Ubuntu and Multimedia (audio, in particular)

[Alfred Vahau]

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http://demudi.agnula.org/

Alf

Michael Richter wrote:

> I've just found with the "killer app" for Ubuntu.  And by "killer app" 
> I mean "the app that kills any chance of widespread adoption".  That 
> application is multimedia.
>
> Let me first explain my setup.  I have a laptop -- a Sony -- with a 
> built-in sound system.  It stinks, so I also have an external Sound 
> Blaster (USB).  Ubuntu recognises both sound systems and loads drivers 
> for them.  It then plays setup games so damned frustrating that it 
> basically renders my system completely worthless as a multimedia 
> platform.  Here's what happens.
>
> 1) Despite my setting the default sound card in 
> System->Preferences->Sound to my Sound Blaster, the only thing that 
> reliably plays sounds out to the Sound Blaster are the system event 
> notifications.  I get nice, loud, clear sound events going out to my 
> speakers for GAIM and for menus opening and closing, not to mention 
> sporadically (yes, sporadically) getting sounds when windows open and 
> close.
>
> 2) Totem, in particular, will play at random to my Sound Blaster or to 
> my internal sound card (and crappy laptop speakers, of course.)  There 
> doesn't seem to be any rhyme nor reason to which one it chooses.  I 
> can click on the same movie file a dozen times and half the time it 
> will play to the Sound Blaster and half the time it will play to the 
> crappy system.  And it's not alternating either.  It may play to one 
> three times in succession and then play to the other once and back 
> again.  It's ridiculous.
>
> 3) This point #2 applies only, of course, when Totem bothers to play 
> sounds at all.  Because on some files it will complain that the audio 
> device is "busy" and ask me if another application is using it.  Here 
> it is reliably on individual files.  I can play one file, get the 
> random switching behaviour described above and then click on one of 
> the "death" files and have it complain that the audio device -- note: 
> the audio device it was just using! -- is "busy" and "in use by 
> another application".  Needless to say I can't persuade it that the 
> device in question is not, in fact, busy.  It just pops up the dialog 
> and refuses... well, dialogue.  And what is the difference between the 
> movies that it can't play and the movies that it can (at random, 
> albeit)?  Well, you got me.  They're all -- every single one -- AVIs 
> encoded in Xvid.  No tools I have access to show any kind of 
> difference between them.
>
> Now for comparison, let me explain to you how these files worked under 
> Windows -- going all the way back to Windows 98.  (Yes,  back to an OS 
> that was released seven years ago.)
>
> 1)  I set up my system by installing the appropriate codecs (just like 
> I had to in Ubuntu) and telling it which sound card is used by default.
> 2)  I play the movies.
> 3)  The audio invariably goes out the correct sound card and never 
> complains about the device being busy.
>
> When I demonstrate Ubuntu to people I'm hoping to persuade to use, how 
> persuasive do you think that dialog that claims the sound card is busy 
> is going to be?  Or the random switch between sound systems?
>
> Now some practical questions:
>
>     * How do I tell Ubuntu to ignore the damned internal sound card
>       once and for all?  You know, to pretend the thing isn't even
>       there?  To not even load the drivers for it?  I suspect that
>       would save me from the "randomly switching between sound cards"
>       problem.
>     * How do I persuade Totem that the sound card it just used a few
>       seconds ago without any difficulties isn't suddenly unavailable?
>     * How do I find out what the big difference is between the files
>       that make Totem choke and the files which only make Totem
>       randomly switch between sound cards?
>     * Where can I get multimedia players for Linux that work without
>       the headaches and hassles -- kind of like I've been finding
>       under Windows since Win98?  (I thought the bazaar was supposed
>       to be more responsive and flexible than the cathedral!)
>
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