Question 1

How much louder can I make a video?

Accepted Answer

The boost slider goes to +20 dB, which is a lot: every +6 dB roughly doubles perceived loudness steps noticeably, and +10 dB sounds about twice as loud. Quiet phone recordings usually need +6 to +12 dB. You can also go the other way, down to -20 dB, for clips that blast. If you push a very quiet recording too far, its background noise gets louder along with the voices; that hiss was always there, just quieter.

Question 2

What does normalize do differently?

Accepted Answer

Instead of a fixed boost, the normalize mode analyzes the audio and adjusts it to broadcast loudness (the EBU R128 style target used by TV and streaming): quiet parts and loud parts end up balanced at a standard overall level. It is the one-click answer for speech, lectures, interviews and podcasts, where a single slider guess tends to leave whispers quiet and laughs deafening.

Question 3

Will boosting distort the sound?

Accepted Answer

It can if you overdo it: boosting a recording whose peaks are already near maximum pushes them into clipping, which sounds harsh and crunchy. The safe order is: try normalize first, since it manages peaks deliberately; if you use the manual boost, climb in steps and preview. A recording made far from the microphone also gains room noise, so for important material, re-recording closer beats any boost.

Question 4

Does the video picture get re-encoded?

Accepted Answer

No. The picture stream is copied bit-for-bit; only the audio is processed and re-encoded as AAC. That means zero picture quality loss and a fast job even on long clips. The output keeps your original container format where practical, so the file drops back into the same workflow it came from.

Question 5

The video has no audio track. Can this add one?

Accepted Answer

There is nothing to boost in a silent file, and this tool will report that instead of pretending. To give a silent video sound, use the Add Audio to Video tool here with a music or narration file; if you have a separate recording of the same event, that is exactly what it is for.

Increase Video Volume

Use Increase Video Volume

How to use the Increase Video Volume

Add the quiet video

Normalize or boost

Preview the loudness

Download the fixed video

About the Increase Video Volume