[chasg]

Hi All,

Very strange thing: I've got some avi files I'm trying to play using VLC (they won't work with QT Player), and if I double-click on them, the audio in my dual 2.0GHz G5 destktop turns off. To be more accurate, the audio output setting switches from "Line Out-Built-in Audio" to "Digital Out-Optical digital-out port" (I don't use the optical ports).

The only way to get my audio back, that I have discovered (afer a lot of experimentation) is to log out and back in again (restarting works too, but I don't have to go that far).

Anybody else have this problem? And more to the point, anyone have a fix that doesn't involve me logging out?

TIA for any help,

Chas

ps. this doesn't happen with every avi, by the way, just a select few (I haven't figured out what they have in common yet)

[MaxPower]

Check your audio control panel. There as some hint on one of the mac sites (too lazy to google it myself) that says that some non-Apple apps set the audio out to something weird like optical. I found that cured my missing audio problem.

[chasg]

Hi,

I've taken a good look around the audio control panel (that's how I know the Mac is switching to Optical output). Switching around doesn't help.

Thanks anyway,

Chas

[Turnpike]

I've had this happen before, quite a while ago, and then (coincidentally) again last night.

Logging out was the only thing that worked for me, but since I wasn't doing anything else at the time it didn't really matter and was a quick thing to try.

Best solution I've found: MPlayer. It isn't as nice as VLC (IMO), but it seems to be more compatible. The .avi that killed my sound every time I tried it in VLC worked flawlessly in MPlayer.

[milhous]

in VLC's Preferences, make sure that the "use S/PDIF audio output when available" isn't checked under the audio section. might've been checked automatically since it ran on a G5.

[awaspaas]

Similar to this, I notice that VLC changes my audio output to 8-bit every time it plays a video. (I can watch it switch before my eyes in the Audio/MIDI Setup utility) I have a Roland UA-30 usb audio interface. Any ideas why this is? This switched me to mplayer too, even though I liked VLC better.

[alphasubzero949]

Try downloading the free DiVX plugin from www.divx.com.

[gururafiki]

Originally posted by Turnpike:
I've had this happen before, quite a while ago, and then (coincidentally) again last night.

Logging out was the only thing that worked for me, but since I wasn't doing anything else at the time it didn't really matter and was a quick thing to try.

Best solution I've found: MPlayer. It isn't as nice as VLC (IMO), but it seems to be more compatible. The .avi that killed my sound every time I tried it in VLC worked flawlessly in MPlayer.

I too had this problem before with VLC, and mplayer was the only way to get rid of the problem.

[Uncle Skeleton]

Originally posted by chasg:
I've got some avi files I'm trying to play using VLC (they won't work with QT Player)

They will, if you install the divx codec: http://www.divx.com/divx/download/
and possibly the xvid and ac3 delegate components: http://www.insaneness.com/


I've had this problem with VLC and my G5, and I can often get sound to return if I throw enough good movies at VLC (no, I don't know what makes one movie "good" and another "bad," but most are good). About the only thing that doesn't regain audio is the volume up/down keys.

[OwlBoy]

To fix this we need to find a Core Audio programmer for VLC.

Know of any?

-Owl

[chasg]

Good suggestions re: mplayer. The latest version (v2.0b9 from SourceForge) allows resizing of the video window (which is the main reason I didn't use it in favour of vlc).

milhous: that pref was unchecked, so that isn't the problem (bummer)

alphasubzero949: thanks for that pointer, I've already got it :-)

Uncle Skeleton: thanks for those links (got 'em). I'll try the "good movie after bad" technique, but I think I'm going to be abandoning vlc in favour of mplayer now that it has fixed my main complaint (resizing the movie window).

Owl: good luck to us on that one! :-)

Thanks everyone for the suggestions,

Chas

[awaspaas]

Originally posted by awaspaas:
Similar to this, I notice that VLC changes my audio output to 8-bit every time it plays a video. (I can watch it switch before my eyes in the Audio/MIDI Setup utility) I have a Roland UA-30 usb audio interface. Any ideas why this is? This switched me to mplayer too, even though I liked VLC better.

Anybody know about the 8-bit problem, or does this warrant a thread of its own? Is there a Mac-specific VLC forum?

[bmedina]

I've had this problem, too, and couldn't find a solution.

The problem is that VLC automatically switches to the digital out when playing movies with an AC3 audio track. If you have the digital out hooked up to something that will decode the AC3 stream, then it's great, because you'll get surround sound. But if not, you're screwed, because you won't get sound at all. The VLC preferences have no effect, though the aforementioned checkbox is exactly what you'd need if it actually functioned.

There's an AC3 Quicktime component somewhere, but I couldn't get it to work. And MPlayer will play back the movie, but it introduces annoying clicks in the audio.

It's frustrating that Quicktime doesn't have an AC3 decoder built it. We all have one already embedded into DVD Player. In fact, it's frustrating that Quicktime Player and DVD Player are separate apps at all.

[The DJ]

Originally posted by awaspaas:
Anybody know about the 8-bit problem, or does this warrant a thread of its own? Is there a Mac-specific VLC forum?

It's all over our forums that VLC has serious problems with any audio device that's not plain builtin stereo on the Mac. We have been looking for CoreAudio developers for over 2 years now


Apparently noone wants to fix VLC.