The VideoLAN Forums

I'm getting some sort of intermittent audio distortion and I only think it happens on videos with a Dolby Atmos sound track. The distortion sounds like a good old cassette tape speed problem. Almost like the sound is slowing down for half a second, similar to if you'd put your finger on a cassette reel while it's playing. I don't know if this is an issue with the player, codec or something else. I have reinstalled my PC completely, but I'm still getting the distortion. It happens maybe 3-4 times during playback of a normal length movie.

File types I've tested and getting the same issue on are x264 and x265 containers with a TrueHD Dolby Atmos sound track.

I only use Dolby Atmos for Headphones on my PC.

My PC specs:
Windows 10 Pro x64
VLC 3.0.0 x64. I have also tried 3.0.1 and the 4.x beta, all with the same issue.
Intel Core i5-4440 8GB
Radeon RX480 4GB graphics
Asus Xonar DSX sound card
Dolby Atmos for headphoens installed and enabled.

I don't have any other third part media players or codecs installed on my PC. The issue happens no matter if there's something else running on my PC. I have a 75Hz freeSync monitor, but the issue happens if I turn off FreeSync and also if I lower the refresh rate to 60Hz.

Is it happening with or without pass-through? VLC sometimes resamples to compensate for drift, but of course only without pass-through.

All my codec (audio and video) settings are at default. I'm using the built-in sound card, outputting to a headphone amp. So, no audio pass-through.

(edit: clarification. By built-in sound card I mean I'm using a PCI-Ex Asus Xonar DSX card )

Have you tried with and without headphones?

I'll do some further troubleshooting, to see if it's the media. With both the integrated motherboard audio codec and with bluetooth audio....

Maybe we detect we can "passthrough" Dolby since you have ` Dolby Atmos for headphoens installed and enabled.` ?

Can you provide some logs of the playback that has the problem ?

Sorry for not coming back on this. I decided it has to be the media files using harsh fix to correct sync between video and audio on their transcoding.