Ubuntu

Totem plays DVD with audio delay

Asked by Steve Watson

I've been running Ubuntu a month now and just got around to playing a DVD. Ubuntu help referred me to Medibuntu, and I followed the instructions to install libdvdcss2 and the w32codecs. That worked fine, and now Totem plays my DVD's nicely -- except that there's a noticeable audio delay. Actually the sound precedes the video by up to a second (it varies). I switched back to Windows XP and played the same DVD -- no delay. Any ideas what's doing this and how to fix it, other than reverting to Windows OS?

--Steve Watson

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Wrwrwr
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Wrwrwr (wrwrwr) said : 		#1

Mplayer has this nice features of specifying audio delay, manually setting video frames per second and even an AutoSync option now. It is in the multiverse repository, so you need to have it enabled.

For totem some have suggested using totem-xine instead of gstreamer, or making sure that your dvd works fast enough (particularly has dma enabled).

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Steve Watson (ssw0213) said : 		#2

Oops! Now I can't play at all. I installed Mplayer, and also switched from Movie Player to Movie Player Totem (xine backend), using Add/Remove Applications. Then I tried going to a terminal and entering sudo apt-get update and sudo apt-get upgrade.

1. When I installed Mplayer, ran it, and tried to open the DVD it said "Fatal error! opening the selected video_out (-v0) device."

2. I closed the player, ejected and reinserted the DVD into the drive. The old Totem came up and played as before.

3. After I switched to Totem-xine, it also refused: "Totem could not play 'dvd: media/DVD_VIDEO' There is no plugin to handle this movie."

--Steve

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Best Wrwrwr (wrwrwr) said : 		#3

1. Try selecting different video driver (right click-->preferences-->video).

3. Try also installing kubuntu-restricted-extras package, maybe you miss something xine needs (libxine1-ffmpeg or libreaddvd3 or other).

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Steve Watson (ssw0213) said : 		#4

Okay, this worked, and I learned a lot:

1. Right-click on the Mplayer controller and choose preferences > video > xv (was set to xmga). Also tab to Misc > check AutoSync on/off, with Autosync: 0. Worked! No audio delay!

2. DVD plays with French language by default, but can be changed by right-clicking > DVD > Audio Languages > English-Dolby Digital Stereo.

3. Documentation can be found by entering man mplayer from a terminal, or online at http://www.mplayerhq.hu. It explains how to change the config file.

4. From a terminal,
-enter sudo gedit, then open /etc/mplayer/mplayer.conf
-uncomment #vo = xv
-(and, since in my case I have an nvidia card, and this should be faster, change it to vo = vidix:nvidia)
-uncomment #alang = en, so that English is the default audio language.
-save it. Now mplayer defaults to English and, for me, runs vidix for Nvidia as the video driver.

Thank you so much for your help.

--Steve

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Steve Watson (ssw0213) said : 		#5

Thanks Wrwrwr, that solved my question.