Default Set Volume in embedded YouTube Videos

[Gary Mugford]

Hi all,

I'm hoping such a thing exists. I would like the default value of the
sound volume setting on embedded YouTube videos to be set to 50
percent. It seems to be 100 percent all the time and some sites seem to
record their videos at ear-splitting volumes. There also seems to be
two types of embedding, one that has a vertical volume control and the
more popular horizontal version. As a result, before allowing play, I
have to slide the volume control back towards normal before pushing
play. It's not a huge deal, but it's a burr on the backside.

I have tried to contact the worst offenders since I understand there
IS a setting in the embedding link that allows you to set volume as a
percentage. Thus far, no response. So, I've given up on that avenue.

Is there any over-riding system setting? And if not, how would I go
about submitting this as a feature request for FF5 or FF6 or whatever?

Thanks in advance, GM

[Chris Ilias]

I'm not sure. Volume is set by the webpage. All Youtube videos start
with max volume (I think); so if there are big differences in volume
between videos, it's because the videos are mixed that way. It's a
common issue among amateur work.

Depending on your sound card, maybe you can use an audio compressor? But
that's for another forum.

--
Chris Ilias <http://ilias.ca>
Mailing list/Newsgroup moderator

[cwdjrxyz]

You likely are correct. There might be a remote chance that some
complicated scripting could be used, but if so, I do not recall seeing
anything about it. The YouTube videos are mostly in recent flv/swf
format. I went to YouTube and copied the embed code for the first
video I saw. You can find the url for the video in the embed code you
copy. In my case it was: http://www.youtube.com/v/Yqf7jbFZ4ow?version=3"
. I then went to this video and downloaded it using the video download
feature in the most recent version of Real Player. Many free
downloaders will download as a .flv, but this one now downloads as a
mp4. I used the mp4 as an input file for an flv/swf encoder, which
allows selection of many player features and also sets the volume
level, if desired, which I did for lower volume. I used codec H 264.
You get both a flv video file and a swf container file as output,
which need to be kept in the same directory. Then you just double
click the swf file and it finds the flv file and plays the video. If
you want the video on a web page, you must upload the html code, the
swf, and flv all to he same directory on the server. I am not making
the video available on a web page, since the swf container file I use
does not include the YouTube, logos, text, links, etc and YouTube
might not be happy with this.

If I were recording several YouTube videos onto one long video, I
likely would download all needed videos and input all of these files
into the Sony Vegas Pro 9 video editor. The editor then scans the
audio of all of the videos and resets the volume as necessary to allow
the maximum level short of digital distortion, which can sound very
nasty. One does this to make full use of the digital audio band width
allowed. Then I might edit the composite video a bit to cut out
undesired parts and then drag all video files along the time line to
join them. I likely would add a start title and individual titles for
each video. I would then render the composite video as mp4 video and
then use that to encode a flv/swf. This is not so difficult once you
have learned to do it, but the cost of video editor programs can be
high.

[Gary Mugford]

Chris Ilias wrote:

>I'm not sure. Volume is set by the webpage. All Youtube videos start
>with max volume (I think); so if there are big differences in volume
>between videos, it's because the videos are mixed that way. It's a
>common issue among amateur work.
>
>Depending on your sound card, maybe you can use an audio compressor?
>But that's for another forum.

Chris,

I'm talking about embedded YouTube videos, not AT the YouTube site. I
can set the volume there for as long as I'm there. But I'll go to
GeekBeat.TV and have Callie Lewis yelling in my ear until I turn her
down. Then I'll visit Mark Evanier's site and have to repeat the
process for whatever video he's linked to, too. In fact, if there are
several videos to watch there, and frequently there are, I get to turn
down the volume on each.

GeekBeat.TV is certainly not amateurish. And few of the videos at the
sites I frequent really are. I'm not much interested in re-directed
failed entrants to America's Funniest Videos. I can't seem to get any
traction with the SITES in getting them to use the their volume setting
capability. I was hoping Firefox might have a setting on that their
might be a GreaseMonkey script that might accomplish my goal.

To date, no luck. Thanks for taking the time to answer. I'm thinking
that your answer puts the kibosh of the first of the two possibilities.
Maybe a GreaseMonkey maven lurking might offer an opinion from that
quarter?

Regards, GM

[Gary Mugford]

cwdjrxyz wrote:

Hi,

I didn't explain myself very well. I am not interested in the
CREATION of embedded videos. I want to control the volume when I
ENCOUNTER embedded videos when visit the plethora of sites I look at
each day. At each site, the playing of an embedded video requires I
check the volume first (and even that doesn't always work). If I fail,
suddenly I will have music or voices blaring at 100 percent of my
volume and that tends to wake up the people in the neighbouring towns.
I actually think it's awfully inconsiderate of a lot of web-pages to
default to 100 per cent volume. But it sure seems that way. And none of
come back to me after I've pointed it out ... or changed their
practices.

Again, I appreciate the long reply in light of my unclear question.

Regards, GM

[cwdjrxyz]

Check out the settings on your sound card. My Creative SB X-Fi allows
you to use SVM, or smart volume management. If you select it, you
greatly reduce variations in volume. I do not use it much because it
compresses the dynamic range of music, but it would not bother many
for the rather low fi sound quality of many videos or for hard rock
music which is already heavily compressed. On some other sound card
you may or may not have such an option, or they may call it something
else rather than SVM.