Ripping audio from concert DVD's

[scorpio333]

I'm bulking up my digital files before fall gets here. I've got a pile of concert DVDs I'd like to rip to audio files. I'm able to do that using DVD Audio Extractor or MPEGStreamclip on Mac. Save the files as ALAC (or AIFF) and dump them right into iTunes. Seems when I rip 48k AC3 2 channel discs, the volume is maybe 50% lower than I expected. Using LPCM when available creates great sounding clips.

I googled around a bit, but I'm not getting any good solutions. Anyone messed around with this kind of thing? Was DVD audio really always this shitty?  I feel like whippin someone with an S video cable!

I have my doubts about ripping the disc to hard drive first, then demuxing the file from there is an improvement. That will definitely slow things down.

[scorpio333]

Seems I made an assumption...I thought AUDIO would be the focus of a music oriented DVD. Nope. Dolby + AC3 = PITA. You can either have full volume with compressed dynamic range OR low volume with full dynamic range. As long as you can see the lead guitar player better, who cares what it sounds like.

Maybe I need to rig up a DVD player to a receiver and use tape outs to the ADC on the computer. If the audio would be better I can tolerate recording in real time. I think using a DVD player's menu, the output would be better than off a DVD burner.

[Sir Thrift-a-Lot]

Once you extract the stereo audio, any number of wave editors will correct the volume.   Audacity is free.   If you want to do it more simply, DVDAE has a "Normalization" tool IIRC.

[Sir Thrift-a-Lot]

Dolby AC3 (aka Dolby Digital) is a lossy codec.   They have to drop the volume to save the dynamic range.   That's why they invented DVD-A for audio back in the day.   If a stardard DVD could have full range audio there never would have been a need.   It's also one more reason BluRay is so superior.

[scorpio333]

Once you extract the stereo audio, any number of wave editors will correct the volume.   Audacity is free.   If you want to do it more simply, DVDAE has a "Normalization" tool IIRC.

Just tried those...just slightly better. Just did one song off Stop Making Sense by the Talking Heads. When I open the track in Audacity (AIFF), there's just not any "room" to add gain or Amplify. Just crashes the peaks.

I can turn up the volume knob and that has good results. However, when I shuffle these songs with others the volume flunctuations drive me nuts. Setting the AC3 discs aside for later.

[Sir Thrift-a-Lot]

That means that you are playing it alongside overly compressed files.   If you need to make them match, you can either compress the DVD files or turn down the other ones.