VLC is behaving strangely on OpenBSD.....

[AmberJain]

Hello,

I installed vlc media player on obsd 4.4 but when I played audio files in it I get very bad output. The output audio gets stucked at regular intervals for about a half second i.e. it goes on like this:

4 seconds of audio
0.5 seconds interval ---> stucked
4 seconds of audio
0.5 seconds interval ---> stucked
4 seconds of audio
0.5 seconds interval ---> stucked.......................

I know I am not able to explain it clearly but I am not much accustomed to audio/video terminologies.

What should be causing this problem?

If I am not clear then tell me. I will try to explain my problem in other words.

Thanks....
AmbrNewlearner

[ashitpro]

I guess you are having problem with your codecs...
try installing gstreamer or totem-xine

Regards,
Ash

[AmberJain]

Hello,
@ashitpro
I downloaded and installed gstreamer from obsd's package collection. But I dont know how to tell vlc that it should use gstreamer. I had a look at "preferences" in vlc but ended up with nothing useful. I googled but I didnt got any useful results (maybe I couldnot find appropriate search term). I am still stucked :(

Thanks for your help...
AmbrNewlearner

[ashitpro]

Which gstreamer plugins you installed?
install gstreamer, gstreamer-plugins-ugly, gstreamer-plugins-bad

And you don't have to do any setting in VLC.....
Ideally It should locate the required plugin...

Also...try installing xmms...it may install the additional codecs which could solve your problems

[AmberJain]

Hello,
@ashitpro
Oh...I downloaded only gstreamer and therefore it might had not worked. As of now, unfortunately, my obsd file system is full and so I am planning to reinstall my system with proper partitioning. I will probably reinstall on Wednesday (I dont have much time tomorrow) and so I think I will be able to report back results on wednesday/thursday.

Thanks for the help....
AmbrNewlearner

[AmberJain]

Hello,

@ash- Unfortunately, I didn't got much time in last few days to reinstall my system. I am a lot busy at the present moment and that is why I don't know when will I get time to reinstall. But I will notify here as soon as I get time to reinstall (which will happen very soon).

Thanks....
AmbrNewlearner

[ashitpro]

I'll try again installig VLC on my Ubuntu, probably on monday....
Lets see what happens...

Regards,
Ash

[RedSon]

I thought VLC didn't use codecs?

[AmberJain]

Hello,

First of all, I was inactive on bytes.com from last few days and so I could not reply to this thread.

I reinstalled my system from scratch a few days ago. Then I installed VLC media player and then I installed gstreamer, gstreamer-plugins-ugly, gstreamer-plugins-bad. Unfortunately enough, VLC still refuses to output the audio corrrectly. I tried playing with VLC settings but with no success. Then, I tried installing a few other media players and I found that Mplayer can play MP3 files (on my obsd system) without any problem. And so, I am now sticking to Mplayer. If you have some suggestions to make VLC play audio files correctly then tell me (I am a big fan of VLC).

Thanks...
AmbrNewlearner

[AmberJain]

Hello,
@RedSon
I too thought this. But then this is (or may be 'was') my personal opinion.

AmbrNewlearner

[ashitpro]

I tried installing vlc on my Ubuntu with no success....
it needs these two packages "vlc-plugin-esd" and "mozilla-plugin-vlc"
Try to get it for you OS....

Regards,
Ash

[Nepomuk]

If I'm not very mistaken, then those who said that VLC doesn't use codecs are right. VLC is written in a way that should contain all the "codecs" instead of using 3rd party codecs. That's one of the reasons it can be easily ported to various platforms but also the reason that there are some files it just can't play (yet). (I've had problems with some files in some RealMedia formats.)

I'm not quite sure why VLC is stuttering on your system, but my suggestion would be to start it from a terminal window and check what the output is when playing the file. Normally it will give information when something doesn't work out as it should.

Greetings,
Nepomuk

[RedSon]

Alternatively you can use mplayer, it is very robust as well. If you are using a "Free" operating system (ie. no restricted license content) you may need to enable more repositories in order to play some content.

[AmberJain]

Hello,

I had been experimenting a lot (in last few days) to cure this problem but with no success :(.

I tried installing vlc on my Ubuntu with no success....
it needs these two packages "vlc-plugin-esd" and "mozilla-plugin-vlc"
Try to get it for you OS....

I installed both of the packages you stated in your last reply. But VLC is still not working as expected.

I'm not quite sure why VLC is stuttering on your system, but my suggestion would be to start it from a terminal window and check what the output is when playing the file. Normally it will give information when something doesn't work out as it should.

I tried as you suggested but there is no output in terminal window except when I start VLC. When I start VLC, terminal displays this message:

VLC media player 0.8.6i Janus
vlc:/usr/local/lib/vlc/codec/libquicktime_plugin.so: undefined symbol 'NewHandleClear'

I don't know whether above quote should help us or not, but I still thought of quoting it.

Alternatively you can use mplayer, it is very robust as well. If you are using a "Free" operating system (ie. no restricted license content) you may need to enable more repositories in order to play some content.

As I posted in Reply #9, mplyer appears to be working but it plays audio at a slightly faster speed than what is expected. I dont know what this is exactly called but audio output is faster.

Thanks....
AmbrNewlearner