Bug#472811: Doesn't work well with the pulseaudio alsa plugin

[Sjoerd Simons]

Package: vlc
Version: 0.8.6.e-1
Severity: normal
Tags: patch

Hi,

  VLC only plays without audio when using the pulse alsa plugin. When i looked
  into this it seems that VLC requests quite a big buffer. Which is ofcourse
  fine. Pulseaudio allows such a big buffer and will start playing when the
  requested buffer is nearly full.

  What this means is that untill the buffer is full the reported latency will
  obviously increase. Unfortunately it seems that the latency of a full buffer
  is so big that VLC thinks something is wrong and starts playing without
  audio.

  Changing the buffer size of 256 periods to 16 periods seems to fix this
  issue. (Somewhat of a workaround but still)


  Sjoerd

-- System Information:
Debian Release: lenny/sid
  APT prefers oldstable
  APT policy: (500, 'oldstable'), (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'testing'), (101, 'experimental')
Architecture: powerpc (ppc)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.24-1-powerpc
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=nl_NL (charmap=ISO-8859-1)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages vlc depends on:
ii  libaa1                 1.4p5-35          ascii art library
ii  libatk1.0-0            1.22.0-1          The ATK accessibility toolkit
ii  libc6                  2.7-9             GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  libcaca0               0.99.beta13b-4    colour ASCII art library
ii  libcairo2              1.4.14-1          The Cairo 2D vector graphics libra
ii  libcdio7               0.78.2+dfsg1-2.1  library to read and control CD-ROM
ii  libcucul0              0.99.beta13b-4    low-level Unicode character drawin
ii  libdbus-1-3            1.1.20-1          simple interprocess messaging syst
ii  libdbus-glib-1-2       0.74-1            simple interprocess messaging syst
ii  libfreetype6           2.3.5-1           FreeType 2 font engine, shared lib
ii  libfribidi0            0.10.9-1          Free Implementation of the Unicode
ii  libgcc1                1:4.3.0-2         GCC support library
ii  libgl1-mesa-glx [libgl 7.0.3~rc2-1       A free implementation of the OpenG
ii  libglib2.0-0           2.16.1-2          The GLib library of C routines
ii  libglu1-mesa [libglu1] 7.0.3~rc2-1       The OpenGL utility library (GLU)
ii  libgtk2.0-0            2.12.9-2          The GTK+ graphical user interface 
ii  libice6                2:1.0.4-1         X11 Inter-Client Exchange library
ii  libiso9660-5           0.78.2+dfsg1-2.1  library to work with ISO9660 files
ii  libjpeg62              6b-14             The Independent JPEG Group's JPEG 
ii  libnotify1 [libnotify1 0.4.4-3           sends desktop notifications to a n
ii  libpango1.0-0          1.20.0-1          Layout and rendering of internatio
ii  libpng12-0             1.2.15~beta5-3    PNG library - runtime
ii  libsdl-image1.2        1.2.6-3           image loading library for Simple D
ii  libsdl1.2debian        1.2.13-2          Simple DirectMedia Layer
ii  libsm6                 2:1.0.3-1+b1      X11 Session Management library
ii  libstdc++6             4.3.0-2           The GNU Standard C++ Library v3
ii  libtar                 1.2.11-4          C library for manipulating tar arc
ii  libtiff4               3.8.2-7           Tag Image File Format (TIFF) libra
ii  libvcdinfo0            0.7.23-4          library to extract information fro
ii  libvlc0                0.8.6.e-1         multimedia player and streamer lib
ii  libwxbase2.6-0         2.6.3.2.2-2       wxBase library (runtime) - non-GUI
ii  libwxgtk2.6-0          2.6.3.2.2-2       wxWidgets Cross-platform C++ GUI t
ii  libx11-6               2:1.0.3-7         X11 client-side library
ii  libxext6               2:1.0.4-1         X11 miscellaneous extension librar
ii  libxinerama1           2:1.0.3-1         X11 Xinerama extension library
ii  libxosd2               2.2.14-1.5        X On-Screen Display library - runt
ii  libxv1                 2:1.0.4-1         X11 Video extension library
ii  ttf-dejavu-core        2.24-2            Vera font family derivate with add
ii  vlc-nox                0.8.6.e-1         multimedia player and streamer (wi
ii  zlib1g                 1:1.2.3.3.dfsg-11 compression library - runtime

vlc recommends no packages.

-- no debconf information
-------------- next part --------------
--- vlc-0.8.6.e.orig/modules/audio_output/alsa.c
+++ vlc-0.8.6.e/modules/audio_output/alsa.c
@@ -74,7 +74,7 @@
    number of channel(s) (eg. 2 for stereo) and the size of a sample (eg.
    2 for int16_t). */
 #define ALSA_DEFAULT_PERIOD_SIZE        1024
-#define ALSA_DEFAULT_BUFFER_SIZE        ( ALSA_DEFAULT_PERIOD_SIZE << 8 )
+#define ALSA_DEFAULT_BUFFER_SIZE        ( ALSA_DEFAULT_PERIOD_SIZE << 4 )
 #define ALSA_SPDIF_PERIOD_SIZE          A52_FRAME_NB
 #define ALSA_SPDIF_BUFFER_SIZE          ( ALSA_SPDIF_PERIOD_SIZE << 4 )
 /* Why << 4 ? --Meuuh */