Ubuntu Multimedia :: Stuttering In Amarok From Phonon-backend-xine?
Mar 5, 2010
In Karmic's Amarok 2.2, when you pause and then play, the sound usually stutters a few times before it starts playing smoothly. I originally thought this was a pulseaudio issue, as stuttering problems have been reported with pulse, but that wouldn't explain why sound is fine in mplayer, audacious, vlc, dragon player, and virtualbox. Only amarok has this problem. I found the cause of the problem: phonon-backend-xine. These steps will get rid of the stuttering problem:
1. Install phonon-backend-mplayer. You can get it from Rog131's PPA: [URL]
2. In Multimedia and Sound Configuration, which you can reach through amarok's Playback settings, on the Backend tab, click the arrows to move mplayer up above xine.
3. Quit and restart amarok.
There are some tradeoffs for good sound. Amarok seems to have some bugs when the sound backend is not xine, and bookmarks and OSD are broken when this backend is playing the sound. When you quit Amarok, it can't bookmark your place so it doesn't restart from where you last were, and after the track changes once, the OSD when you hover over the tray icon only says "Amarok - No track playing." You have to open Amarok to find that info. Are there any settings I can access for phonon-backend-xine that could fix the stuttering issue? The problems with the mplayer backend are minor compared with xine's bad sound, but I would like nice sound, OSD, and bookmarking.
I have installed smplayer, and configured it to use the code...
Kaffeine (and dolphin's video preview) seem to use phonon's xine backend, and I can't find out what video output it uses. I'm guessing its plain old xv as it seems accelerated but turnes into a blue square when I move the window.
How do I tell the xine backend to use the same vo as smplayer?
OS 11.2 64 bit, KDE 4.4.4 (Factory)
(ps: I have a 'legacy' ATI graphics chip, xpress 200M working with the opensource radeon driver, which is brilliant btw).
So I have made an interesting Discovery with regards to using KDE4 Kaffeine version 1 and Dolby Digital 5.1. The basic problem seems that there is no way to configure the Phonon xine Backend in KDE 4 for use with Kaffeine version 1. There is however, a xine-config file located at:
Code: ~/.kde4/share/apps/kaffeine/xine-config
There appears to be no GUI way to change the default xine configuration (for use with KDE 4 applications) and while you can do so manually, the options seem bewildering, at least to me.
When you run xine-ui or Kaffeine/KDE3 there is an option to adjust the xine audio configuration using a GUI. Any changes made here are ignored by KDE 4 applications. As luck would have it you can copy the old xine configuration (adjusted by Kaffeine/KDE3) over the new one for Kaffeine in KDE4. The old text file configuration is located at:
Code: ~/.xine/config
If you were to use the old Kaffeine/KDE3 to adjust your xine audio configuration and then copy this file to the Kaffeine Version 1 KDE4 location, those changes should be used by the new version 1 Kaffeine in KDE 4. After Kaffeine/KDE3 audio settings work as you desire, open up a terminal session and make the following file copy. You must overwrite or rename the old configuration file for backup.
Since this new xine configuration is in the new Kaffeine version 1 KDE4 location, it may only modify how the new Kaffeine works and nothing else running in KDE4, but it is still an interesting find.
Play a song in Amarok and then press the space bar to pause. Press the space bar again to resume and Amarok starts playing again with the status bar moving and the timer counting down, but no sound. If I move to the next song, sound starts working again. Or if I double click on a different song, sound works. If I use the xine backend, the problem goes away. I'm using Amarok-2.4 and KDE 4.6.1.
I try to play some internet streams but when gstreamer is used as the phonon backend, Amarok never plays them. With Xine or VLC backend looks like I have no problems...
Exactly below you can find two of the streams I am trying.
In Gnome and XFCE I always have a choppy music playback. The music is never played smoothly. There is always hesitations in the playback, as if the CPU is running on 100% and cannot cope with the system load.
One of the reasons for that is (in my case) Pulseaudio.
Another reason is Gstreamer. When I choose Gstreamer as backend in KDE, I get the same choppy musicplayback as in Gnome or XFCE. With Xine as backend in KDE, everything is fine. So my conclusion is: with Xine, the sound would be fine in Gnome too.
So, I wonder if it is possible to use Xine as backend in Gnome too. Does anyone have experience with running Xine in Gnome and/or XFCE? What do I need to do to set Gnome/XFCE, so that it uses Xine instead of Gstreamer?
Or is there maybe a special setting, I have to apply? In gstreamer-properties I have tried all possible settings, but this didn´t change anything to the quality of sound.
My experience is also: this choppy sound is hardware-independend. It doesn´t matter which hardware I use, the sound is choppy. It is also distro-independend. The sound is choppy in openSUSE (gnome and in KDE with applied Gstreamer backend), in Ubuntu, Xubuntu, Fedora with Gnome, Linux Mint with Gnome.
Have a couple of very annoying problems. I recently did a re-install of Kubuntu Maverick on my HTPC/fileserver box.It has an onboard (Realtek?) audio card, recognized as... I think, ALC888... Yeah, not sure, KInfoCenter lists a bunch:ALSA Sequencer DeviceUSB 2881 Device ALSA Control Device (my DVB-T stick)ALSA Timer Device
HDA Intel ALSA hardware specific Device ALC888 Analog ALSA Capture Device ALC888 Analog ALSA Capture Device
I am running openSUSE 11.2 KDE desktop. (Also use LXDE as an alternative desktop because I am running on a P3 with 512 of RAM.) I originally had followed the guidance at Multi-media and Restricted Format Installation Guide - openSUSE Forums and had Amarok and Xine both working satisfactorily for several weeks. Now, for some reason, both apps begin to load and then crash.
when i play a video (normal and full screen) there are some vertical lines appearing in the video (it actually stutters), this happens in videos and other online video sites as well. i have installed the nvidia software for my graphics card also.
I want to install GTK+. I see there are also numerous dependencies, which i've been slowly tackling, and the Cairo package has been particularly difficult. It claims the following upon ./configure --prefix=/usr configure: WARNING: Could not find libpng in the pkg-config search path checking whether cairo's PNG backend could be enabled... no configure: error: requested PNG backend could not be enabled I've done some searching and found that libpng.pc is in my /usr/lib/pkgconfig/ directory and that the following commands don't do the trick:
This forum has been a wonderful treasure of knowledge. I am stuck up with something thats getting onto my nerves. I have installed lucid and followed the perfect desktop guide.
I have a mkv file (4.6Gigs) 1080p HD with DTS 5.1 audio. when I play the file either of the video or audio gets stuck (mostly video) I tried every possible configs from this forum but in vain. Im using Dell LAT D830 with 2GB RAM 2.2GHz CPU NVIDIA Graphics.
I'm seeing regular stuttering in PAL video when running at the default 1920x1080 50Hz but not apparent when I use nvidia-settings to switch output to 60Hz. It's most noticeable when the video pans and you can see the video stutter ever half second or so.
VLC says: "main input error: ES_OUT_SET_(GROUP_)PCR is called too late" when I am playing back most Bluray discs I have tried.
See this bug post for what I am talking about: [URL].... It has to do with playing back h264 video with ALSA.
Possible fixes: 1. Obtain VLC 2.2.2 - see below 2. Fix by Modax here: https://trac.videolan.org/vlc/ticket/10422 - not currently using dmix and not sure how this will relate to HDMI sound 3. Use Pulseaudio - this does not work for me to get HDMI sound and I do not use Pulseaudio as a rule
I have just tried to compile VLC 2.2.2 and the configure script finished properly but early in the build it fails.
With make the error is:
Code: Select alljason@MEDIA:~/vlc-2.2.2$ make -j4 make all-recursive make[1]: Entering directory '/home/jason/vlc-2.2.2' Making all in compat make[2]: Entering directory '/home/jason/vlc-2.2.2/compat'  GEN   dummy.c make all-am
[Code] ....
And with compile the error is:
Code: Select allMAKEÂ Â Â : compat MAKEÂ Â Â : doc MAKEÂ Â Â : po MAKEÂ Â Â : share for f in vlc.desktop.in skins2/default/theme.xml skins2/default/subX/about.png skins2/default/subX/eq.png skins2/default/subX/font.otf skins2/default/subX/main.png skins2/default/subX/playtreeglyphs.png skins2/default/subX/pl.png skins2/default/subX/sysbuttons.png skins2/default/subX/vol_anim.png skins2/default/subX/vol_slider.png
[Code] ....
I have tried installing 3 different versions of libua-dev, 5.1, 5.2 and 5.3. What could be the problem?
With the bugged audio drivers I'm going to replace the computer but it would still be nice to be able to know the solution to compiling VLC 2.2.2.
I have just installed Slackware 13.1 32bit. My hardware is a P-4 3Ghz with a gig of ram. Intel on board graphic and sound.
This is the best implementation of Kde I have used so far. Slack 13.1 is amazing. The install went very well and everything we configured properly.
My problem is when I start Kde or try to shut dowm or logout I get the same error for knotify: Unable to use the Xine Multimedia Backend:Could not find plugin 'Xine' for application 'Knotify'
I get this same error with the application name at the end of it. If I open amarok I get the same error message with amarok at the end. If I try to click a misic file in dolphin same error message.
When I try to shut down or log out from menu I get the xine error and nothing happens. The only way I can log out is Ctrl+Alt+Backspace to get to the KDM log in screen and then I am able to shut down from the menu.
I have been looking on the forum and using google but have found nothing useful.
The error pops up when I try to play a cd or music on the hard drive.
I'm using currently ubuntu 10.10. Having a nvidia gt220 with the proprietary drivers. I used compiz for a while. It works quite well, with vsync on and so on. But one thing bothers me all the time: In any opengl program (like a game or the unigen benchmarks) or on video playback (no matter if its the default video player, xbmc or what ever) I see some kind of stutter. About every second or so it jumps one frame forward and then two back. Till the next second it plays fluid.
To be able to observe this easily you need a video (or a opengl scene) where the whole screen scrolls in a medium speed but smooth. Than you can observ how it "jumps" every second. If the scrolling is too slow you wont observe it. Now, if I turn composite off this disapears. All play fluid. Ofcourse I get tearing as long as I do not also disable the composite extension in the xorg.conf, but this is another story. Is there a possibility to fix this stuttering with compiz active? Cause I use this pc to watch movies quite often so this would render compiz unusable.
i recently did a clean install of 10.10 to an old box i had so i could mess around with it and learn. however, all audio (and videos too) would stutter and play very quickly (a 1 minute videos video would play in about 45 seconds). so i followed the solution found here: [url]
this fixed the playback problems perfectly, however, i lost the volume control applet in the upper-right of the screen. reinstalling to volume control and then adding the "indicator applet" back to the panel adds a non-functional volume control icon and an additional mail icon.
I've encountered this problem twice. Sometimes Phonon is listing so many devices like this: [URL] ....
Usually there are just two devices like this: [URL] ....
When there are so many devices listed the volume control by using volume keys is different. It's usually up or down by 5%, but if the condition is like that the volume not up or down by 5%.
I've never encountered this kind of problem in other KDE distros. I'm using Jessie.
Sound works great for non kde programs such as firefox and vlc. Amarok and dragon player however refuse to play with sound. Sound doesn't work either when testing it in the 'Multimedia' section. I have no pulseaudio installed. Any ideas where I can look for possible solutions? code...
I have an Asus EEPC that I use in my classroom whenever I want to show a movie. I normally keep all of my educational videos as ISOs, and then simply move one over to the netbook when needed. I normally use VLC for playback. With the latest upgrade, however, I'm having a few difficulties. No matter what DVD I choose to show with VLC, the audio stream will randomly drop every 10 minutes or so whenever I am using KDE as my desktop environment. In order to re-enable the audio stream, I have to either completely stop playback OR reconfigure the audio output in VLC.
(It does not matter if I change it right back to what it was, I will get audio for another 10 minutes or so). I've also noticed that if I pause playback, sometimes the audio will not re-enable when unpaused. Strangely, however, I do not have this behavior at all when I'm using Gnome as the desktop environment. I get seamless audiovisual playback and never have to fiddle with the audio. Is this a documented problem in Phonon somewhere? How I might better backtrace what's going on?
I've just made the move to openSUSE* and after the installer seemed to bork my xorg.conf because of my Wacom tablet things have been going quite smoothly. My only problem at the moment is that MP3 playback through Exaile, Banshee or Totem stutters and pauses several times per track or more. The only commonality I can see is GStreamer, but nothing is giving me errors to the console.
* I ditched Fedora to get better Monodevelop support after using Redhat 7.3 and 9 followed by FC 3 and 6 then Fedora 7, 8, 9 and 10. The Ubuntu forums seemed to keep giving me occasional answers to questions, but the Suse build service gave me the RPMs, when the requirements matched.
I have some videos on my harddrive. In most of them the sound just stutters for a short while and then they work fine. But others the stuttering seems to go on. I must admit I didn't have the guts to check the whole videos...Its kind of torture to watch a full length music video with stuttering sound... Man...I'm asking so many questions here I'm starting to get ashamed of myself
I have two sound cards active on this machine and they both work fine. However I would like to blacklist one card from being used for audio capture in KDE, because I am already using it outside of KDE for timed recording. The problem is that when I start amarok while timed recording is going on, it attempts to probe the card and this causes the recording to abort.
In Configure desktop > Multimedia, I can see the two cards. I can alter the priority but the Remove button is greyed out. So I can't remove a card from phonon.
Searching around for where phonon stores its configuration led me to ~/.config/kde.org/libphonon.conf. This certainly looks like the info I was trying to edit, but it's encoded in some way code...
I have experienced that Phonon will crash occasionally when I advance to the next track in Amarok. After Phonon crashes, Amarok can't play sound. The only remedy appears to be restarting.
I would like to avoid the crashing. I have heard that Phonon and PulseAudio do not work well together. I would like to know how to disable PulseAudio when using Amarok. Any hints?
I am using the Xine backend in Amarok. In the Config Phonon window, I have configured Phonon's hardware preferences to work directly with the sound hardware on the MoBo first. I have deprioritized PulseAudio to the bottom of the hardware list. Unfortunately the "remove" button is grayed out in the Phonon config window.
I am running Ubuntu 9.10 - the Karmic Koala w/ Gnome so I don't want to uninstall PulseAudio.
For the last few releases, I've remained with Amarok 1.4, but now that I've deemed Amarok 2 stable enough, I've upgrade, however, the lyrics to my songs (which I put in a lot of effort in downloading), are not reflecting. Is there anyway to export lyrics from Amarok 1.4 and import them in Amarok 2?
After update to latest phonon (4.4.0-37) - with kde 4.4.1., it doesn't recognize pulseaudio anymore. I am using xine backend, but I can't find 'PulseAudio Server' device entry in phonon configuration
Is there special pulseaudio configuration so phonon will regonize it? code...
I have two sound devices, an internal audio device on my motherboard and an external USB devices, which came with my headset. After upgrading to 11.4, the microphone on my headset ceased to work with my softphone. As it turned out, the softphone used the standard input device, which was defined in the Phonon tab in the KDE System Settings. Unfortunately, when I put the USB Device on top of the default input stack, it doesn't stay there. When I apply the changes and leave the Phonon tab or even enable "Show advanced devices " the stack always resets to its initial order. I was unable to find any kind of config file where Phonon saves this settings.
i installed yumex:yum -y install yumex, when i start yumex it came with this error:fatal error:backend-not-running backend not running as expected (yumex will close) how can i solve it?
In Hardy Heron, after installing xine and the usual stuff, and setting xine as the default dvd player in /etc/gnome/defaults.list in the usual way, and also linking /dev/dvd to /dev/dvd2, when I pop in a commercial dvd for autoplay, or select xine from the context menu to play it, it starts to play fine, but also produces the "source can't be read" messagebox, which goes away after being OK-clicked 10 (exactly!!) times.Launching xine directly from the application menu does not produce this problem.
