The VideoLAN Forums

Hi All,

When I use VLC to play internet radio(mms, mp2 format), a problems always occur.

main warning: buffer is 74518 late, triggering upsampling
main warning: audio drift is too big (148629), dropping buffer
main warning: resampling stopped after 891615 usec (drift: 28457)
main warning: audio drift is too big (-149774), clearing out
main warning: mixer start isn't output start (-42788)
main warning: audio drift is too big (167398), dropping buffer

As a result the radio is very choppy (discontinuous...) For the same link, no chopping problem when playing in Windows media player . Is there any setting I can set in VLC to solve the problem.

More information:

main debug: adding playlist item `http://www.rthk.org.hk/live1.asx' ( http://www.rthk.org.hk/live1.asx )
main debug: creating new input thread
main debug: waiting for thread completion
main debug: creating statistics handler
main debug: thread 3952 (input) created at priority 1 (input/input.c:265)
main debug: `http://www.rthk.org.hk/live1.asx' gives access `http' demux `' path `www.rthk.org.hk/live1.asx'
main debug: creating demux: access='http' demux='' path='www.rthk.org.hk/live1.asx'
main debug: looking for access_demux module: 0 candidates
main warning: no access_demux module matched "http"
main debug: creating access 'http' path='www.rthk.org.hk/live1.asx'
main debug: looking for access2 module: 7 candidates
access_http debug: http: server='www.rthk.org.hk' port=80 file='/live1.asx
main debug: net: connecting to http://www.rthk.org.hk port 80
main debug: connection in progress
access_http debug: protocol 'HTTP' answer code 206
access_http debug: Server: RTHK Web Server
access_http debug: stream size=277
access_http debug: Content-Type: video/x-ms-asf
main debug: using access2 module "access_http"
main debug: pre-buffering...
main debug: received first data for our buffer
main debug: creating demux: access='http' demux='' path='www.rthk.org.hk/live1.asx'
main debug: looking for demux2 module: 45 candidates
m3u debug: playlist type: 2 - 2
main debug: using demux2 module "m3u"
main debug: looking for a subtitle file in C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\
main debug: `http://www.rthk.org.hk/live1.asx' successfully opened
m3u debug: starting playlist playback
main debug: adding playlist item `mms://202.177.192.111/radio1' ( mms://202.177.192.111/radio1 )
main debug: EOF reached
main debug: closing input
main debug: removing module "m3u"
main debug: removing module "access_http"
main debug: thread times: real 0m0.265625s, kernel 0m0.031250s, user 0m0.015625s
main debug: thread 3952 joined (input/input.c:412)
main debug: creating new input thread
main debug: waiting for thread completion
main debug: thread 3952 (input) created at priority 1 (input/input.c:265)
main debug: `mms://202.177.192.111/radio1' gives access `mms' demux `' path `202.177.192.111/radio1'
main debug: creating demux: access='mms' demux='' path='202.177.192.111/radio1'
main debug: looking for access_demux module: 0 candidates
main warning: no access_demux module matched "mms"
main debug: creating access 'mms' path='202.177.192.111/radio1'
main debug: looking for access2 module: 6 candidates
..............
main debug: using access2 module "access_mms"
main debug: pre-buffering...
main debug: received first data for our buffer
main debug: pre-buffering done 4638 bytes in 1s - 3 kbytes/s
main debug: creating demux: access='mms' demux='' path='202.177.192.111/radio1'
main debug: looking for demux2 module: 45 candidates
..............
main debug: selecting program id=0
asf debug: added new audio stream(codec:0x161,ID:1)
main debug: using demux2 module "asf"
main debug: looking for a subtitle file in C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\
main debug: looking for decoder module: 28 candidates
ffmpeg debug: libavcodec initialized (interface 3349504 )
ffmpeg debug: ffmpeg codec (Windows Media Audio 2) started
main debug: using decoder module "ffmpeg"
main debug: thread 4136 (decoder) created at priority 2 (input/decoder.c:159)
access_mms warning: unimplemented query in control
main debug: `mms://202.177.192.111/radio1' successfully opened
main debug: no aout present, spawning one
main debug: looking for audio output module: 4 candidates
main debug: using audio output module "aout_file"
main debug: output 's16l' 22050 Hz Stereo frame=1 samples/4 bytes
main debug: mixer 'fl32' 22050 Hz Stereo frame=1 samples/8 bytes
main debug: filter(s) 'fl32'->'s16l' 22050 Hz->22050 Hz Stereo->Stereo
main debug: looking for audio filter module: 24 candidates
main debug: using audio filter module "float32tos16"
main debug: found a filter for the whole conversion
main debug: looking for audio mixer module: 3 candidates
main debug: using audio mixer module "float32_mixer"
main debug: input 's16l' 22050 Hz Stereo frame=1 samples/4 bytes
main debug: filter(s) 's16l'->'fl32' 22050 Hz->22050 Hz Stereo->Stereo
main debug: looking for audio filter module: 24 candidates
main debug: using audio filter module "s16tofloat32"
main debug: found a filter for the whole conversion
main debug: filter(s) 'fl32'->'fl32' 24255 Hz->22050 Hz Stereo->Stereo
main debug: looking for audio filter module: 24 candidates
main debug: using audio filter module "bandlimited_resampler"
main debug: found a filter for the whole conversion

Have you tried nightly builds?
http://nightlies.videolan.org/

Have you tried nightly builds?
http://nightlies.videolan.org/

Thanks you for respond.
I have tried but getting the same result. The version that I tried is vlc-0.9.0-svn-20080125-0000-win32.zip.
I would like to provide you more information for debug.
Codec:wma2
Channels:2
Sample rate:22050
Bits per sample:16
Bitrate 20kb/s
I have try to switch the audio output to file output but the result is the same so I think it may not related to directx problem
Is it related to the decoding problem of wma ? (my blind guess)
Is it a infomation mismatch to server so the player keep dropping buffer periodically (my blind guess)

If you think it's a decoding issue, you could try the -dmo switch on the command line for VLC. This will force the usage of the Windows DMO codecs. However, if the audio is WMAp (5.1) the files will not play.

If you think it's a decoding issue, you could try the -dmo switch on the command line for VLC. This will force the usage of the Windows DMO codecs. However, if the audio is WMAp (5.1) the files will not play.

I am not familiar with the use of command line for vlc, is it "vlc -dmo" at cmd?

From the archives:

On Windows you could try adding --codec dmo to your command line to force the Windows .dll to be used for decoding WMV instead of FFmpeg which uses the VC-1 decoder (VLC 0.8.6).

So it's "vlc --codec dmo" within VLC's directory under DOS or added to a shortcut (without the quotes).

From the archives:

On Windows you could try adding --codec dmo to your command line to force the Windows .dll to be used for decoding WMV instead of FFmpeg which uses the VC-1 decoder (VLC 0.8.6).

So it's "vlc --codec dmo" within VLC's directory under DOS or added to a shortcut (without the quotes).

Thanks, get it. I have try and the result is "better"... but still different to M$ media player. And I want to know:
What is the reason for causing a buffer drop?
Can I disable the buffer drop and any side effect for that?