Vlc won't play DVD's on Ubuntu, or Kubuntu Intrepid

Nigel Henry cave.dnb2m97pp at aliceadsl.fr
Sat Feb 7 16:30:01 UTC 2009


Back on list, now that error output is removed.

On Saturday 07 February 2009 01:36, you wrote:
> On Sat, 2009-02-07 at 00:50 +0100, Nigel Henry wrote:
> > main audio
> > output warnings
>
> No problem re off-list.
>
> I googled the message "main audio output warning: PTS is out of range"
> and found several people asking about it but no answers. The best one I
> found is the German post in [1]. It describes exactly the same behavior
> as you see and mentions that the guy switched to the version from the
> project's source code (git) repository which does not have the issue.
> The post is from Oct 10, 2008 and the version with which he had the
> problem was 0.9.4. Ubuntu 8.10 has 0.9.4-1ubuntu3
>
> [1] http://forum.archlinux.de/?page=Postings;id=20;thread=10028

I've had a bunch of vlc updates on my Archlinux install. 0.8.6i-2, 0.8.6i-3, 
0.9.4-2, 0.9.6-1, 0.9.8a-3. All i686. I know the latest is ok on the same 
machine as the Ubuntu, and Kubuntu installs, but can't remember if I tried 
vlc when it was 0.9.4 version on Arch.

I have also, already tried the vlc source tarball 0.9.8a from videolan on 
Kubuntu Intrepid, but no change. I'll have try bulding it again, as my 
history for ./configure shows a bunch of stuff that couldn't be found, 
although make ran to completion ok. I'll come back on that, as I'm rambling 
on enough.

Thinking that the audio errors may be a red herring, as they only start when 
vlc grinds to a halt, I thought perhaps it may be a problem with the graphics 
driver (vesa) on Ubuntu, and Kubuntu Intrepid.

Archlinux is using the ati one, and vlc says it's using xvideo. So I changed 
the Archlinux ati one to vesa. Vlc still plays ok, but now says it's using 
X11 video.

Changing the vesa driver to ati on Ubuntu Intrepid, the desktop comes up ok, 
but vlc, and other players just crash when you try to play the dvd. I also 
tried the fglrx proprietary driver. Again the desktop is ok, but vlc has very 
flickery video. It was getting late, so I changed back to the vesa driver. 
I'll have another look at fglrx, and try different video options in vlc.


>
> You might also want to have a look here:
> <http://trac.videolan.org/vlc/search?q=%22main+audio+output+warning%3A
> +PTS+is+out+of+range%22&wiki=on&changeset=on&ticket=on>

Yes, that is a similar problem. I'm on dialup, so shoutcast is perhaps out of 
the question, but that's sound only isn't it? Even so, it does seem to 
confirm that this is a sound related problem, rather than the video side of 
things, and in my case the sound and video play ok for about 6 secs, then the 
sound starts to break up, and 3 secs later vlc grinds to a halt, again 
seeming to confirm that a problem with the sound is causing vlc to stop.

<quote from the link above, as to how he fixed the problem>
Reducing the bursting-size in the icecast config file from the default 64K to 
16K FIXES THE PROBLEM.
<end quote>

The fact that if I slow down the playback speed of the dvd to half speed, 
which then plays ok, would seem to link with the guys fix above, but where 
would you make such changes for dvd playback, which appears to only affect 
vlc, not Totem, Ogle, Kaffeine, or Xine. I see I also have Mplayer on Ubuntu 
Intrepid, which also has a problem (too many video packets in the buffer), 
which results in the message continually coming up, and the playback 
constantly flickering. that may be a totally different problem though, so 
ignore that. One thing at a time.

Why others, Karl for example have no problem with vlc on Intrepid though, is a 
mystery, but we all have different hardware of course.

I'm supposed to be helping another guy out with a sound problem, and have 
neglected him for nearly 2 days, so I'd better get back to his problem. lets 
keep this thread going though, as it would be nice to discover exactly what 
the problem is in my case, and a few others.

Thanks for all the help, and suggestions.

Nigel.



>
> Mario




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