Very Poor Audio Quality: White Noise / Hiss

[sholva]

Has anyone else experienced problems with the audio output quality on Videolan / VLC to be really bad?

With all my other media players files are fine, as soon as I play them in VLC there is very bad amount of noise, the level is so bad that it sometimes drowns out quieter background music.

For those of you wondering it's beyond just a slight annoyance level, it's loud enough to irritate even people that are hard of hearing.

Any ideas?!

Tried it on WinXP / Win2003 on same box, embedded Via AC'97 Audio.

Appreciate all feedback, thanks.

[dionoea]

i guess that leaving the volume slider to 50% would make it sound better. more than 50% means that VLC amplifies the audio.

[graeftom]

Downloaded ReplayTV mpegs play fine with Windows media player, Real player, Ulead Movie factory 4, and Nero Showtime gives good clean audio; Older version of vlc player used to sound fine.

But have obnoxious hiss and white noise at 50% vlc volume with 0.8.2 (recommended downloaded ReplayTV interface) ....loaded 0.8.2 into DVArchive V3.1 when updating....it uninstalled older version (which may have turned noisier with DVarchive update, I'm not sure).....because of static I tried a separate directory install of 0.8.4 (wxWidgets interface) and didn't run thru DVArchive.......No sound thru left channel, right channel badly gargled, stuttering, but less noisy.

Suggestions anyone?

Thanks......

[ang]

i HAD the same problem as you did - just fixed it however!

go to settings > preferences

then click on audio > output modules > directx

check the advanced options, and uncheck "Use float32 output"

and it should be fixed.

[dionoea]

btw, new versions disable this setting by default. Just reset your preferences to have all the good settings

[graeftom]

Thanks for the attempted help ang.....

Alas my float32 was already unchecked....and problem persists with vlc 0.8.4...

But with no changes DVArchive now plays fine with linked vlc 0.8.2....

????

[maxwellmurder]

it worked for me! vlc is the only media player that plays all of my videos and but it would never work, the sound quality that is..Until now!!! thank you!!!

[J.J.]

i'm having the same problem w/ white noise and hiss.....i tried what was suggested here and still can't get rid of it....help please!!!

[murgon]

same for me

hope someone can help!
thanx

[DJ]

Thanks for the attempted help ang.....

Alas my float32 was already unchecked....and problem persists with vlc 0.8.4...

But with no changes DVArchive now plays fine with linked vlc 0.8.2....

????

It sounds like you have both versions installed in different directories. If this is the case both versions will use the same configuration file and possibly cause some very strange results. Suggest you reset VLC or better yet delete the configuration file. The first time you run VLC (your choice in version) the file will be created using the default values.

[graeftom]

I tried deleting the 2 config files on the 0.84....no change

I uninstalled 0.84 and reinstalled 0.85 beta......same audio stutter

I finally linked the default player to the 0.8.2 (wxWindows interface) in the dvarchive directory which works fine....

But I sure do love the program and appreciate everyone's efforts

[paulmars]

Very light hiss (in other players) is much louder. Some deep male voices are slightly distorted and the difference between load and soft sounds is exaggerated.

Any more help ideas?

tks,
paul

[Chris99]

I had the same problem, none of the suggestions above worked. However, I found that changing the output module to win32 waveout fixed it. It also fixed a problem with audio "stuttering" that would often occur at the beginning of playing an mp3 file.

Settings/Preferences/Audio/Output Modules.
Click Advanced Options checkbox
Set Audo output module to Win32 waveOut extension output.

For what it's worth, I am running:
Vlc 0.8.5-test2.
Win2K SP4
Direct X 9.0C (I mention this because it seems to be the directx output option that causes the problem).
Dell Inspiron 8000 laptop (PIII-850) which has ESS Maestro PCI Audio.

[spiff06]

Tried everything posted here with a Logitech webcam. The video is fine, but the sounds stutters and occasionally produces loud white noise. This is my first attempt at streaming a webcam, so I'm already pretty happy at getting the video to work. But the sound would be nice as well...

[DJ]

I had the same problem, none of the suggestions above worked. However, I found that changing the output module to win32 waveout fixed it. It also fixed a problem with audio "stuttering" that would often occur at the beginning of playing an mp3 file.

Settings/Preferences/Audio/Output Modules.
Click Advanced Options checkbox
Set Audo output module to Win32 waveOut extension output.

For what it's worth, I am running:
Vlc 0.8.5-test2.
Win2K SP4
Direct X 9.0C (I mention this because it seems to be the directx output option that causes the problem).
Dell Inspiron 8000 laptop (PIII-850) which has ESS Maestro PCI Audio.

Update your audio drivers. Starting with 0.8.4 the DirectX module was rebuilt to be more compatible with DirectX 9c forcing many people to update audio and or video drivers after SP2 for XP which Microsoft recommends. Shutting down DirectX is generally the clue that the drivers need updating.

[DJ]

Very light hiss (in other players) is much louder. Some deep male voices are slightly distorted and the difference between load and soft sounds is exaggerated.

Any more help ideas?

tks,
paul

VLC has the unique ability to amplify audio going to your sound card. Most players do NOT do this. Some sound cards to not handle this well and may show up as distortions to some part of the frequency spectrum. The default volume at 50% is no amplification. As far as Dynamic Range goes this is passed to the sound card unchanged, however a52 (ac3) audio does have by default a DRC module set (Dynamic Range Compression) and may be shut off in preferences. Personally I don't like this as it tends to make sound unnatural for me. So I shut it off!

[Guest]

Update your audio drivers. Starting with 0.8.4 the DirectX module was rebuilt to be more compatible with DirectX 9c forcing many people to update audio and or video drivers after SP2 for XP which Microsoft recommends. Shutting down DirectX is generally the clue that the drivers need updating.

As mentioned previously, I'm running 2K, not XP.

I am running the current audio drivers. Of course "current" is 2002, but that's the latest available.

[DJ]

Update your audio drivers. Starting with 0.8.4 the DirectX module was rebuilt to be more compatible with DirectX 9c forcing many people to update audio and or video drivers after SP2 for XP which Microsoft recommends. Shutting down DirectX is generally the clue that the drivers need updating.

As mentioned previously, I'm running 2K, not XP.

I am running the current audio drivers. Of course "current" is 2002, but that's the latest available.

Actually, the update is recommended by Microsoft for everyone using DirectX 9c and for some people with older cards these updates are not available. The only reason XP SP2 is mentioned here is that's when most people got DirectX 9c. All of this really means that if you are running a driver (audio or video) with a date earlier than Oct 04 you can expect some kind of problem of which they don't tell you.

[Shuge]

I think i have have found a solution, atlest it fixed the bad hissing kindo sound i was having with vlc. All i did was go to settings/preferences/audio/filters and turned on volume normalizer. The sound is just as good as with any other program i have now

[Guest]

can ne 1 help me out
im converting FLAC files to MP3 but all im getting is static from the MP3s afterwards?

[Guest]

I had the same problem, none of the suggestions above worked. However, I found that changing the output module to win32 waveout fixed it. It also fixed a problem with audio "stuttering" that would often occur at the beginning of playing an mp3 file.

Settings/Preferences/Audio/Output Modules.
Click Advanced Options checkbox
Set Audo output module to Win32 waveOut extension output.

For what it's worth, I am running:
Vlc 0.8.5-test2.
Win2K SP4
Direct X 9.0C (I mention this because it seems to be the directx output option that causes the problem).
Dell Inspiron 8000 laptop (PIII-850) which has ESS Maestro PCI Audio.

This works!! It got rid of the pesky white noise...
Thanks Chris99!!
I'm running Vlc 0.8.4a

[andilla]

Same problem now, a couple of years later...

I have tried pretty much everything I found in this thread.

Very strange thing happens: I want to convert a WAV file to either MP3 or leave it WAV but cut the end. In both cases, after pushing Start, it looks like nothing has happened at all: the task window simply closes right away and there was no any movement in the progress bar. Yet the new, concverted file is there in the folder. And the sound is terrible, noisy, hissy.

Another song, another WAV file - after pushing Start, I can see the blue progress bar moving and it takes a few seconds, maybe 10, then it's ready, the window closes. The new file is there in the folder - and voila, the sound is good!

Yet another song, this time an MP4 video to WAV - it's fine: blue progress bar moving, etc, the output sound is good.

Etc, etc, totally random.

I couldn't figure out what does it depend on whether it's a successful transformation with good sound quality, or a crappy one with the white noise and hiss.

Any ideas, suggestions?

VLC 3.0.11 Vetinari
Asus VivoBook S412FA-EB877 (I think)
It's about 2 months old

[Hitchhiker]

https://wiki.videolan.org/WindowsFAQ-2. ... _anomalies

If it doesn't help reset preferences: https://wiki.videolan.org/VSG:ResetPrefs

[andilla]

Thank you - still no success...

I did it all:
- set the audio output to DirectX
- waveOut (it's only called waveOut in my VLC, without win32)
- reset preferences in all 3 possible ways

Nothing helped

I transformed one song each time when I have done any of these steps and the same thing happened: the task window closed immediately as if the program was not doing anything at all, and there was no blue progress line in the player. The result is the same hissy sh*t in the new file as before.

And I transformed another song - and it's fine.

[Lotesdelere]

Check your computer latency:
https://www.sweetwater.com/sweetcare/ar ... cy-issues/