Normalisation isn't the key

[Lanefair]

I've ripped a few divx's, and seen some other peoples, and the biggest problem where sound is concerned isnt that it's too quiet, but that the difference in volume of general conversation in the film compared to that of explosions and action scenes is to much.

Normalisation boosts the entire sound file in volume but only up until the loudest part of the file reaches maximum possible volume. So the difference in volume between the quietest and loudest parts of the film is still massive.

I take it this is due to mixing down 5.1 surround sound to a stereo mix, so I tried compressing a movie track which kind of worked. Is there a way of avoiding the massive dynamic range? Or does anyone know some good compression settings for movies?

[setarip]

I believe that if you use XMPG v.4.5 to convert your ripped DVD to a DivX-compressed .AVI, you'll find that you have an adjustment for dynamic range available from within the audio settings...

[Enchanter]

Extracting your audio with either Graphedit or Vob2audio should result in a good-quality .wav file that does not require dynamic compression. The only thing you may need to do is to amplify the volume, which also does not require much.