sound levels? "_adrian" <adrian [ at ] test.com> 12/13/2008 4:49:58 PM Hey all.. so I'm at a venue webcasting a show, and the sound board says he's sending as much signal as he can but the levels seem quiet even though the PC's sound and encoder levels are almost all of the way up as well.. Anyone have thoughts on what I can tweak to get better range response? Thx

Re: sound levels? "Neil Smith [MVP Digital Media]" <neil[ at ]nospam.com> 12/14/2008 9:33:43 PM On Sat, 13 Dec 2008 09:49:58 -0700, "_adrian" <adrian [ at ] test.com> wrote: [Quoted Text] >Hey all.. so I'm at a venue webcasting a show, and the sound board says he's >sending as much signal as he can but the levels seem quiet even though the >PC's sound and encoder levels are almost all of the way up as well.. > >Anyone have thoughts on what I can tweak to get better range response? Thx Have you negoatiated with the sound engineer, the line level ? If you're using bog standar sound card input then you're probably mismatched and need to ensure he's sending Phono (1V peak to peak) levels - perhaps he's hacked together some sort of XLR conversion which is done badly ? What happens if you plug in a portable CD player with Phono -> Line jacks - I'm sure the levels would be fine. The encoder is way the wrong place to try to fix this (garbage in, garbage out) and to get the best results you need to ensure you're broadly reaching - but not exceeding - the red zone of the encoder audio monitor area about 25-30% of the time. Cheers - Neil ------------------------------------------------ Digital Media MVP : 2004-2008 http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/mvpfaqs

Re: sound levels? "_adrian" <test[ at ]test.com> 12/15/2008 6:01:41 PM Hi Neil.. the sound guy insisted that he was sending me as much level as he could.... it was on XLR as do most venues I work with. I'm not sure about the 1v peak to peak levels, but that may be good info to have on hand in the future. I'm not familiar with what you called the "encoder audio monitor area" ... at least not by that name. Can you tell me where I'd find it in the app? Do you just mean the bar levels on the left during encoding?

Re: sound levels? "Chris P." <msdn[ at ]chrisnet.net> 12/15/2008 8:44:13 PM On Mon, 15 Dec 2008 10:01:41 -0800, _adrian wrote: [Quoted Text] > Hi Neil.. the sound guy insisted that he was sending me as much level as he > could.... it was on XLR as do most venues I work with. I'm not sure about > the 1v peak to peak levels, but that may be good info to have on hand in the > future. > > I'm not familiar with what you called the "encoder audio monitor area" ... > at least not by that name. Can you tell me where I'd find it in the app? Do > you just mean the bar levels on the left during encoding? If you have a pro sound card that has line-level 1/4 inch or XLR then the required voltage is just under 5V p-p (+2.5V/-2.5V) which equates to around +4dBu balanced. The levels that Neil refers to are the consumer unbalanced levels, commonly connected on phono-jack connectors or 1/8th "phono" plugs where the nominal voltage is 1V p-p (+0.5V/-0.5V). If you inadvertently try to wire a balanced XLR to an unbalanced stereo input then the signal will cancel against itself which would be interpreted as low levels. Make sure the signal is balanced the entire way through if possible. -- http://www.chrisnet.net/code.htm [MS MVP for DirectShow / MediaFoundation]

Re: sound levels? "_adrian" <test[ at ]test.com> 12/19/2008 6:47:29 PM AH.. thanks for the clarification, but I have a pcDI that I use for the balanced/unbalanced conversion.. works REALLY well..