Normalise volume and window/workspace switching

[3kayu3z72ygubws3hsep]

Hello,

I have read the forum rules. I am using the latest version of Fedora Silverblue, with Gnome. Flathub version of VLC, latest. I have googled all of these problems extensively and have had these issues for years. Most of these problems relate to when videos are repeated or new videos are played, with multiple videos open in different windows.

Issue 1. When a new video is played or the same one loops, the volume will automatically adjust to the volume of another VLC window (probably the last opened video). Say I have two videos open, video A and video B. When B's video ends and a new video plays (or loops), the volume will change from whatever it was, to the volume of video A. I am wondering if it's possible to lock volume for that specific window, so that when a new video plays or the same one loops, its volume will be exactly the same as it previously was (and having multiple videos open won't affect this, they will never change volume automatically).

Issue 2. I also wonder if another function is possible. This is a separate feature I am talking about and unrelated to my problem. Sometimes I have multiple videos playing. Say one video ends, a new video plays, and though the window's volume may stay the same, the internal audio is louder. Because I have so many videos, re-encoding them is not an option. I would like to be able to normalise the volume for all active VLC windows. But I searched "normalise" in VLC settings, the relevant options were "remember the audio volume", "normalize channels" and volume normalizer, none of which appear to do this, though I could be testing it wrong.

Issue 3. When I have multiple windows open, and a new VLC video is played or repeated, the VLC window steals focus (it jumps to the front of all other windows). How do I prevent this from happening? I understand this might be better handled by the desktop environment / window manager, but I have explored that as well and couldn't find a solution. There is also the same issue but I get automatically switched to another workspace, which is incredibly annoying.

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

Problem 1 is a matter of PulseAudio or WirePlumber configuration. VLC has no say in the audio volume policy.

Problem 2 is intractable. You can use audio compression to automatically adjust the volume, but that seems like a cure worse than the disease.

Problem 3 seems like a problem with your WM, not that I'd know.

[3kayu3z72ygubws3hsep]

Problem 1 is a matter of PulseAudio or WirePlumber configuration. VLC has no say in the audio volume policy.

Problem 2 is intractable. You can use audio compression to automatically adjust the volume, but that seems like a cure worse than the disease.

Problem 3 seems like a problem with your WM, not that I'd know.

Thanks for your reply.

Fortunately, problem 3 was solved, and it was in fact solvable through VLC. I find it disappointing that as one of the app's developers you didn't know this, and it makes me wonder whether the other two issues might actually be solvable through VLC too. I found the appropriate setting in: All Settings > Interfaces > Main Interfaces > Qt > when to raise the interface: never. This solved the workspace switching too.

Can you please confirm that problem 1 and 2 are not actually solvable through VLC, and why? And hopefully point me in the right direction. I can't find any communities for pulseaudio or wireplumber specifically, so I'm asking for help in Fedora (since communities for Gnome are virtually non-existent), and getting help for such a specific thing might be tedious.

Thanks again.

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

You are welcome to hire a consultant if you are not satisfied with the volunteer answers.