These are addressed to all you audio maestros:

a) If I have my speakers, Logitech Z680's (they're THX. Dolby, blah, blah, blah), set dead center of what they're capable of on the volume scale, what is the optimal dB I should be leveling all the clips in my doc at?

b) What's the most univeral audio output that the maximum number of DVD players will read with no hiccups? AC3? The last Vegas upgrade didn't ship with it, so I'm debating as to whether or not to pluk down the nearly $300 more for that capability. (Or is it the video side of things that causes problems with this?)

And last but not least...

c) Does what I should optimaly render out to, in terms of laying off audio, differ if the format is DVD or VHS? Sundance recommends one of each be sent in, just in case they have trouble with your encoding.

That's it... at least for now. I'm sure more will occur to me long about 3 am. ;-)

Marcia

First, ignore your Logitechs completely. They are not part of the equation. Logitech or Hothouse monitors, levels are determined at the NLE, not the speaker. If you turn up or down the logitechs, it won't affect your mix.

Second, use your meters. Use Wavehammer if you're using Vegas. If not, get your hands on iZotope's Ozone, or WAVES Ultramaximizer. Both have timed demos.

Next, there is no level you set your clips to. You can normalize the entire mix if necessary, but bigger question is how they are all flowing together now. Do you have loud clips that are jarring against soft clips? No? Then don't screw with the volume of clips overall, you want your master to be peaking at -2dBFS.
Levels won't matter if you lay off to DVD or VHS. But!!!! If your VHS deck has a meter, digital zero is VERY different than analog zero. -20dB different.
I've written an article on this that you can find on the VASST site, "The Deadly Digital to Analog Tone" which will explain these differences.

I looked for Wavehammer and found this link. An article by Douglas - very informative!

Check it out here (http://www.digitalprosound.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=16199-1)

In there is a link to the "Deadly..." article.


Aaron