[Solved] Audio dropouts playing dvds

[Rander]

Got a weird problem here...
On Mint 19 Cinnamon, I get audio dropouts playing dvds. VLC is configured to direct output (ALSA module and output "HDA Intel PCH, HDMI 0 Direct hardware device without any conversions").

Occasionally the sound drops out for a second or two. Oddly, this happens only in conjunction with scene changes, almost like it cannot cope with the bandwidth from a full screen update.

But it can. As I said, this happens ONLY when playing back dvds, both from discs and from (local) .iso files . Everything else, including Blu-Ray .isos plays just fine (except they screw up the timing of the captions if you try to jump back or forward, but that's another problem).

And no, there's no problems with they discs or iso files - they play perfectly with no hiccups on a Windows with VLC...

[Hoser Rob]

I rarely use vlc but I'd try increasing the file cache/buffer size. It's in preferences > input/codecs, which to me is a very strange place to put such an important performance setting.

[Rander]

I really doubted that would make any difference, but I changed it last night from the standard 300 to 10000. To my surprise, it actually fixed the problem. Thank you!

[Hoser Rob]

No problem, having a healthy file cache is one of the best performance tweaks for media players around. That's why it flummoxes me why they'd put it in Input/Codecs. But then IMO VLC is just about the most over rated program I know of. The interface is silly and the performance is lacking. SMplayer's been my default for years.