syncing audio with vlc
Posted: 24 Dec 2009 22:52
I am a longtime user of VLC, and it's still my favorite player for all formats. However I have had one issue.
I frequently encounter videos that have audio out of sync with the video later on in the video; it's a fault with the file, not VLC. I'd never had any luck getting audio syncing to work in vlc, any version, and trying to get it to work made me want to tear my hair out. I read the FAQ
http://www.videolan.org/support/faq.html
that said I was clueless if I couldn't get it to work (nice), and, as suggested in the linked comment I did increase the buffers.
viewtopic.php?f=12&t=19456&p=61156&hilit=desync#p61156
Wanting to be sure, I increased all of them.
The thing is, no matter what value I put in Audio Desynchronization (under preferences -> audio), or in Advance of Audio Over Video (ctrl-e synchronization tab) there was no effect. It didn't matter if the change was within buffer size or not, the audio did not lag behind the video at all with negative values, and did not play in advance of the video with positive ones, on the part that had been in sync, and of course the sync for the out of sync portion was not fixed. There was no change whatsoever in the playback of the audio.
What did work, in the end, was the hotkeys (j and k, *not* ctrl-j and ctrl-l as many places seem to have it). What's interesting is that the hotkeys adjusted from the number I had put in the aforementioned preferences. In other words, I knew the video I was watching was off by -7250ms towards the end, so that is what I had put in there. I had made sure the buffers were 10000ms. The audio did not change at all with these settings. But when I hit j and then k (in other words increasing the negative delay and then reducing it back to exactly what it was before) the audio delayed as it should have and thus worked. It should have worked from the value being put in the preferences or the synchronization tab, but it didn't; as I said before, the value in preferences had no effect.
Another interesting "feature" ... the number I put in the preferences showed up under the synchronization tab of ctrl-e initially, but when I changed it it was no longer the same (I changed it to 0 in the synchronization tab and checked preferences and the number there was still -7250). When I chenged them both to 0, the number stuck, but when on a whim I checked hitting j and k on the next video the number displayed was relative to -7250ms rather than 0; in other words as far as j and k went the program remembered the last setting from them and not what was in preferences, even though the way I had got j and k to go to that point initially was to put -7250 in preferences, if that makes sense. I had to quit vlc to get things back to normal.
I just wanted to post this so that someone else who is trying to get this to work gets better help; maybe someone can benefit from this experience.
VLC Version 1.03
Windows XP SP3 32 bit
I frequently encounter videos that have audio out of sync with the video later on in the video; it's a fault with the file, not VLC. I'd never had any luck getting audio syncing to work in vlc, any version, and trying to get it to work made me want to tear my hair out. I read the FAQ
http://www.videolan.org/support/faq.html
that said I was clueless if I couldn't get it to work (nice), and, as suggested in the linked comment I did increase the buffers.
viewtopic.php?f=12&t=19456&p=61156&hilit=desync#p61156
Wanting to be sure, I increased all of them.
The thing is, no matter what value I put in Audio Desynchronization (under preferences -> audio), or in Advance of Audio Over Video (ctrl-e synchronization tab) there was no effect. It didn't matter if the change was within buffer size or not, the audio did not lag behind the video at all with negative values, and did not play in advance of the video with positive ones, on the part that had been in sync, and of course the sync for the out of sync portion was not fixed. There was no change whatsoever in the playback of the audio.
What did work, in the end, was the hotkeys (j and k, *not* ctrl-j and ctrl-l as many places seem to have it). What's interesting is that the hotkeys adjusted from the number I had put in the aforementioned preferences. In other words, I knew the video I was watching was off by -7250ms towards the end, so that is what I had put in there. I had made sure the buffers were 10000ms. The audio did not change at all with these settings. But when I hit j and then k (in other words increasing the negative delay and then reducing it back to exactly what it was before) the audio delayed as it should have and thus worked. It should have worked from the value being put in the preferences or the synchronization tab, but it didn't; as I said before, the value in preferences had no effect.
Another interesting "feature" ... the number I put in the preferences showed up under the synchronization tab of ctrl-e initially, but when I changed it it was no longer the same (I changed it to 0 in the synchronization tab and checked preferences and the number there was still -7250). When I chenged them both to 0, the number stuck, but when on a whim I checked hitting j and k on the next video the number displayed was relative to -7250ms rather than 0; in other words as far as j and k went the program remembered the last setting from them and not what was in preferences, even though the way I had got j and k to go to that point initially was to put -7250 in preferences, if that makes sense. I had to quit vlc to get things back to normal.
I just wanted to post this so that someone else who is trying to get this to work gets better help; maybe someone can benefit from this experience.
VLC Version 1.03
Windows XP SP3 32 bit