[ale] Normalize DVD audio on the fly?

[Ed L. Cashin]

2008/7/17 Joe Bayes <jbayes at spoo.mminternet.com>:
>
> Hi folks,
>
> Does anybody know of a tool that I can use to compress the range of
> DVD audio on the fly? Specifically, I want to make the quiet sounds
> louder, and the loud sounds quieter. As it is, I have to turn up the
> audio so I can understand the conversation, then quickly turn it down
> so I don't deafen the neighbors when an "action" scene starts.

I know ecasound can do dynamic range compression
on the fly (make quieter sound louder and louder sound
quieter).  That is different from normalization, which usually
scales everything equally in a song.  Wikipedia has some
good articles:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_normalization
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_level_compression

(The second one mentions that DVD players often have a
"DRC" setting, which I didn't know.)

I'm not sure how you'd be able to route the sound through
ecasound when playing a DVD, though.

-- 
 Ed Cashin <ecashin at noserose.net>