2015-09-03, 17:19
I posted this over at the xbmc and Kodi subreddits but apparently the feature doesn't exist yet so I'm making the request here instead. Apologies if normalization has been requested previously.
I'm running Kodi via OSMC on a Raspberry Pi 2. I watch multiple television shows and the volume varies wildly between the newer and older material. One series in particular has been encoded so that the volume levels are much lower than all the others.
The problem is, when I use the Volume Amplification as an alternative it brickwalls the newer stuff. As a result I have some series where the natural peaks and valleys in amplitude are much more varied than others, and it's impossible to apply a library-wide compressor across all of these without making some of them sound terrible. As a result I have to adjust volume and compression on an episode-by-episode basis.
What I would like is an add-on or feature that analyses the audio of the video playing and determines only the peak volume (or perceived volume) of the entire file, then amplifies it to the highest point it can be without clipping. That would cause it to determine which videos are quieter than others in the library and compensate automatically upon playback instead of using the compressor.
Technically speaking it might be possible to have a scraper that gets the volume information by analysing the file and saving it as some sort of tag associated with the file (much like replaygain does for audio) that Kodi could read alongside the library metadata. You could have the option to turn it on in the audio settings and have it retroactively scan the library file-by-file. That way there would be a lot less use of the volume button. You could make the tag aware of the volume amplification setting or vice-versa to prevent clipping.
I'm aware this might be a big ask, but I figured I should post it anyway.
I'm running Kodi via OSMC on a Raspberry Pi 2. I watch multiple television shows and the volume varies wildly between the newer and older material. One series in particular has been encoded so that the volume levels are much lower than all the others.
The problem is, when I use the Volume Amplification as an alternative it brickwalls the newer stuff. As a result I have some series where the natural peaks and valleys in amplitude are much more varied than others, and it's impossible to apply a library-wide compressor across all of these without making some of them sound terrible. As a result I have to adjust volume and compression on an episode-by-episode basis.
What I would like is an add-on or feature that analyses the audio of the video playing and determines only the peak volume (or perceived volume) of the entire file, then amplifies it to the highest point it can be without clipping. That would cause it to determine which videos are quieter than others in the library and compensate automatically upon playback instead of using the compressor.
Technically speaking it might be possible to have a scraper that gets the volume information by analysing the file and saving it as some sort of tag associated with the file (much like replaygain does for audio) that Kodi could read alongside the library metadata. You could have the option to turn it on in the audio settings and have it retroactively scan the library file-by-file. That way there would be a lot less use of the volume button. You could make the tag aware of the volume amplification setting or vice-versa to prevent clipping.
I'm aware this might be a big ask, but I figured I should post it anyway.
