Boosting AC3 volume (or converting AC3 to WAV)

[Todd Pytel <tppytel@sophrosune.org>]

I've got some video clips (AVI's with XVid + AC3) that have very low
volume levels. I would like to boost the volume, preferably doing as
little transcoding as possible. I've used "normalize" in the past to
serve this purpose (after demux'ing the AVI), but it only works for
WAV's and MP3's. Is it possible to convert an AC3 to a WAV file so that
I can use normalize, or is there some other program that will accomplish
the same thing? My web searching has so far only turned up Windows
solutions.

I prefer to follow the lists via web gateways, so a CC would be
appreciated.

Thanks,
Todd