Despite the developers being stubborn about this, this is a real problem they've caused (subtly in 1.x, and made very obvious by new changes to the underlying volume algorithm in 2.x) and now they refuse to fix it or even discuss it further.
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=99303
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=102180
Despite insisting the problem was always there as a means of dismissing the complaints about the new behavior, they openly admit to the following change which actually exacerbates the problem dramatically and makes it readily apparent when it wasn't before... saying things like "Distorsion has always occurred above 100%. It definitely did occur with VLC 1.1.11 on Windows. And it is absolutely logical."
Yes, it was there before, but unnoticeable because the volume algorithm was different and the volume didn't reach levels where distortion was readily noticed. So what you are trying to avoid dealing with is that while it might have happened imperceptibly at 200% before, going to 200% on 2.x is actually taking the volume up to the equivalent of what would be 800% on the 1.x volume slider and thus takes that imperceptible beginning of distortion at max volume in 1.x and blows it completely out of proportion into horribly distorted noise at max volume in 2.x because "200%" no longer means remotely the same thing it did in 1.x.
So yes, it's logical that distortion would begin to happen over 100% volume, but that's avoiding dealing with the real main issue. The main issue is that it was always broken, but was unnoticeable before and you then changed the behavior to make the problem four times worse so that it now is readily apparent. That's not the same. The solution is to fix the underlying problem, not deny that it's a problem at all and that you just made it much much worse by dramatically changing the volume control behavior.
(emphasis mine)VLC 2.x uses this formula: linear gain = (volume percentage / 100) ^3
VLC 1.x used that formula: linear gain = volume percentage / 100
So that 200% volume in 1.x is the same as 126% volume in 2.x. So using the volume slider that they provide in 2.x that goes all the way to 200% not only doesn't function the same as it did in 1.x, but makes your sound turn to complete garbage.
(emphasis mine)Firstly, some people might not notice the small distortions at say +3dB. That would occur be the volume range from 100 to 126% in VLC 2.0.x (or correspondingly 100 to 200% in VLC 1.1).
To spell this out very clearly for everyone:
100% is 2.x is the same as 100% in 1.x.
126% in 2.x is the same as 200% in 1.x.
150% in 2.x is the same as 338% in 1.x.
175% in 2.x is the same as 535% in 1.x.
200% in 2.x is the same as 800% in 1.x.
Not the 200% any user could reasonably expect, because even if 200% were slightly flawed before, we most definitely not still at "200%" any more in the sense a user would expect 200% to work, as it has worked for years. The underlying behavior, invisible to the user, was changed and dramatically exposed an underlying design flaw... a pre-existing poor usability choice to allow using the volume slider to amplify the sound while simultaneously insisting that users don't do that very thing they just made the default behavior and instead only use their speaker volume knob to make the sound louder than 100%. (Not to mention that poor design choice of making a slider that goes to 200% without any easy way to stop in the middle, and forcing users to take the unnatural step of trying to be careful about adjusting the volume to never go past the middle area of the slider to work around the bad default design...)
Does anyone else see the problem here becoming more and more apparent?
What he ignores is that in the very link he points us to, he admits (as quoted above) that even though the problem might exist in 1.x, it's generally not noticeable because the volume is handled differently and caps out at 200% where 2.x hits at only 126% and keeps right on going... up to the equivalent of what would be 800% in 1.x. So that people who could use the full volume slider without generally noticing any distortion ever, even at 200%, can no longer do so because the behavior now passes that volume level at 126% and keeps right on going into audio garbage territory.Distorsion has always occurred above 100%. It definitely did occur with VLC 1.1.11 on Windows. And it is absolutely logical. See also viewtopic.php?f=14&t=102180 for more details.
If you don't want distorsion, stay at 100% and push the volume up on the speakers. This topic is closed.
This is a usability failure on multiple levels. If you don't want your users to use the full volume slider, don't make it the default. In fact don't offer it at all. If people want to boost it like that, make them turn on the equalizer and use that to boost the levels to a point where they will most likely distort terribly.
Don't make that behavior the default.
I don't see why this is so hard to understand. You had an essentially imperceptible problem before that was part of an arguably reasonable design choice then... to let the user boost the sound level a little bit in software... but that didn't lead to any noticeable problems as it maxed out before any real noticeable distortion started. You then change that existing design design to make the underlying "flaw" of introducing distortion incredibly obvious and have people start filing bug reports etc because the audio turns to garbage when doing the exact same thing from their point of view that didn't cause that behavior before. And your solution is to tell them not to use the application as designed and offered to them as the default configuration.
This is not just an honest past mistake of usability and design, but an intentional and arrogant failure of the developers to listen to reason and correct an easily corrected problem when explained to them, and instead refuse to acknowledge what they themselves admit in other comments that they themselves point you to and instead just try to lock the discussion and refuse to deal with it.
Rémi, you know the volume control algorithm changed. Dramatically. You know the problem wasn't apparent to users before, but due to the dramatically increased level now compared to the earlier behavior (a factor of 8:1 rather than 2:1), the underlying problem is now readily apparent. Because the behavior is, as you admit, not only very different from before, but arguably fundamentally flawed to begin with. You also know that if you're going to stubbornly insist that users use their speaker volume control to control volume anyway, then it makes no sense whatsoever to still offer by default a way to increase the volume beyond 100% to the point where it becomes a distorted mess. If you want to force them to use the physical knob anyway, don't offer a broken software version of it as default and then tell them not to use it.
Don't force a poor design on the users to offer more than 100% volume, and then tell users not to use it and in fact insist that they don't. Just fix the underlying problem and remove it as the default behavior. Move it into the equalizer or something where it has to be manually enabled and the sliders moved into that beyond 100% range. Have the default main volume slider constrained to the 0% to 100% (0x to 1x) range.
If nothing else, why not just put the algorithm back the way it was instead of having the volume ramp all the way up to 800% (by 1.x standards) and become wildly distorted where it never did for users under 1.x? What was the point of making the volume increase so dramatically as to cause very obvious distortion and extreme degradation of audio quality at what appears to be the exact same volume levels that worked for users before, for years?
Now I full admit, I'm totally ignorant about attenuation versus amplification and all the other nuances of volume control, but as far as I can tell in this situation my arguments make sense... so I don't understand, aside from pride, what is keeping the developers from listening to the points and responding productively.
