Sound and Video Sync

[jtomelevage]

I am not sure this is a Boxee issue and may be a video performance characteristic.

My sound and video are not in sync.

When playing video (thoggen theora DVD files from HDD) the sound and video are not in sync. The sound is "ahead" of the video by 5-10 seconds and seems to get progressively worse as the video plays.

I am not sure, but it may be only when playing full screen.

Video card : ATI (Dell) X300 , 128 MB
Monitor : Dell 2407 FPW widescreen @ 1920 x 1200
OS : Ubuntu Studio 8.04

[yuvalt]

Please try to play it with mplayer to see if you get better results. Could be you have a sound driver issue or CPU info.... need more information.

[jtomelevage]

If I play with mplayer full screen (F11) the sound and video are in sync.

[yuvalt]

Is this the only video that's not working or other videos share the same problem? how much cpu is taken during playback? Please provide more information about the video (you could paste the text output from mplayer).

Thx.

[jtomelevage]

How do I get a text output from mplayer?

[yuvalt]

You need to install the package mplayer-nogui

[jtomelevage]

OK. Synaptic removed the mplayer when I did this and at first I didn't see any difference when starting the video. I guess Totem is the default.

I started a terminal and entered mplayer /p a t h/videoname.ogv

I get a error:

mplayer interupted by signal 11 in module: init_audio_codec

Why is there an error when the video plays properly in totem?

[yuvalt]

Not sure why it crashed. What is the output of:

cat /proc/asound/cards

cat /proc/asound/devices

[jtomelevage]

cat /proc/asound/cards

0 [Intel ]: HDA-Intel - HDA Intel
HDA Intel at 0xfe7f8000 irq 22


cat /proc/asound/devices

0: [ 0] : control
1: : sequencer
4: [ 0- 0]: hardware dependent
16: [ 0- 0]: digital audio playback
17: [ 0- 1]: digital audio playback
24: [ 0- 0]: digital audio capture
26: [ 0- 2]: digital audio capture
33: : timer

[jtomelevage]

yuvalt,

I remembered last night that this computer had a motherboard swap some time ago and I wonder if this may affect the sound and video sync issue I am having.

Originally this computer was a Dell Dimension 8400, however I needed to mount it in a server rack chassis for the entertainment system and the Dell motherboard did not fit inside the rack mount chassis so I purchased a Asus P5KC motherboard.

I believe the Dell had a Inter audio onboard and Asus had Realtek audio drivers on their web site so I downloaded them and installed them. At least I thought I did.

The results of both cat commands return the exact results as prior to the driver installation.

I am still seeing a 5-10 second delay (video follows audio) when playing back DVD theora files and 2-5 seconds when playing back Miro MPEG files.

Miro plays all the videos types without this sync issue.

[tsella]

please create a file called

~/.boxee/UserData/advancedsettings.xml

paste the following into it:

<advancedsettings>
<loglevel>0</loglevel>
</advancedsettings>

try playing a few lagging files, exit boxee, post the contents from /tmp/<username>-xbmc.log to http://pastebin.com/ and provide us with the link.

[jtomelevage]

hi tsella,

I hope I did this correctly. If not let me know.

http://pastebin.com/m2295a1f9

[jtomelevage]

Have you had a chance to review my log?

[tsella]

yep. don't see anything wrong with it. can you try setting your display resolution lower, and see how goes? perhaps its a matter of resources.

[jtomelevage]

Hi tsella,

I have already tried setting the screen down to 1024 x 768 and there was no change.

I think I mentioned it already, but if I use totem at all resolutions and also full screen the sound stays in sync with the video.

[vulkan]

@jtomelevage - did you try to play it full-screen with boxee too? (hit TAB).
let me know if it makes a difference.

does this happen on all types of video or only .ogv?

[jtomelevage]

@vulkan
If I TAB to a window (not full screen) the video and sound seem to be in sync better.
In full screen mode the video type does not matter if OGV, MPG, etc. and they get out of sync.

I do not have this problem when playback in totem in full screen mode.

[Noicantfly]

i'm having this same problem with all video types in boxee, but in everything else works fine

[jtomelevage]

@Noicantfly
Do you mean that you have the sync problem in Boxee but not in other programs (like Totem)?

[Noicantfly]

exactly, i can play dvds mpegs avis and pretty much anything else in totem and vlc just fine but when using boxee every thing is quite off even tho the video is still really smooth and so is the audio

[tsella]

@Noicantfly do you have an ATI as well?

both, please try changing Settings > Appearance > Screen > Vertical Blank Sync

[benish]

both, please try changing Settings > Appearance > Screen > Vertical Blank Sync

I believe I'm having the same audio/video sync issue. Some local files that play fine in Miro and the QuickTime player play in Boxee and the audio and video are way out of sync.

@tsella you said to try changing "Vertical Blank Sync", but I'm not sure what to change it to... I tried changing it to Disabled (Enabled was the default) but it had no effect on the problem.