Is the volume of DVDs played in DVD drives low always?

[slicksilver]

For some weird reason, No matter how much I increase the volume the sound is not even half of what my mp3s play at........Wave is full and Volume is at half and I can hardly hear anyhting. I have to put the volume to max to actually actively hear something. Is there any special volume control for DVDs in WMP9? or am I missing something....

OS:WinXPSP1 w/all hotfixes
Sound Card : Acoustic Edge
DVD Drive : Liteon LTD-163D

Thanks

Raj

 

[SearchMaster]

I don't play DVDs in my computer, but in my home stereo you'll see the same phenomenon. I'm pretty sure it has to do with the dynamic range in the Dolby processing. Normal levels are much lower, but the loud portions are louder.

 

[TheCorm]

I have found that it does generally seem to be quieter (I have same DVD-ROM drive too)...but have seen it with other drives too.

 

[egale]

For whatever reason, that seems to be the norm. Some DVD players are better at boosting the sound themselves though. WinDVD seems to be very soft and PowerDVD much louder.

 

[vegetation]

You can try playing it back in mono instead of stereo. I imagine relatively crappy speakers are being used if you can't boost the sound enough, so it shouldn't make any difference to your ears.

 

[beatle]

The newest PowerDVD has an option for "night" mode or "boosted" mode. This compresses the dynamic range and boosts or lowers the overall volume.

 

[Markfw]

Did you plug the audio cable in to your sound card ?

 

[Auric]

What decoder/player are you using? As said, it is due to the higher dynamic range of the source and the solution is to reduce the range in the software or on the receiver. PowerDVD 5 has environment settings for Quiet, Normal and Noisy where Noisy is the most compressed range and so should effectively boost the level, particularly of the center channel voice track relative to the others. I do not use 'em 'cause I use digital out but my receiver also has a "midnight" mode with a reduced range also.