Problems with VLC

[wysiwyg]

Good morning everyone!  I have been working with TC over the past several weeks and have put together a basic system including the ability to watch movies using VLC.  Everything seems to be going good (haven't tried 3D yet), but I have run into a problem when adjusting the volume level.  If the level is *anything* but 100%, the volume sounds like it's turned to 200%, cracking, and distorted.  I should be using alsa (at least that's what's in the onboot.lst file).

Also, and I don't think this has to do with VLC, but the screen saver doesn't get disabled.  Every 10 or 15 minutes the screen blacks out.  Wiggling the mouse or pressing a key on the keyboard will resume the audio/video.  Any help would greatly be appreciated.

Thanks,
Dave

[Misalf]

Not sure about your volume issue, but I had to explicitly set audio module to ALSA to get sound working in the first place ("Automatic" did not output anything).
[Tools] -> [Preferences] -> Audio -> Output -> Output module: -> "ALSA audio output"


About screen blanking, I'd like to know how to make this automatically, too.
xdg-utils provides scripts for that but doesn't seem to work on it's own or it isn't used by VLC.
Maybe a screensaver deamon needs to be installed?

Currently, I just turn it off when watching a movie.

Off:

Code: [Select]

xset s off -dpms

On:

Code: [Select]

xset s 600 600 +dpms


[wysiwyg]

Thanks for the info Misalf.  If I recall correctly I did set that parameter to ALSA, but I will check tonight to be sure.  Something else that I noticed too was that when I use another distro like Linux Mint, the VLC in that OS will allow the volume to be increased to 200% whereas the volume in TC will only allow it to go to 150%.  Not that it matters because any setting other than 100% causes the problem.  Just not sure if something may be misconfigured somewhere.

Thanks for the tips on turning off the screensaver.  I'll work with your code right now, but please keep me posted if you get this figured out!

Thanks,
Dave

[Misalf]

Strangely, changing volume via GUI behaves differently than using mousewheel in full screen where I can always go up to 200%.

[Tools] -> [Preferences] -> Show settings -> "All" (bottom left)
Interface -> Main interfaces -> Qt -> Maximum Volume displayed -> ...

[wysiwyg]

Hmmm that's interesting, I'll take a look at it over the weekend and report back.  Thanks again for your help!

Dave

[wysiwyg]

I did take a look at the sound setting and I was correct that I did try to set the option value to 'ALSA'.  Still a no go...  So I looked in the repo and it looks like mplayer made it in there again.  I installed it and tried to play a movie, but the sound was failing there too with an error about a missing /dev/dsp file.  It looks like the sound card isn't being detected correctly or perhaps a bug in the driver...

Dave

[coreplayer2]

Just to add my experiences to this thread because I have a very similar issue with vlc and the volume being so incredibly high that the result has deafening and distorted, with no satisfactory control.   Had to rush to the receiver to crank down the volume before the whole neighborhood awoke.

For my volume issue I think vlc needs compiling with support for S/PDIF passthrough, no setting in vlc allowed an adjustment of the volume.
While totem player available in repo for both x86 & x86_64 does not exhibit this issue.   


First issue I had.
enabling playback to "ON" on reboot; I found that persistent Alsa settings in a backup did not enable this mixer setting on reboot.  Instead i used the following in home/tc/.xsession

amixer -c 0 cset name='IEC958 Playback Switch' on


For now I use totem player

[wysiwyg]

Hmm that's interesting coreplayer2.  I also noticed that my audio hardware settings for VLC weren't being saved between reboots.  I will try installing totem tonight and see if the volume issue persist.  I would ultimately like to use mplayer, but it would be nice to have some type of video player in the mean time.

Thanks,
Dave

[gerald_clark]

If you want hardware setting saved, you need to do a backup.  The relevant files need to be included in /opt/.filetool.lst.  /home is included by default.
For alsa settings, see the alsa info file.

[coreplayer2]

Indeed, following the info file to set and include settings in backup will restore most settings like specific hardware, volume etc etc. 
however I found that IEC958 Playback Switch remains off no matter what, this required manually enabling each reboot but was resolved with the above command.






Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[wysiwyg]

If you want hardware setting saved, you need to do a backup.  The relevant files need to be included in /opt/.filetool.lst.  /home is included by default.
For alsa settings, see the alsa info file.

Thanks for the info gerald_clark.  Currently I have a permanent home directory that is mounted during the boot process.  Shouldn't VLC store configuration settings there (and in turn not have to backup/restore)?

Thanks,
Dave

[Misalf]

Settings for ALSA are stroed elsewhere, though.

You need to read  alsa.tcz.info . Viewable via Apps tool.

[gerald_clark]

If you are using the home= boot code you MUST remove home from /opt/.filetool.lst.
Then you need to do a backup so that the /home in the backup does not overwrite files in /home.

[wysiwyg]

Settings for ALSA are stroed elsewhere, though.

You need to read  alsa.tcz.info . Viewable via Apps tool.

Sound good, I'll take at it!

Thanks,
Dave

[wysiwyg]

If you are using the home= boot code you MUST remove home from /opt/.filetool.lst.
Then you need to do a backup so that the /home in the backup does not overwrite files in /home.

I am using the persistent home boot code, so I'll perform these steps as well.  Thanks for the tip gerald_clark!

As a side note I was interested in knowing if there was a way to install the packages to a partition instead of using squashfs loopbacks.  Is there an advantage to the current way of using packages over a more traditional installation method?

Dave