looks pretty nice, but I would rather use ac3filter IF it will do the same thing for free.

[toricred]

The reason I want to do it on the capture is because the playback is from an HD-100. No way to use AC3Filter or BreakAway as far as I can tell.

[CollinR]

Agreed on the should be fixed on capture side so it's fixed everywhere.

I use an old preamp that had external gain controls that effect the looping outputs. Works like a champ but these old beasts are getting harder and harder to find.

[sic0048]

I have a HDHR (running 1 tuner in QAM and 1 tuner in ATSC mode) and a HD-PVR. The recordings from the HDHR have VERY low volume compared to everything else. This includes recordings from the HD-PVR, but also regular TV and DVDs being played through the same TV and Onkyo receiver. So everthing points to the HDHR actually recording things too low. QAM and ATSC recordings are the same volume - just too low.

I'd love to see a fix here too.

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by sic0048

So everthing points to the HDHR actually recording things too low. QAM and ATSC recordings are the same volume - just too low.

The thing with the HDHR is that it just captures the incoming digital stream. It does not need to encode the data, it is already there in digital format, which includes the audio that is in 5.1. 5.1 audio is just lower than MP3 audio. You often see the same behavior with DVD's, which are normally 5.1 audio.

The HD-PVR has to encode the video/audio into a new digital file and I don't know if they gain the audio during encoding.