Audio starts late in VLC

[TristanDee]

I like VLC better than Kaffeine, or any other media player. But I'm getting this weird problem. When I start a video file with VLC, it starts absolutely without the audio. After some 10-15 seconds, however, the audio starts - from the beginning and after two or three seconds it gets synchronised with the video. I don't know if it's an issue of the hardware, but I suppose it's not because Kaffeine plays everything fine. Anyone can sort this out? I'm not sure if you guys need to know any further multimedia or hardware information. So, if you need, please let me know.

Thanks.

[/Zoran\]

Is it the same for every video? I've come across videos which work fine in one player, and then not so fine in another. Perhaps the video is the problem, and if not, I remember having problems with VLC and audio not being in sync and that it was a bug, perhaps it's that. I don't have any other idea, sorry...

[TristanDee]

Yes, it has happened with all the video files I've played so far - .mp4 and .mkv. That's why I don't think it's the video files that are causing the problem. Maybe, VLC has some bugs.

BTW, I forgot to mention the very basic configuration of my machine. It's an HP Pavilion dv6 notebook with Intel Core i5 processor. The KInfoCentre shows that the graphics is an Ivy Bridge controller and its driver Mesa DRI Intel Ivybridge Mobile, with OpenGL/ES version being 2.1 Mesa 8.0.4.

[bigj231]

It's kind of hackish, but you can adjust the audio sync in VLC. It's in the tools menu under track synchronization. I can't get it to play MKV files correctly either. It just gets more and more desynced as the track plays too.

[TristanDee]

It's kind of hackish, but you can adjust the audio sync in VLC. It's in the tools menu under track synchronization. I can't get it to play MKV files correctly either. It just gets more and more desynced as the track plays too.

No, BigJ, as I said the audio starts late and starts just from the beginning, but it gets synced soon enough. The same thing happens whenever playing starts. Say, when playing starts after pauses the audio doesn't start as it should. Only video continues for some time and then the audio begins at the place the video resumed playing. Then after a few seconds, it gets synced with the frame playing.

[homerscousin]

Did you check the VLC forum? Maybe they have some updated info now. It did the same thing for me, sound would start after about 20 seconds from start or after a pause. It also caused screen blanking with my Mint 13 KDE. I think it is buggy. I gave up and only use Kaffeine. I couldn't get VLC to run a playlist in the correct order either.

[TristanDee]

Did you check the VLC forum? Maybe they have some updated info now. It did the same thing for me, sound would start after about 20 seconds from start or after a pause. It also caused screen blanking with my Mint 13 KDE. I think it is buggy. I gave up and only use Kaffeine. I couldn't get VLC to run a playlist in the correct order either.

Thanks for directing me in that direction - it didn't occur to me to check the VLC forums. I didn't find the same or similar problems reported there, but looking at my Mint Software Centre I found vlc-plugin-pulseaudio not installed, and I thought since it's about audio, maybe I should give installing it a try. So, I installed it, and the audio and video played fine together! That was quite a reliefe, of course...well, until my screen started going dark every few seconds. Movements of the cursor brings it back to life but only for a few seconds. So, I'm planning now to ditch VLC. Only, I can't think of any other player equivalent to VLC.