Major Low Volume Problems

[tjkong]

Currently using vlc player 1.1.0

Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Extreme PCI-E x1 audio cards in two Windows machines: XP MCE and Vista Home Premium

Volume in all video files (so far I've tested various 2ch/5.1ch MP3, AC3 & DTS in AVI & MKV containers and several DVD folders) is extremely low even maxed out to VLC's 200% and my system volume maxed out too. It's much quieter than any other media player I've tried the same files in at just 10% to 15% media player and system volume (kmplayer, mpc, wmp, quicktime, gomplayer, etc). It's so low in VLC in either PC of mine I can't understand what's being said at all in any video unless I turn off every other sound producing anything (A/C, fan, etc) in the room and hold my ear to the speaker, and even then I struggle with it. This is not normal. I have a fairly decent 50 watt 5.1ch speaker system in one of the computers that I don't think I've ever cranked the system volume above 50% for anything before even when blaring music that can be heard throughout the whole house.

Playing mp3 files the volume seems fine. Still not quite as loud as any of the above mentioned other media players though at comparable media player and system volume settings.

Trying to change any / all of the Audio settings (Normalize, etc) makes no difference whatsoever.

I've read a few other similar topics here. Deleting VLC's %appdata% folder made no difference whatsoever. Uninstalling and reinstalling VLC didn't make a difference either.

Also, perhaps it's related, I notice that when trying to increase/decrease Windows' system volume when VLC is the active window open it also increases/decreases VLC Player's volume at the same time. I have to click on the desktop or another window to adjust only the system volume. This did not happen in previous versions of VLC for me, nor does it work like that in any other media player except for WMP where the media player volume is also the system volume.

[VLC_help]

Volume hotkey change is known issue.

For too low volume, does it help if you change audio output module?
http://wiki.videolan.org/WindowsFAQ-1.1 ... _anomalies

[tjkong]

Thanks for replying. I had already tried several of the 'output module' options and noticed no difference, but since you mentioned it I just tried it again, going through each option in order for both a DVD folder w 5.1 AC3 and an AVC DTS .MKV. I noticed no difference in volume between any of the options except, of course, there was no sound at all for the 'dummy audio output' and the 'file audio output' options.

Between cranking up vlc's volume and my system volume to 3/4 or their max, I'm able to listen fairly comfortably to both of the files I used above. Playing the same files in any other media player is noticeably louder than vlc at half of vlc's & the system volume. On some files where the audio volume was low to start with (like whatever I was trying to watch yesterday which got me to start this topic) I have to crank both volumes up almost all the way when playing in VLC, which is something I've not ever had to do before. It's annoying to say the least that I have to crank up the system volume so much louder than normal when using VLC because if there are any other sounds from other programs it scares the hell out of me and everyone in the house. Same goes for if I forget to turn the system volume back down after watching anything in vlc.

I wonder if my issue may be related to the one described here: https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.ph ... 76&start=0

But if so I don't think it's related to the ticket linked to at the bottom, but perhaps to the sound card instead. ?

Sometime this weekend I might try to re-enable the on-board sound in the BIOS on one of my computers and plug the speakers back into that just to see if it makes any difference.