I'm currently cutting a short video for the web - probably to be posted on Vimeo.  Anyone know the best way to mix audio for the web within Avid, with regard to levels?  I figure I'll aim for as hot as possible without peaking, but is there a better way to limit the dynamic range with a mixdown and some AudioSuite plugins?  I also have Sorenson Squeeze 5 if that's useful for this at all...

Hi.

When I ready videos for my YouTube channel I export my final mixed-down cut (Separate Audio and Video files) and then feed the audio into Audacity (Free Audio Editor).

I then tend to "Normalise" the audio to around -0.3dB. The reason I don't normalise to 0dB or 100% is that some re-encoding takes place on Vimeo/YouTube and sometimes that process can elevate the audio ever so slightly. Using 0dB would then result in clipping if that happened, so I keep it safe by using -0.3dB.

If the dynamic range is too much, ie... quite-to-loud transitions are extreme, I use Audacity and its "Leveller" filter which reduces the dynamic range and thus brings the overall perceived loudness back into line. (Sometimes I need to re-normalise the audio back to -0.3dB as a result of the "levelling" process).

Once I'm happy with my audio, I MUX it together with my Video file and then compress appropriately for whatever website format. I almost always go with H264 video compression and AAC audio.

Bare in mind this is just my workflow, and a workflow I only use for Vimeo/YouTube. Obviously audio requirements may vary for different output destinations (broadcast/DVD etc...)