No Sound In VideoLAN - Multimedia Mostly Working

English Multimedia
1

So, I’m glad to say that multimedia is mostly working for me, however I have no sound in VideoLAN and a few minor problems. I’ve looked for similar posts but I am passed the sound/multimedia not working at all phase but there are still a few problems.

Here is what DOES work:

  • PulseAudio manager test works.
  • All Sound Preferences tests work.
  • Flash plugin plays sounds, including on Youtube.
  • Audacious and XMMS work. Banshee worked too but I uninstalled it.
  • SMPlayer, Xine, RealPlayer all work (play both sound and video).

Here is what does NOT work:

  • Sound in VideoLan: I see the video part but do not have any sound, regarless of how high I set the volume.
  • VideoLAN release (0.98) and beta (1.0) both exhibit the same problem.
  • Stand-alone Flash Player plays Flash (.swf) files but not Flash Video (.flv) files.
  • MPlayer does not work show video at all, sometimes has sound.
  • Originally XMMS did not work but I installed the Portable Multimedia Pack 2008 and it started working.

What I would like is for VideoLAN to work fully. If anythine else stays broken it is not important but maybe what does not work and serve as a hint for the problem. I’d really like NOT to break what already works. The most puzzling of my problems is that SMPlayer works (obtained from Portable Multimedia Pack) but not MPlayer (It cannot open the video device or something).

FWIW, I use OpenSUSE 11 with Gnome. Everything KDE is not installed and it shall remain that way (no Amarok etc.).

Please let me know if you can help or need further information to do so.

Thanks in advance,

  • Itai
2

I know some remove Pulse and just use Alsa
PulseAudio - openSUSE
SDB:AudioTroubleshooting - openSUSE

3

There are a few things that could be causing you problems. First of all, with the exception of libdvdcss, ensure that you do not have any videolan packaged applications, but have only packman packaged apps. For example, ensure your vlc and your libffmpeg0 are both packman packaged versions.

Second, if you have special desktop effects ( 3-cube / 3D ) enabled, then either (a) disable the special effects, or (b) switch the output video mode of your multimedia player from “auto” or from “xv” (xvideo) to “x11”.

Third, if you have Intel graphic hardware, there were in openSUSE-11.0 problems with video (and do not know if this is the case for 11.1). The work arounds in 11.0 were to switch the output video mode of your multimedia player from “auto” or from “xv” (xvideo) to “x11” or to do custom edits of the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file.

4

@caf4926

Thanks for the suggestion. Before I do anything like that, is there a way to check whether VLC is using Alsa or Pulse? I have both installed and both their test programs work, so I’m not sure where the problem is.

@oldcpu

Turns out I have a large number of packages from videolan but since VLC is the one that is not working, I’m puzzled as to whether videolan packages would cause problems to themselves.

A bigger problem though is that I do not know to ‘upgrade’ (if I can call it that), these packages? AFAIK, uninstalling requires dealing with a mess of dependencies and then finding the equivalent packages. Away to change versions would be needed here. Please let me know if you know how?

Thanks in advance,

  • Itai
5

Open VLC

go to tools - preferences

audio - OUTPUT
it is probably set to default

try some options

However. I first recommend you do this.
Make sure you have libdvdcss from the VLC repo. Now disable VLC repo.

Now open Yast - Software - Software Management
Filter by repo
Select Packman
From the Packages Tab select ‘Update all in this list unconditionally’

If you get dependency issues. Look for the option/s to change Vendor to packman.

If you can’t figure it out, save the error to file and post here.

see
Multi-media and Restricted Format Installation Guide - openSUSE Forums

6

OK, with ALSA, VLC outputs NO sound at all. With Pulse Audio, the sound is ultra choppy and unrecognizable so not good either.

I managed to uninstall ALL VideoLAN packages other than libdvdcss and replace them with Packman packages. Took a while but it was worth it so far as EVERYTHING but VLC appears to work fully.

Unfortunately for the VLC problem, I get NO error messages. Either sound does not play at all or it is broken :frowning:

Not sure where to check but one thing I did which improved things with other multimedia apps is leave only one CT4832 SBLive configured in the YaST Sound Configuration panel. There were 2 (No idea why because I have only one SBLive and no onboard sound), the second one now appears as ‘Not configured’.

Please let me know if there is something else I can try.

  • Itai
7

from a terminal do:

rpm -q alsa alsa-utils alsa-firmware

post result here

also: Check here again and go thru the steps: SDB:AudioTroubleshooting - openSUSE

Including the part about deleting your card/settings and re-installing:
SDB:AudioTroubleshooting - openSUSE

8

Since the document said it was for sound not working at all, and my sound is working everywhere but in VLC, I had ignored it until now.
Here goes:

>rpm -q alsa alsa-utils alsa-firmware
alsa-1.0.16-39.1
alsa-utils-1.0.16-35.1
alsa-firmware-1.0.16-24.1

>speaker-test -Dplug:front -c2 -l5 -twav
!!IT WORKS!! Got perfect output from both speakers.

>YAST > HARDWARE > SOUND > OTHER > TEST and test your sound.
!!NO SOUND!!

>YAST > HARDWARE > SOUND > OTHER > VOLUME
Crashes:
YaST got signal 11 at YCP file Wizard.ycp:740
/sbin/yast2: line 421: 21642 Segmentation fault $ybindir/y2base $module “$@” “$SELECTED_GUI” $Y2_GEOMETRY $Y2UI_ARGS

>YAST > HARDWARE > SOUND
Does not change anyhting. Sound device removed and added.
Speaker test still works but not YaST sound test ?)

>su
>alsoconf
Goes through all the steps without errors.
NO SOUND ANYWHERE! VLC, SMPlayer, XMMS all lost sound :frowning:
Now I need this document :wink:

>cat /proc/asound/version
Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.16rc2 (Thu Jan 31 16:40:16 2008 UTC).

>cat /proc/asound/modules
0 snd_emu10k1
AFAIK, That is the correct module for the SB Live! I have.

>cat /proc/asound/cards
0 [Live ]: EMU10K1 - SBLive! Value [CT4832]
SBLive! Value [CT4832] (rev.8, serial:0x80271102) at 0xe000, irq 5

>alsa-info.sh
See: http://www.alsa-project.org/db/?f=3ee42dc0994f4870cdf75531d513768cdec66b48

>tsalsa
See:
tsalsa.txt - nopaste.com (beta)

>cat /etc/modprobe.d/sound
options snd slots=snd-emu10k1

WL76.mTanvDDnb_0:CT4832 SBLive! Value

alias snd-card-0 snd-emu10k1

Thats as far as I got. Does that help?

  • Itai