how does vlc's peak protection work?

[diamenz]

hello. i have a lot of older tracks from say the seventies and eighties that are very low in volume. i'm curious as to how vlc's peak protection works - does it compress in real time, or is it a hard limiting kind of mechanism?

i notice when i don't have it on, tracks obviously clip and it's not pleasant on the ears. however, when i have it on, everything sounds pretty damn good. anyway, my question is - what does vlc do with the data that would have been clipped if it were off? is it discarded? for example, if a snare clipped with it off, what happens to it when peak protection is on?