Phenquestions
If you are a movie buff and do not mind watching them on 15" screen with headphones on, welcome to the world of Home Theatre. Although good, this experience can be bugged by a few shortfalls. For instance, when the dialogues in the movies are quiet and low in volume, the action scenes could be seemingly LOUD or inaudible. The Compressor Tool in VLC Media Player offers a solution to this problem.
Compressor Tool in VLC Media Player
Launch VLC Media player and select the 'Tools' tab.
Next, choose 'Effects and Filters' from the list of options displayed. You can also use the shortcut Ctrl + E to directly open the 'Adjustment and Effects' screen as shown in the screenshot below.
After that, switch to the 'Compressor' tab seen under 'Audio Effects'.
Here, check the empty box marked against 'Enable' option.
Now, simply drag the individual sliders to adjust the sound settings.
Restore Dialogue & Action Scene sound levels
There are three important settings related to the compressor tool that we are interested in. These include,
- Makeup gain - Mostly used during quiet sequences to raise the volume to the desired level.
- Threshold - Maintains an equilibrium by reducing louder sequences.
- Ratio - sets the maximum level of all audio within a movie.
Other sliders like 'Attack time' and 'Release time' help in determining the speed of the compression. As such, they can also be helpful in a more fluid transition of a scene.
Final words - Much progress has been made in large-scale digital integrated circuits and PCs in quelling the problem of noise distribution. In certain cases, the solution may be found as an interactive manual included with the program or links that direct users to the developer's support website.
In any case, these combined measures are always designed with the same objective in mind - to help users learn the features of the program themselves and fix it.
Read next: How to customize VLC Media Player Interface.
