I thought this may be of interest.
I now have both DVE(HD DVD/DVD combo) and AVIA. So I was able to load them both into Sound Forge and check the dBFS levels. I did some more reading on Sound Forge and found a more precise way to check the dBFS levels using the Normalization feature where I can select a section to process and Sound Forge will tell me the 'Average RMS Level' in dBFS.
I used an Audio Extractor program to digitally transfer the DD 5.1 channel audio to 6 separate wave files at 24bit/48kHz and discarded the unneeded channels(this ensures no mixing has taken place).
The only thing I don't know is if the Dolby Dialog Normalization has any effect on this process, if it does then these figures may be after the offset is applied(but I can't confirm that)
FYI, my 3805 shows:
AVIA Dialog Norm OFFSET -4dB
DVE Dialog Norm OFFSET 0dB
I then loaded them into Sound Forge and used the Normalization function to read the RMS dBFS level of the selection(as seen in the timestamps)
AVIA
Left channel.....-23.6 dBFS (1-2sec)
1 second long
.......................-23.2 dBFS (1-59sec) 58 seconds long
Left ch HF........-23.6 dBFS (1-2sec)
1 second long
............LF........-25.5 dBFS (4-5sec)
1 second long DVE
Left channel.....-36.4 dBFS (1-2sec)
1 second long
.......................-36.0 dBFS (1-9sec) 8 seconds long
LFE channel.....-32.8 dBFS (1-2sec)
1 second long
.......................-30.3 dBFS (8-9sec)
1 second long
.......................-30.9 dBFS (1-9sec) 8 seconds long
Just for reference,
Avia says the Main Channel tests should read 85db(C) on a SPL meter(the redirected sub tests are meant to read at equal levels and can be checked with level anywhere above 70dB),
DVE menu states that the 5.1 Multichannel levels are -30dBFS
cheers
Mods, please let me know if you would like anything changed in this post