Softpedia >News >Microsoft >Tips & Tricks
Softpedia Homepage   

How to Boost Video Volume on Windows and Mac OS X

Here's a very simple trick on how to do this with VLC

Jun 9, 2014 11:43 GMT  ·  By
It's all possible with the VLC app available on all desktop platforms
   It's all possible with the VLC app available on all desktop platforms

If you're a movie aficionado and you watch videos on your computer, laptop or tablet on a regular basis, you sure know that there are some moments when the volume is so low that you can barely hear a thing with all settings configured at the maximum allowed level.

Fortunately, those experiencing this annoying behavior on their computers can fix it in no time using the almighty VLC app that's available on quite a lot of platforms, including Windows and Mac OS X.

Basically, VLC is one of the most powerful multimedia players on the market, bringing not only powerful playback capabilities, but also quite a lot of configuration settings that allow you to customize a number of settings for each locally-stored video file. Including the minimum volume level, that is.

As a result, VLC is the tool you need when trying to boost the volume level of a video file on both Windows and Mac OS X and the trick you're going to read below shouldn't take more than just a few seconds.

So here's what you need to do in order to tweak the default volume level of any video file:

First of all, open the file with VLC, regardless of whether you are using Windows or Mac OS X. Once it starts playing, hit the “Pause” button and follow the next steps to reach the needed settings:

code
Tools > Effects and Filters > Compressor (in the Audio Effects tab) > Enable
Once you hit the “Enable” option, you should be able to change the default makeup gain setting, which is exactly the option that lets you adjust the volume level of a specific video file. Just choose the level that you need and you're good to go.

On Mac OS X, the steps that you need to follow are a little bit different:

code
Window > Audio Effects > Compressor > Enable dynamic range compressor > Makeup Gain
Keep in mind, however, that the tweaks you are making are only available when playing the file with VLC, so they do not save over the default settings of the movie. This means that whenever you want to play the same item, you're going to reapply this configuration in order to adjust the volume level.

As you can see, it all comes down to just a few simple steps, so go ahead and give it a try right now if you'd like to fix one of the biggest annoyances with video files.