Audio Levels for Web Release

[Enos]

Hi!
I am currently mixing a film that is due for online release next month. I don't think there is any kind of "standard" audio levels for the web, but I would appreciate any input from any of you who have delivered mixes for live streaming online. This is a theatrical feature film release so when mixing I am mixing for normal theatre levels in a room calibrated at 85dB with dialog RMS around -20dbFS and peaks at around -10dBFS.

Would you be mixing at a different calibration, say 79dB? Or would you be applying some kind of compression or limiting to raise the gains and what levels would you be aiming for?


Any help appreciated!

[Whitecat]

I usually go a bit hotter than TV - peaking around -6ish or so, but otherwise mix with the same calibration as I would for broadcast. I find that sometimes I need to squish things a bit with a limiter, too - just a touch - after I test playback on small computer speakers (built-in Macbook Pro, anyway). I wouldn't normally do this for any other delivery medium but as we're appealing to the lowest-common-playback-denominator on the web sometimes it feels right. As you say though, there are no rules - just make it sound good - but I just personally hate when stuff is ridiculously loud on the internet, so that's why I still back off a bit and leave some headroom.

I've done post on a few music videos too (picture post), for that the clients always want full-scale (so, just leave the music track as-is basically - peaking at +18dbU/0dbFS).

[pbell]

I've done a bit of web stuff both animated and live action. I wasn't in a calibrated room but the animated stuff was pretty compressed while the live action stuff I barely compressed at all. Both sounded fine, though in retrospect I probably wouldn't compress the animated stuff as much and would have compressed the live action a bit more. I didn't worry about level specs since A) I wasn't given any, and B) I wasn't competing against any other material.

[soundboy]

What ever the "level" I would think more in terms of dynamic range. With computer speakers and the like, I would keep it pretty narrow.

[Jfriah]

And make sure to audition the stuff on laptop speakers, computer speakers, etc. (obvious, but never hurts to mention)

Jeff