Audio not staying at 200% between opening and closing. (3.0.3 Vetinari)

[Evil Paragon]

Hi, I often have to turn up VLC to 200 to hear videos on my set up.

On the last version, if I closed the program at 200%, the next time I opened it it would be at 200%. It appears that that has been taken away from me and it's been bugging me since.

I appreciate the update that allows VLC to remember which monitor to open on as I always have VLC on my third monitor, never my first, but it feels like the trade off between clicking and dragging a window every night to manually scrolling all the way up to 200 just isn't worth it.

I know, first world problems and such, but I write this as a way to either fix it so I don't have to deal with it again, or have the idea float around for the dev team to put the feature back.

(Information about my set up for those who want to lecture about poor audio quality at high volumes:
I go to sleep watching dvds. I do not own a speaker, it plays through my headphones. My headphones at max volume cannot project enough for me to hear anything more than mumbling and explosions at 100%, so I turn it up to 200% so I can actually hear dialogue. Then when I'm ready to sleep, I turn it down on my headphones and doze off. Audio quality has never gotten in the way before. As long as I can hear people in the movie talking, it's fine.)

[Lotesdelere]

This is done on purpose to avoid damages to speakers, headphones and... ears.
You have to set your system up for aproper volume output. To be always at 200% is not normal.

[Evil Paragon]

It's a free software. Why not let people get damaged headphones. It's their fault, they did it. It's not like 200% is a default.

My audio is turned up to 100% everywhere, except my headphones which I consider to be the master control.

Everything is so concerned with safety these days, my god. If my computer won't let me turn up the volume to ear hurting levels, and my headphones won't let me, and it seems like VLC is making a move to not letting me, then what happens when all three of them combine and I just need it a little bit louder? TVs for decades have NEVER had 100 volume be comfortable, normally 20-30 on TVs is where most people have audio. Yet I find myself on the computer having to turn everything up to 100% to hear, with my earphones sitting at 70%. What happens though when I need 140% to hear? 70% (Headphones) of 100% (Windows) of 100% (VLC) is only 70%. Sure, I put my headphones on 100%, so now it's a full 100%, yay, I can hear "safely", but what if I'm not wearing my headphones? What if they're next to me?

To be clear, 100% VLC is what I use when I watch videos with my headphones on, I only put it on 200% when I take my headphones off. I however watch VLC videos rarely in the day, and primarily watch all of them as I fall to sleep, meaning no headphones.

Safety of me and my property is my responsibility. No one can sue Videolan for damaged speakers, headphones, or ears when it was the user that turned it up to 200%.

If it is the company's belief that 200% is bad, then why not remove it as a whole? I definitely don't want that, but why take away 200% as a remembered setting if the company's not going to remove it entirely?

People live in unique scenarios, more people would prefer a VLC that remembers what its volume was the last time it was open than one that has a "default volume" capped at 125 or something, because there are two types of users. Those that listen to stuff louder than 125, and those that don't. Both of those types of users are accounted for in a remember system, whereas the former group is entirely excluded when there's a default setting that's capped at 125. Hell, it could even be a setting, do you want VLC to open at the same volume it opened last time, or to open with a default preset volume every time? Chrome's been doing it for years, you can either open Chrome to the last webpages you had open, or Chrome can open to a homepage you set before.

And if videolan is worried, just through a warning up if the user attempts to go above 125 and have a checkbox on the warning that says "do not warn me again".

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

Capping at 100% is a decision of Microsoft embedded in the Windows audio subsystem. This is not something that VLC developpers get to decide. You are free to vote with your money and use an operating system that does not impose this restriction.

However I think that Microsoft kinda has a point here. More than 100% makes little to no sense in digital domain, and it also makes no sense in unamplified analog connections. When you set VLC over 100%, it forces software amplification, which more often than not leads to saturation and shitty audio quality, if not hear damage.

The only legitimate case for more than 100% in digital is poorly mixed low volume recordings. And since that's by definition not normal, it should not be saved.

[mikegonzalez2k]

Try downloading literally any torrented video and you will encounter this issue. To say that you should cap the volume to 100% is a cop out lazy answer. As a fellow developer, we give users more shared preferences, not make excuses. Not all video quality is the same. This is simply a way for the user to compensate for poor audio. Microsoft also has a "loudness equalization" in the enhancement properties because they realize this is a problem. It's a matter of volume equalization.

[unidan]

Hi,

> As a fellow developer, we give users more shared preferences, not make excuses.

I think VLC has enough options already, but it can't have options for every broken usecases. As far as I'm concerned, free software doesn't mean boilerplate and dangerous software. Moreover you won't need this if you have a system global volume equalization setting. like you say.