vlc-backend: heavily over-amplified and distorted sound

[Allan Sandfeld Jensen]

On Tuesday 04 May 2010, Ben Cooksley wrote:
> On Wed, May 5, 2010 at 7:23 AM, Nikos Chantziaras <realnc at arcor.de> wrote:
> > Today I thought I'd give the new vlc-backend for Phonon a try.  So I
> > installed the latest Amarok beta (Version 2.3.0.90), phonon-vlc from Git
> > and VLC 1.1 branch from Git too.
> > 
> > All compiled fine.  I selected VLC as backend in Systemsettings and
> > started Amarok.  But the sound is waaaaay too amplified and extremely
> > distorted.  There's no way to tell what volume level to use to get
> > unattenuated 0db volume.  I am using OSSv4 as my system's audio system,
> > not ALSA or PulseAudio.
> 
> In Amarok, try changing the volume level to 50%. I made a change which
> ensures that Pulseaudio systems will have a VLC volume of 50%, and it
> is undistorted here ( using Pulseaudio ) however never adjusted the
> volume calculation for non-pulseaudio systems.
> 
In application volume control 100% should be equivalent to 0db, anything else 
is reducing the volume. When the application volume is at max it should be 
using 100% of the master volume, and it is then the level of the master volume 
that specififies the level of hardware amplification. If VLC behaves 
differently, we may need to fix the phonon backend as this is non-standard.

`Allan