sound troubles

[Tom]

I've been babysitting my vlc (0.2.80) with vmstat and a couple other
system tools yesterday, and here's what troubles I still have and what
I found out:


a) sound scratches. occasionally, the sound clicks or scratches. I have
not found a reason or a hint for one, as it only occurs very
occasionally and seemingly random (i.e. not in the same place on a
replay).
this has gotten better since I plugged in an es1371 soundcard instead
of relying on the on-board one, so it may be a low-level issue.


b) the worst problem: sound lags behind picture. it's not actually
"slower" as it doesn't drift. I've run through a whole 90 min movie and
it stays the same - about a half second delay.
I have experimented with various downmixing and synchro methods, and
while some do seem to reduce the delay, it may be a subjective
illusion. I can say for sure that there always IS a delay. I do get
some warnings about vpar_synchro.


c) vlc leaves a small black border around the picture. in window mode,
that is barely noticeable, but in fullscreen, it takes away about a cm
on each side. please consider using all of the screen.


d) vlc should disable, or offer an option to do so (enabled by default)
the X screensaver. I know I can do that manually, but during normal
operation, I do want a screensaver and I do NOT want it while playing a
video. this could be as easy as two system calls ("xset s off/on").


e) swapping kills vlc performance. it is very impressive on the CPU
side (only uses about 25% on my 1.2 ghz athlon) but very susceptible to
swapping activity. anyone know a way to fight this? closing any and all
processes running in background helps, but that's not what multitasking
is about, is it? :)


but let's say again that this is a very impressive piece of software.
even with it's crude current interface it is already more comfortable
than the windos players I have since it doesn't bother about region
code crap or unskippable FBI warning nonsense.


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