dvd playback - picture fine - awful sound / my guess is its a codec issue...

coal-fire-ice · 07-06-2008, 11:31 AM

Hi
I've recently installed ubuntu 8.04 on my powerbook g4 12", so that i could take advantage of the customizability of the interface. the only thing i really wanted it to do was browse the web (works fine as evidenced by this post) and play dvds. when initially i went to play a dvd, totem said that it needed gstreamer-0.10-plugins-ugly i think it was, so i installed the gstreamer plugins, actually all of the different ones i could find, to make it more compatible. Then i rebooted and attempted to play the dvd, but the second i clicked on dvd on the menu, totem just disappeared (crashed). this frustrated me a little, but i thought, i know, theres loads of different players, so i tried mplayer, which displayed the picture alright, but no sound at all, also vlc, which played it back but had a whiney noise instead of the soundtrack, and finally ogle which did the best job, playing the dvd, and the sound, but it also had the whiney noise, and introduced an echo to the soundtrack. Obviously this can get quite irritating when watching a film. I was wondering if anyone else had sufferred from similar symptoms and may know a solution. I'm guessing its a codec issue, maybe i need to compile them from source or something. I am fairly confident using the cli, as i look after several servers, but using linux as a desktop distro is fairly new to me, so any help would be appreciated.
Thanks

amani · 07-06-2008, 11:40 AM

Card?
Module? (# lsmod)
Mixer Settings?
Player Settings?

Problems with sound quality are rare

coal-fire-ice · 07-06-2008, 05:03 PM

um i don't know what card it is, i can't find any specification for the machine (2003 model 12" 867Mhz G4 powerbook), and i don't know how to find out.

lsmod output:

Code:

Module                  Size  Used by
sungem                 36260  0 
sungem_phy             13184  1 sungem
isofs                  41320  0 
udf                    99848  1 
ipv6                  310568  8 
af_packet              25956  2 
rfcomm                 47860  2 
l2cap                  27108  13 rfcomm
uinput                 11264  2 
ppdev                  11428  0 
lp                     13516  0 
parport                44816  2 ppdev,lp
cpufreq_conservative     9024  0 
cpufreq_userspace       5528  0 
cpufreq_powersave       2080  0 
cpufreq_stats           6116  0 
cpufreq_ondemand        9792  0 
iptable_filter          3136  0 
ip_tables              15624  1 iptable_filter
x_tables               17604  1 ip_tables
sbp2                   25192  0 
scsi_mod              192916  1 sbp2
apm_emu                 2496  0 
apm_emulation          10268  2 apm_emu
snd_powermac           50336  2 
snd_aoa_i2sbus         25060  0 
snd_pcm_oss            47488  0 
snd_mixer_oss          20896  1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_pcm                87812  3 snd_powermac,snd_aoa_i2sbus,snd_pcm_oss
snd_page_alloc         12040  1 snd_pcm
snd_seq_dummy           4100  0 
pmac_zilog             21448  0 
serial_core            25600  1 pmac_zilog
snd_seq_oss            40820  0 
snd_seq_midi            9952  0 
hci_usb                17212  2 
snd_rawmidi            29696  1 snd_seq_midi
bluetooth              71284  7 rfcomm,l2cap,hci_usb
snd_seq_midi_event      8288  2 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi
snd_seq                62944  6 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_timer              26820  2 snd_pcm,snd_seq
snd_seq_device          9484  5 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq
snd                    70548  14 snd_powermac,snd_aoa_i2sbus,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_seq_oss,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq,snd_timer,snd_seq_device
soundcore               9028  1 snd
snd_aoa_soundbus        7524  1 snd_aoa_i2sbus
evdev                  14400  16 
uninorth_agp           11980  1 
agpgart                41244  1 uninorth_agp
ext3                  162888  1 
jbd                    57716  1 ext3
mbcache                 9632  1 ext3
ide_cd                 36996  1 
cdrom                  47196  1 ide_cd
ohci_hcd               38756  0 
ohci1394               41104  0 
ide_disk               19872  3 
ieee1394              108832  2 sbp2,ohci1394
usbcore               173640  3 hci_usb,ohci_hcd
windfarm_core          14544  0 
fuse                   57620  3

In terms of mixer settings i don't know where to find those either, but under sound preferences the settings are all on autodetect or alsa. however i have now tried it with all the different options available for playback, and it makes no difference. i have also checked mp3 playback, which works just fine with totem, but on the other hand system noises do not work at all.

as for player settings, there aren't really any i can find, sound is set to stereo, um, there are no plugins enabled.

Thanks for your time.

coal-fire-ice · 07-06-2008, 05:34 PM

i have done some more experimenting.
i have found that if i open the dvd up in nautilus, it tells me its dvd video, and would i like to open a movie player, if i click on that, it opens up totem, and plays the first title on the disk with the sound quality just fine. too bad thats just the introductory title. i can't seem to get it to play any of the rest of the disk.
if however i start with mplayer, i can play the intro title again just fine, but all the other titles i can play, but i get no picture, but the audio works.
with vlc, picture is fine, audio is loud fuzz
with ogle from the cli, picture is fine, audio quality is extremely poor and exhibits the echoing effect and heavy distortion.

resetreset · 07-14-2008, 07:23 AM

i feel really sorry for you, fwiw. all i can say is xine used to work very nicely under fedora core 2 a long time ago, you can try it for yourself. i was very impressed with the whole thing because one particular DVD used to jerk at a particular point in the movie in windows, and it didnt under FC2!